I CONSIDER today’s article by David Pratt (“SNP Government should step back from its Catalan fixation”, The Herald, October 13) to be shameful. There are times in politics and in all of life when human rights are far more important than small-minded calculations (often wrong) of future self-interest. If we have to lick the boots of people like Mariano Rajoy to gain EU membership, what does that say about the EU?

What Mr Pratt is arguing about Catalonia is exactly the same as saying that Scotland should never have been allowed to have a referendum and should never have another one unless the UK Cabinet agrees or there is a UK-wide referendum to approve it. If you take the position that no boundary changes should be allowed unless the central power approves it, we would still have the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire. This is an absurd intellectual position.

The Catalan independence movement should be held up as an outstanding example of non-violent campaigning in the face of a deplorable Spanish Government. No-one could objectively watch the brutal Spanish police thugs on October 1 and the weeks leading up to it and not think that the children of Franco are still with us. Yet despite this provocation, the Catalans behaved with dignity and did not retaliate violently. I am not sure we could have done as well in Scotland under these circumstances.

Had this repression taken place in Russia, no doubt the UK and EU would have strongly protested. Their concern is not that Catalonia would become a failed state. Their concern is that Catalonia would be a very successful state.

Perhaps Mr Pratt might take a few minutes to watch the 1971 speech by the great Catalan cellist Pablo Casals when at the end of his life he received the United Nations Peace Prize. The Catalans have a long history which they have the right to express as a nation state if that is their choice.

Isobel Lindsay,

9 Knocklea Place, Biggar.

BORIS Johnston wants the (British) lion to roar again. He now cobbles the former Esso advert of yore and demands the EU "put a tiger in the tank" to get on and give in to the UK demands pronto ("Johnson calls for EU to put a tiger in the tank to start talks on trade", The Herald, October 13) After all, that is our entitlement; in or out of the EU the UK Government imagines it still can demand its place in the sun. It harks back to the past remembering old battles won against Johnny Foreigner. However, it is a post imperial power like Rome and Spain.

As we are getting ready to defend our approaching "no deal" and "fight them on the lorry parks", the Tory Party is at open war with itself calling for the heads of the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary and Theresa May. Chaos all round.

The official Labour opposition is also pro-Brexit. It is silent at the moment but one wonders how it would square the impossible contradictory circle of Brexit. Labour would encounter the same cross- and inner-party tensions and warring factions, and not simply over Brexit. What has surfaced during the whole Brexit process is how the internal political and constitutional mechanisms are creaking.

Stresses due to abject foreign policy failures destroyed states 100 years ago. The internal self-destructive "war" over the Brexit foreign policy venture has just begun.

John Edgar,

4 Merrygreen Place, Stewarton.

SO GR Weir has "yet to hear any coherent comments” on Brexit from the Secretary of State for Scotland (Letters, October 13).

We have yet to hear any coherent comments on the issue from the Scottish First Minister; for instance, she never seems to tire of talking about protecting Scotland's place in the European single market come Brexit; but not a word about Scotland's place in the UK single market---which, to labour a point, is approximately four times larger-- ¬ come her dream of Scottish independence. What about the probable trade tariffs Nicola?

Indeed, this incoherent stance brings us nicely to Barry Turner's question (Letters, October 13). If the SNP actually won an independence referendum (not a chance, given its rapidly diminishing support) would it give the people of Scotland yet another referendum on whether to accept or reject negotiated terms with the UK Government?

To be coherent, it would have to, since that is exactly what it is lobbying for concerning Brexit.

But of course, the SNP's present stance is not coherent, and never will be as long as its attention is transfixed on the dream of independence, to the detriment of attending to more practical matters---like concretely proving Scotland as a positive contributing nation to the UK.

Philip Adams,

7 Whirlie Road, Crosslee, Renfrewshire.

SOME recent contributors to the Letters Pages seem to have a very poor opinion of our small northern nation, its proud history and its continuing frustration with the present UK-wide political arrangements for administering and financing Scotland’s needs. They seem to suggest that this is just the “Scottish cringe” in full cry, and can safely be ignored.

May I suggest that those critics move across the (still) open border and try living in the north of England instead. They may be surprised to discover that most of their new neighbours are just as unhappy and disillusioned as many Scots are with the policies of the so-called national government, dominated as it is by the requirements and demands of London and the South-East.

This United (?) Kingdom has become unfairly and unhealthily concentrated on the vastly wealthy and powerful city of London, where almost every main centre of financial and legislative power and control has become embedded. Those who involved in our UK-wide political and financial affairs simply do not seem to understand or even recognise this frustration. Only here in Scotland (and to a lesser extent in Wales and Northern Ireland) is the unbalanced and unfair situation felt and occasionally aired in the media.

We in Scotland are fortunate that we still have a reasonable (although very limited) degree of control of our administrative and legislative affairs. But as long as the financial purse-strings are largely held by London-based and dominated organisations we will still be frustrated, as will our friends and neighbours just across the border. I am surprised that some of your regular correspondents do not seem to understand or even recognise this fact, and the frustration it causes.

Iain AD Mann,

7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.