I WRITE in response to comments made by some of your correspondents regarding Brexit (Letters, January 17).

I view the recent Scottish Government report that Brexit could cost £12.7 billion and the prediction that “leaving the EU will cost every family between £800 and £1,500 a year” (“Sturgeon: Scotland needs to embrace immigration”, The Herald, January 16) as scaremongering. I am not a true blue Brexiter zealot nor am I a Europhile sycophant. I am a true tartan, dyed-in-the-woad Scot who has pride in his culture, heritage and country. First and foremost I am Scottish. The future economy of the country will only be accurately predicted when a trade agreement, if any, is concluded with the EU. Anything else is speculation and it should be borne in mind that a bad relationship for the UK will also prove damaging to the EU economy.

I have a no doubt that as a country we need immigration, but research published last week indicated that the people of Scotland do not share Nicola Sturgeon’s view on the matter. At present anyone with a European passport, with no skill set or the ability to speak English can cross our borders with impunity and gain access to the benefits that we have worked so hard for. How can immigration of this nature be justified? In spite of the fact that the Balkan states are plagued with ethnic and territorial disputes, many are in line for EU membership. Indeed Serbia and Macedonia may gain accession during 2018 giving 80 million people access to our welfare benefits and health service. Where will the eastern boundary of European expansion finally end up? Russia?

Last year Ms Sturgeon said in a press conference “the European Union is not perfect”. Why then do pro-Europeans not try to effect change from within? Brussels will not allow it. The only way forward is out.

Les Dickson,

Lindsay Place, Lenzie.

YOUR correspondent Alan Watt (Letters, January 17) is quite right to ask whether a calculation has been made regarding the cost to Scotland of leaving the UK Single Market. After all, if the choice which the SNP believes we must make is between the EU and the UK, we need to know what both decisions would entail. If the cost of leaving the EU could be £12.7 billion per annum, this should be scaled up in line with the fact that about 60 per cent of Scotland’s exports go to the rest of the UK while about 15 per cent of exports go to the rest of the EU. Working on this ratio of 4:1, the result is an estimate that the cost could be as high as £50 billion per annum.

One of the key weaknesses of the Scottish Government’s new report is that it does not factor in potential benefits from Brexit – such as removal of reduction in tariffs on Scotch whisky in the massive markets of China and India – which could reduce the negative impacts. The same applies to any estimate of the cost of leaving the UK. Therefore none of these figures can be taken to be gospel.

We must all also hope that the worst-case scenarios of a hard Brexit or no-deal Brexit are avoided. However, there can be no doubt at all that to leave the UK would be far more costly to Scotland than the UK leaving the EU.

Peter A Russell,

87 Munro Road, Glasgow.

THE Brexit debate in Scotland would be more informative if the Scottish Tory leader spent more time questioning our First Minister’s fanatical EU figures and less time on her Foreign Secretary’s (“Davidson rejects Johnson’s claim of more cash for NHS after EU Brexit”, The Herald, January 17).

Does Ruth Davidson seriously believe the political fiction, published by the Scottish Government, that our economy would be £12.7 billion worse off under a no-deal Brexit? That figure was produced by a magical mystery machine that takes the word of Nicola Sturgeon as input and outputs pronouncements of biblical proportions.

If “facts are cheils that winna ding”, political fraud is an opposition that winna challenge official statistics. It’s time the Scottish Tories clocked-in, we’re owed a double shift.

Calum Miller,

24 Polwarth Terrace,

Prestonpans.

RUTH Davidson and David Mundell have responded to the First Minister’s assessment of Scotland’s Brexit options by dismissing the findings and seeking to stoke divisions over independence. It seems that the Tories resent Nicola Sturgeon getting on with the day job after all. Could this be because she is making a better fist of it than Theresa May, whose chaotic Government has so far failed to carry out any impact study at all, and into the bargain sought to cover this up?

Paddy Farrington,

46 Marchmont Road, Edinburgh.

THE economic impact of Brexit is now estimated to mean a cut in income for each and every Scot of £2,300 a year. That’s the real cost of Brexit, previously obscured by a slogan on a bus, and now exposed for all to see. How many Scots would now wind back the clock to September 2014 and think again about their decision to stick with the UK? The same UK that told them that they’d be £500 a year worse off outside of the UK and also that they would be thrown out of the EU. Unfortunately for us there is no going back, but If given the chance to vote again on Scotland’s future, Scots have to be braver than last time and rather than cower under London’s threat and fear campaign must rise to the occasion and show the world that we have learned from our mistake and are ready, willing and able to take our place amongst the nations of the world as equals.

James Cassidy,

Rannoch, Boswall Drive,

Edinburgh.

WITH the Scottish Government's Brexit analysis, we have finally got a much-needed breakdown of how much leaving the EU is going to cost us. I didn’t vote to become poorer. But that will happen no matter if we strike a deal or not. The much touted hard no-deal Brexit the Tories threaten us with is going to cost each of us £2,300. I don’t remember seeing that on a billboard, do you? Where are the figures (good or bad) from Westminster? Why is the media not holding the Westminster government to account?

Scotland has voted twice to remain in the EU, tacitly in 2014 and implicitly in 2016. By enforcing Brexit – hard or soft – on Scotland, overruling our vote, regardless of the damage it will do, tells me the Union is not working in Scotland's interests.

Caroline Duguid,

Arduthie Road,

Stonehaven.