I FREQUENTLY disagree with Chris Deerin, however his column today has articulated exactly what many of us are feeling with growing intensity (“I cannot make my peace with how Brexit is diminishing us”, The Herald, November 28). Where I do differ from him and with Manus Blessing whom he quotes as saying that "identity was never part of my politics", is that my identity has always been at the heart of my politics.
Within the context of membership of the EU, my belief in the underlying historical right of Scotland and Scots to self-determination, our being part of the wider EU family minimised the worst excesses of the English-led, Westminster centred economic and philosophical path that the UK was pursuing.
Brexit has removed that. This country is now in thrall to a group of self-centred, incompetent, political careerists whose vision, such as it is, is designed purely for their own self-aggrandisement, seeking to remove all control over the excesses of free market capitalism leading to the inevitable collapse in living standards to those of us unfortunate enough not to be part of their gang (I choose the word carefully).
Europe, for all its faults, offers a buffer to this appalling mindset, the overall needs of the many outweighing the extreme selfishness of the few. We need to face the fact that the real reasons for the slight majority voting in favour of leaving the EU were the dishonest weasel promises of Messrs Johnson, Gove, Fox et al of free money flooding into the coffers of the NHS, and the real elephant in the room, the end of immigration.
These myths and the desperate situation we are now in with regard to the UK's negotiating position and the utter incompetence of the Conservative Party and its acolytes, means that the time has come to face up to the inevitable. Either we end this foolish, destructive pursuit of Brexit for which 62 per cent of Scotland's population voted against, or we in Scotland seek our own arrangement with the EU and work alongside our friends in Europe as a separate, independent country.
The alternative is too frightening to contemplate.
Bill Mitchell,
Taigh Aoinidh, Ardelve, Wester Ross.
CHRIS Deerin is not alone. There are many of us who feel unable to make our peace with Brexit. As the chaos rolls on, the UK loses its place in the world, and it becomes clear that the grandiose promises of a new order under Brexit are hollow, the sense of frustration and impotence for those who voted to Remain grow ever stronger.
We are told that Brexit is the”'settled will of the British people'” democracy in action, but this country has the option to change its democratic will every five years. Why is such a momentous change of direction being forced through on the basis of a simple yes/no question, when no one understood then (or even now) the full consequences of the decision being made? No organisation worth its salt permits change of this magnitude without a two-thirds majority.
Can nothing be done? Is there no hope of a halt to this process?
Lizanne MacKenzie,
63 Albert Road, Dumfries.
I WISH to congratulate Chris Deerin on so brilliantly expressing the feelings of many, probably in Scotland the majority, of sensible people?
He perfectly sums up the sense of betrayal and belittlement that the Government's actions are causing, through their pursuit of one of the most serious examples of economic and social self-harm ever exhibited by a Government. The reality is worse even than Mr Deerin suggests. Because the national (as opposed to party political) case for Brexit is so nonsensical, the Government is attempting to prevent proper scrutiny of the process by whatever means it can. In the meantime the egregious Dr Fox rushes round attempting to set up bilateral trade deals which will threaten Scotland's health, environmental protection and workplace legislation. These deals also seem to be immune to democratic scrutiny.
Surely at some point our MPs will wake up to this disaster and start to represent constituents' interests rather than those of the Tory's dubious financial backers and their own party political advantage.
Dr RM Morris,
Veslehaug, Polesburn, Methlick, Ellon.
CHRIS Deerin's distress over the decision to leave the European Union will strike a chord with many, but what struck me was not so much what Mr Deerin says in his article, but what he fails to say. Scotland did not decide to leave the European Union, indeed, every local authority area in Scotland voted to remain, with the city of Dundee voting 60 per cent to remain, which makes the announcement that because of Brexit, Dundee will not be considered as a future European City of Culture even more bitter. And of course, what really rubs salt on the raw Brexit wound, is that Dundee and the rest of Scotland is being hauled out of the EU by a Conservative Government the Scottish electorate democratically rejected at the ballot box.
Many Scots of Irish descent, myself included, will share Mr Deerin's concerns regarding Britain's high-handed attitude to the Irish Government's position, and understand his difficulty in reconciling himself to the changes Brexit is bringing as the ticking of the Brexit clock grows ever more ominously louder. But for Scotland, all is not yet lost, for Scotland, there is still time to forge a different, inclusive future as a European nation.
Ruth Marr,
99 Grampian Road, Stirling.
THERESA May's visit to Turkey to seek trade deals ("UK and Turkey have begun talks on a post-Brexit trade deal, says Turkish PM", The Herald November 28) ) is another example of Brexit resulting in emergence into the light of unsavoury trade relations with oppressors of minorities, or communities of another religious view, who are currently fuelling warfare in neighbouring countries, or even in their own. Saudi Arabia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, China (military radar components while an arms embargo was in place) are prominent among the list of human rights violators to whom military products and cyber surveillance technology have been sold over the last two years.
All this is an ominous foretaste of the brave new world of trade opening up to us after exit from EU restraints – although the EU, it has to be said, also has a record of similar sales.
Martin Archibald,
Kinpurnie Road, Paisley.
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