LORD John Kerr, deviser of the EU Constitution’s notorious and unnecessary Article 50, has virtually appointed himself leader of the campaign for a second referendum on leaving by personally producing the Roadmap to a People’s Vote as part of a highly sophisticated 12-month operation of which he boasts that it is in regular contact with politicians and officials from across Europe.

But the proposed plebiscite is neither more nor less than a third referendum on leaving the EU (referred to casually as “the club” by the EU’s Legal Service Director), the second having been that which was held in 2016, since the first was held in 1975 on the basis of the then Prime Minister Ted Heath’s false assurance that people would be voting only on the subject of an already-signed trade agreement. Certainly the second referendum also involved ignorance of the consequences of the vote. However, it is not only unreasonable but dishonest to pretend that any single person, either among Lord Kerr’s network of European contacts or in the EU-funded departments of our universities, could master the mass of entangled detail implicit in the Acquis Communautaire which remains inviolable.

It is preposterous to suggest that either Theresa May or British voters could begin to grasp the implications of an agreement on leaving the EU. Voters have had, moreover, year-long pressure from the pro-EU Campaign for a People’s Vote, brilliantly embodying “mass marches, letter-writing campaigns, behind the scenes lobbying and social media onslaughts” orchestrated by a “huge operation run by dedicated staff and volunteers”, which was revealed in People’s Vote supporter Alan Roden’s article “Why May can no longer ignore the surge of the People’s Vote” (The Herald, November 12). Since the Norman domination of both Scotland and England following 1066 Britain has faced down threats from Spain and France, principal predators of our marine harvest and certain to maintain their EU rights under any “deal”.

Our territorial waters should be sacrosanct, together with anything that comes out of them and does no harm to neighbouring countries. Rule Britannia, let us remember, was written in 1740 by a Scot and its message predates any conception of a British Empire. It is a simple statement that the waters around this now contumaciously and inaccurately described “independent coastal state”, with its overtones of EU hegemony, belong with the state and a consequential claim that the country will never be dominated again by another state.

Mary Rolls,

58 Castlegate, Jedburgh.

THE Prime Minister is embarking on a two-week tour of the UK to drum up support for the finalised Brexit deal: significantly, the deal she now refers to openly as "her deal". Not the Cabinet's, nor the Government's, nor two previous Brexit ministers, nor even her own party's.

The idea of a tour smacks of hypocrisy in that the PM has been forced, it would seem, to appeal directly to the public: the same public who have repeatedly been refused the opportunity of expressing their views on the deal by the accepted democratic process – a referendum or a General Election. To call it a second referendum is a misnomer. Only now that we have a clearer idea of the (apparently) "only" deal available, it would be a referendum to enable the public to express their views on this and, inescapably, other possible options: to back the PM's deal, to dump it and go for a hard Brexit, or to withdraw the UK's Article 50 letter and remain within the EU along with our 27 partners.

J Napier,

71A Park Street, Alva.

WHAT the UK voted for two and a half years ago was to leave the European Union. Plain and simple. There was no mention then of a deal or no deal being any part of the equation. The vote to leave was taken by the hoi polloi in the face of the bared teeth of the Government’s taxpayer funded "project fear" that leaving would be simply apocalyptical.

In the last few days we have now been told by the Establishment’s bought and paid for economists and puppet politicians that leaving, without some unspecified deal, would be an unmitigated (but unproven) catastrophe. That, of course, would be the self-same economists who told us it would be a diabolical disaster if we did not adopt the Euro as a currency, who critically failed to see the painfully obvious vicissitude leading to the cataclysm of the 2008 financial crash and who confidently, but again incorrectly, predicted that the entire British Isles would instantly disappear below the waves of the North Sea if we voted to leave on June 23, 2016.

D H Telford,

11 Highfield Terrace, Fairlie.

THE latest Brexit negotiations are difficult to understand, perhaps because our Government wants it this way. To those who wish to leave, I would say I salute you for your selfless acceptance of hardship for you and your children for many years to come. For those who wish to take back control I would say, did you notice the Great Repeal Act, which took all of European law into our own law and thus made a mockery of this? To those who wish to control immigration I would say, where are all the additional personnel and border controls necessary to accomplish this?

James Evans,

112 Highmains Avenue, Dumbarton.

IN campaigning for the UK to remain in the single market and the customs union, Nicola Sturgeon plays political games with our future.

The reality is that she strongly suspects her stated objective won't materialise – surely she seeks the opposite of what she is publicly claiming? Doubtless Ms Sturgeon has her fingers firmly crossed that the UK doesn't stay in a strong, formal relationship with the EU. She self-evidently sees a hard Brexit as her best chance to achieve her overarching goal of independence –- for her, a chaotic EU exit or No Deal must represent nirvana.

Soon we'll be treated to endless media coverage of Ms Sturgeon painting herself as a modern-day European evangelist who tried her best against Westminster intransigence – conveniently disregarding that she would have knowingly helped lead an independent Scotland out of the EU in 2014. Then, in a few weeks' time, she will commence a five-year indyref2 campaign, ostensibly necessitated by a hard Brexit she's always longed for – with the objective of securing a nationalist majority in the 2021 Holyrood election, followed by yet another separation referendum in 2023.

Martin Redfern,

Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh.

THERESA may, but Scotland will not.

Dennis Oliver,

Inverewe Avenue, Glasgow