Letters: The Claim of Right was badly betrayed

GR Weir, Ochiltree.

BOB Thomson (Letters, August 12), argues that working people's problems are class-related and not those of national identity. However, I cannot help but imagine that most of what he wishes for would have been achieved in Scotland by now if Labour had supported independence in the past 20 years.

Unfortunately, working-class solidarity hardly exists nowadays due to changes in the industrial landscape along with the more individualist society that we live in. Mr Thomson states that working-class solidarity does not end at borders but, presumably, this does not extend to the EU given the composition of supporters of the Brexit Party.

An independent Scotland would be far from perfect but at least it would not suffer to any great extent from xenophobia and delusions of grandeur. I would suggest to Mr Thomson that the elite in English society has as strong a control of the levers of power as it ever had and that independence is the only way to shake free from its grip.

Gordon Evans, Rutherglen.

WHEN, in the 1980s, it became clear that Thatcherism and its associated ideology was not just rhetoric but a determined attempt to alter the course of post-war British politics and to break up what was perceived as the consensus which had underpinned them, there was much soul-searching on the Left as to what had gone wrong. The origins of Thatcherism was a topic much discussed and analysed.

Margaret Thatcher and her allies were clear and had no doubt as to the answer: the state had become too big, trade unions too powerful and private enterprise too restricted. It couldn't be expected that the Thatcherites themselves would come up with the real reason, namely the failure of Labour.

We now have senior (and failed) Labour politicians in a tizz about the rise of nationalism and the threat it poses to much that is decent in our society. These assertions are made without any apparent realisation that their own conduct and policies may have had a part to play in the current state of our politics. Nationalism is just like Thatcherism, it fell from the sky without warning or with any links to policies and measures previously pursued.

Two things are clear about Scottish Labour; first that too many senior figures are unable or unwilling to come terms with the changed nature of politics in Scotland; second, they are similarly unwilling to examine their own role in bringing the present state of affairs about.

Brian Harvey, Hamilton.

I FULLY concur with all those who believe the inevitable outcome of a Wings Over Scotland initiative to run list candidates at the 2021 Scottish Parliament election would reduce the prospect of a majority vote in favour of pro-independence candidates ("Why a Wings Over Scotland party could turn Yes to No", The Herald, August 12).

Mr Campbell’s website has gone a long way to persuade both myself and my wife that we may have got it wrong when we voted Yes in 2014. My attempts to constructively criticise posters on this site whose only contribution is to hurl abuse at any criticism have all produced predictable bile in which I am inevitably described as “yoonionist scum”.

What Mr Campbell and many of his followers do not appreciate is that you need to persuade others who disagree with you of the positiveness of your argument, not drown them in abuse.

There is a case for a one-off joint slate of pro-independence candidates for the list in 2021 if this is seen as a big push for a second referendum. However, this must involve the SNP, Greens, and other parties and individuals who support this objective. Mr Campbell could possibly contribute towards this campaign by spending less time on his lucrative but hardly-constructive Wings website and get himself up here to Scotland where the campaign needs to be fought instead of ruminating from the southern counties of England.

John Connelly, Glasgow G1.

IT is very convenient for Allan Thompson's argument to state "we voted to stay in the UK in the full knowledge there was to be a later UK-wide vote to remain or leave the EU (Letters, August 12).

This is plain wrong and a clear case of Unionists fabricating recent history. The reason a referendum on the EU could take place in 2016 was because the Conservative Party was able to enact its manifesto pledge stated just before the General Election of May 2015 and some nine months after the Scottish referendum. In September 2014, the Labour Party was ahead in the polls and the Conservatives position of ever holding an EU referendum was quite remote.

Tony Jensen, East Kilbride.

IT has been said that the result of any national referendum – one way or the other – should stand for at least "a generation"; this is actually a good criterion to go by, for this reason: the inertia of government.

Unlike five-yearly General Elections which merely change (or maintain) a particular administration, referendums are usually about much more weighty issues----such as Scottish independence or leaving the EU, and governmental implementation of any particular result will take much time and resources, while evaluation of such a big change – or not – will require at least a generation; and this is why agitation for another Scottish independence referendum so soon after 2014, or a second EU referendum, is foolish and delusional.

The machinery of government could implement nothing if it had to change tack on such big issues every few months – and that really would be disaster, since it still has to run the country.

Therefore, to those who want a second national referendum within months because they don’t agree with the result of the first, I have to ask: “what about the third/fourth/fifth...?” Or do they actually think that they can stop the process when they get the result that they want?

Philip Adams, Crosslee.