THE Remain faction in Labour has a lot to answer for. In Parliament the Remain MPs thought they could thwart Brexit, even though that was what the people had voted for in the referendum. Instead of accepting that result and trying to implement it in the best interests of the UK, they sought to undermine the UK negotiators by calling for a People's Vote or a second referendum and by imposing the Benn Act which took no-deal off the table, thereby weakening the UK position. The latter was like expecting a trade union to negotiate without having the right to strike – a principle which Labour MPs above all should have recognised.

The Remain MPs took a huge gamble and they have lost. They thought that they could ignore their democratic duty to implement the result and they continued their Remain campaign in the guise of being the Parliamentary Opposition. However, the voters were not fooled. They had voted to Leave and they expected Parliament to implement their decision. Seeing the Remain MPs hindering, not helping, and seeing them drag out the process with squabbling and negativity, did not win over the electorate, but on the contrary made them resentful and impatient to see Brexit carried out. Therefore, when the Conservatives appealed to them with "Get Brexit Done", that proved to be a vote-winning slogan and the UK now has a large Conservative majority in Parliament.

Jeremy Corbyn failed because he could not deal with the strong cohort of Remain MPs in his party. If Labour had implemented Brexit as it should have done as its democratic duty, there would have been no election and the Labour Party would not be in the disarray that it is in. Of course, there is no likelihood that the Remain faction, whether in Parliament, the Labour Party or in the media, will accept any responsibility for what has happened. They do not care that the referendum result created a democratic duty and that thwarting Brexit was a denial of democracy. Not our fault, they say. All Mr Corbyn's fault. And so the hapless Mr Corbyn is left to take the blame for the ruination of Labour.

I am sorry to see Labour brought so low and I am sorry to see Mr Corbyn unjustly blamed for all that has happened. Nevertheless, it is good to see that democracy has been upheld. The EU referendum in which 34 million people voted was the largest exercise of democracy that the UK has ever known. The decision was taken to Leave and the General Election result is in keeping with that decision.

Les Reid, Edinburgh EH15.

WE’RE used to Unionists applying double standards when it comes to democracy: 45 per cent is a resounding mandate for the Tories to take the UK (including Remain-voting Scotland) out of the EU but not enough for the SNP to ask for the Scots to have a bare choice in their future. Now Kenny Wilson (Letters, December 17) asserts that “many who voted for the SNP in the General Election are not independence supporters” and, further down in the same letter: “Practically every person who would vote for independence is likely to have voted SNP last week.”

Rubbish. Even within my own circle I know several people who not only support independence but campaigned for it and will do so again; yet in this General Election they voted Labour in the vain hope of stopping this right-wing Tory Government.

Mary McCabe, Glasgow G31.

AS expected, Nicola Sturgeon ramps up the rhetoric, demanding the powers to organise an early second independence referendum.

However, I wonder if her urgency is driven not only by the SNP's dominance in terms of seats won, but by a newly-arrived feeling of worry?

When Boris Johnson became Prime Minister towards the end of July, he was widely and correctly portrayed by the media generally as a man who would be struggling to control elements in his own party, let alone the wider political and economic world. He would eventually have to make an embarrassing climbdown, as the shortest-duration Prime Minister of the UK.

When the election campaign itself got under way, there was much talk amongst the commentariat about a narrowing Tory lead in the polls. The best that Mr Johnson could hope for was to scrape home with a tiny majority, with major figures in the Government either being defeated or returned with wafer-thin margins, because of widespread tactical voting, hundreds of thousands of 18-24-year-oldd registering to vote, the large majority of whom would be pro-Corbyn, and so on. There seemed to be much discussion about the possibility of a minority Labour government granting the Section 30 order in order to draw on SNP support.

Then, on the late evening of Thursday, December 12 was the exit poll, followed by Friday morning. That just wasn't supposed to happen.

I wonder if a scintilla of doubt crept into Ms Sturgeon's mind that, if the effete posh boy, widely portrayed as a blustering, philandering buffoon, could pull off that sort of result, he might just make a success of Brexit, and damage the SNP's credibility.

Christopher W Ide, Waterfoot.

THERE will obviously be a great deal of sound and fury in the coming weeks, months and years regarding a future attempt by the SNP to overturn the result of the self-determination of the Scottish electorate through a second referendum on independence. At this early stage, it hard to see how this will turn out. At the same time, I am pleased to see that Scottish Labour is to develop its own "constitutional offer" to the Scottish people (despite some of the people proposing it being supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and therefore having only a disputable claim to any kind of sound political judgment or wisdom.)

My view is that there should never a referendum on any subject ever again in the UK, but if we do have to have them, surely there should be a better legal framework to set out who can call them, under what circumstances, on which subjects, whether thresholds for support (such as in Denmark and Switzerland) are necessary or desirable, and how long should be left between referendums on the same subject.

I would suggest that Scottish Labour consults with constitutional and electoral law experts to compile a draft of such a legal framework and adopt it as its own policy on this matter. And if other parties wish to sign up to it in the interests of democracy, so much the better.

Peter A Russell, Glasgow G13.

I MUST congratulate Mark Smith on his excellent article ("Unionists voted SNP this time but 2021 will be very different", The Herald, December 16). I sincerely hope he is proved right come 2021.

In the meantime we have to endure the incessant calls for another independence referendum. My main concern is that the SNP has not to my knowledge articulated how the near £14 billion black hole in Scotland's finances would be addressed if we were to become an independent country. I for one do not wish to face the prospect of large tax increases by whatever form. I recall the SNP once describing the Brexit deal as being like taking the economy blindfolded over the cliff edge. As far as I am concerned, that is exactly what the SNP is doing to us with independence.

Brian Douglas, Ayr.

AS our new SNP MPs take their seats, I would like to congratulate them.

However, I totally disagree with this democratic result. I simply do not accept it. Unionist parties received more votes. I will complain about it every day. I will campaign at every moment to overturn it. I’m going to form an umbrella organisation: Unionists Under One Banner. We might fly British flags from bridges. Every negative event that occurs in Scotland and my personal life, I will blame on the SNP, regardless of the circumstances.

I will tell everyone how I’ve been "imprisoned", "shackled", treated with "utter contempt" and how the "will of the Unionist majority" has been ignored yet again. I will continue this behaviour until I get my own way, in perpetuity if necessary.

Can you imagine how silly this would actually be?

David Bone, Girvan.

SINCE the election results were announced, your Letters Pages have been filled with correspondents seeking to interpret the outcomes, implications, and likely developments, in a way that favours their own political preferences. In relation to those crowing and gloating over the UK-wide Conservative victory, I would draw attention to an old Gaelic proverb which translates: "There’s meat and music here, as the fox said, running away with the bagpipes." And with reference to the character of the Conservative leader, Boris Johnson, and anticipating what might lie ahead for us, the proverb which come to mind is the Russian one: "A fish rots from the head down."

Dr Angus Macmillan, Dumfries.

THE fact that the SNP obtained "only" 45 per cent of the Scottish vote is being used by some people as if it were some kind of diminution of their success in the election, or of the force of their policy statements. Given that every voter in Scotland had a choice of candidates representing at least four parties and many had five, six or even more to choose from, I would say that a party which has managed to pick up nearly as much electoral support as all the others put together has achieved a truly astonishing degree of success, and has acquired as strong a mandate as is conceivably possible.

Derrick McClure, Aberdeen AB24.

I'M intrigued by Ian Lakin's assertion (Letters, December 16) that the six Scottish Tory MPs will have "substantial influence" with Boris Johnson. If the previous tally of 13 didn't live up to that expectation with either Theresa May or Boris Johnson, when surely given parliamentary arithmetic they should have had even greater influence, it seems to be rather optimistic to assume fewer Scottish Tory MPs will influence a Prime Minister with a 80 seat majority.

Michael Rossi, Southall.

MAY I suggest that after Nicola Sturgeon loses Indyref2, another vote should be held to determine whether control of NHS Scotland should be returned to Westminster? Perhaps even the hapless Jeane Freeman would vote for that.

Russell Cowe, West Lothian.

IF the Westminster parties each had an away day, the Conservatives could fit on an express train, Labour on a commuter train, the SNP on a coach, the LibDems in a mini-bus and Caroline Lucas could go on her bike.

Leslie Mutch, Dingwall.