THE SNP’s General Election campaign leaflets focused on stopping Brexit and locking Boris Johnson out of No 10 and didn’t mention independence. A total of 2.7 million votes were cast out of a electorate of 4.3m Scottish voters. The SNP got 1.24m votes, 460,000 fewer than the 1.8m they would need to win a referendum.

It does do not have a mandate for a referendum. Scotland’s problem is its opposition parties. Labour has been a busted flush for years and the LibDems float along.

The Conservatives’ reliance on their being the most anti-independence plays well but fails to win them power. They have no policies to show the people there is a better alternative to the SNP, who are seen as the best of a bad bunch.

Until that happens Scotland is heading for a High Noon Holyrood election in 2021 when the SNP and Greens will win a majority of seats, more than 50 per cent of the vote and a moral and numeric case to hold what will be a horrible, divisive, possibly violent referendum that tears the UK asunder with no upside.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.

IN the aftermath of the 2019 General Election, many political commentators across the UK have focused on the demise of the Labour Party with only cursory attention paid to the dismal failure of Jo Swinson and the Liberal Democrats to advance, never mind achieve the huge gains some were predicting, in spite of neither of the leading candidates (excluding the pretentious leader of the fourth party in the UK) being “fit to be Prime Minister”.

Perhaps before Willie Rennie again stands up in the Scottish Parliament and mindlessly regurgitates his opposition to a second independence referendum he should not only reflect on the increased support gained by the SNP (264,811 votes,10 per cent of turnout) but on some of the other numbers associated with the result. At 7,796 votes (0.3 per cent of turnout) the cumulative majorities of all four successful Liberal Democrat candidates was less than that achieved by the single successful Labour candidate, Ian Murray, in Edinburgh South (majority of 11,095). Of course it should be of no consolation to the Liberal Democrats that the Conservatives not only lost seven of their 13 seats in Scotland through focusing solely on preventing a second independence referendum but saw the cumulative majorities for their party fall to 19,210 votes (just 0.7 per cent of turnout and less than the 21,599 votes for Laura Mitchell of the SNP, who lost to Douglas Ross in Moray with a majority of 513).

Given that the electorate did not support the undemocratic propositions of the party in Scotland or rUK, where revocation of Article 50 was rejected even by traditional party supporters, it seems it is also time for the Liberal Democrat leader in Scotland to consider his position and possibly move aside for an MSP who is in principle both a liberal and a genuine democrat.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry.

I CANNOT help but think that Iain Macwhirter is being over-generous when he describes the SNP as transforming after 1990 so as to be no longer a “romantic nationalist fringe party” (“SNP will have to start putting the case for a hard Scexit”, The Herald, December 18).

The romantic nature of Scotland’s topography and culture is surely what fuels those who have a determination in pursuing self-exclusion from the UK.

Why would it be in my interest to see enormous public funds spent on establishing and maintaining a Scottish army, navy and air force? How could we build our own warships when we cannot even build two car ferries without internecine conflict?

Both publicly-owned Ferguson Marine (with £50 million of public money already written off) and Prestwick Airport can likewise be seen haemorrhaging public money. I would have thought that this was enough of a track record to inform public opinion that the SNP cannot cope efficiently with the power and resources they already have.

But no. The romantic diehards who hunger after a hard border with England always seem to suffer from some kind of cognitive block which stops myself, and other voters, from listening to their fantasies. At least Mr Macwhirter seems to recognise this truth in his closing paragraph.

Bill Brown, Milngavie.

PETER A Russell (Letters, December 18) won’t have to look far for his “legal framework” for referenda, as such a blueprint is already a de facto part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. I refer to the Good Friday Agreement, which sets out the parameters for a referendum in part of the UK, how it is triggered, and how often (a minimum of seven years). The Downing Street Declaration affirmed the right of the people of Ireland to “self-determination” and included the “principle of consent” for the people of Ireland to solve their constitutional issues.

It would be nice if recognition was given to the people of Scotland for our right to self-determination and the same principle of consent was applied.

GR Weir, Ochiltree.

I WOULD like to thank David Bone (Letters, December 18) for his kind words towards the new intake of SNP MPs. While he is out campaigning for the Union and complaining about various injustices, is it possible he might also campaign for a written constitution, a fairer system of voting and an elected House of Lords. I wish him well with this task.

Alec Oattes, Ayr.

Read more: Letters: Labour MPs deserved to lose Brexit gamble