Letters: SNP is betraying many Scots Remain voters

In 2014 the "sovereign will" of the Scottish people was made known in a democratic vote. We are not and were not as "trapped" as he would have readers believe. Mr Galloway should consider how the 55 per cent majority (remember them?) must feel, first seeing their votes trashed by Nicola Sturgeon's SNP introducing a "material change" caveat to the UK-wide vote on the UK's membership of the EU effectively manipulating it as a four-part EU membership, then secondly, using Unionist Remain votes in the 62 per cent as reason for another independence referendum. I and tens of thousands of Scots have been betrayed and may well have voted differently if we knew it was to be used for independence. I would never have voted for Scotland to be an even smaller fish in an even bigger EU pond. Ms Sturgeon does not have a mandate from the Scottish people she once claimed were "sovereign".

Allan Thompson, Bearsden.

WHILE one might question John McDonnell’s ulterior motive, he is correct to say that a UK government should honour the democratic mandate won by the SNP in 2016 for a second independence referendum which has been backed by a majority in our Scottish Parliament ("McDonnell: Labour would not block second independence poll", The Herald, August 7); remember that in the most recent election the SNP won every constituency in Scotland except Orkney and Shetland.

Imagine the outcry if the EU had refused to “allow” the UK to hold a referendum on EU membership.

The Ashcroft poll merely confirmed the growing trend where a large majority of voters are seriously considering independence as the best option, including almost 40 per cent of Labour voters, with most polled favouring a referendum within the next couple of years, thus destroying Ruth Davidson’s one-trick rhetoric ("Majority of Scots now want to leave the UK since Johnson entered No 10", The Herald, August 6).

It is ridiculous to claim that Scotland, which is one of the richest countries in Europe with a highly educated population, plus vast natural resources and a healthy balance of trade surplus cannot be a successful nation.

Independence is not about which clown is in charge of the UK, it is about the people of Scotland having the right to make our own decisions on international affairs, getting the government we vote for and creating a fairer more equal society.

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh EH11.

I'M sure it's not missed your readers that John McDonnell, speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe, not only said that Labour would not refuse a second independence referendum but also said that the "English Parliament" would consider that request. It looks, doesn't it, as if it's a done deal? The Westminster Village has accepted that Scotland will be independent and what some of us fondly consider is still the UK Parliament, is, in reality now, with our new Prime Minister and his Brexit determination, acting for England, with barely a thought to the rest of us. The sooner the better for a second referendum.

Patricia Fort, Glasgow G1.

ON January 13, 2019 the group known as Economists for Free Trade (EFT) published a report titled No Deal is the Best Deal for Britain, authored in part by Jacob Rees-Mogg, Leader of the House of Commons in Boris Johnson’s Government and by Iain Duncan Smith, chairman of Mr Johnson’s leadership campaign.

What EFT really wants is for our country to become a deregulated tax-haven as do the disaster capitalists in Mr Johnson’s cabinet, Priti Patel, Dominic Rabb and Liz Truss, who believe that a no deal Brexit will “blow the welfare state, environmental standards and labour protections to smithereens” (Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times, August 6).

These far right free-marketeers spelt out in their 2012 publication, Britannia Unchained, that the Brits have grown "lazy and useless, their buccaneering spirit sapped by a culture of dependency”, their answer being a degree of hyper-capitalism which will result in a society lacking any sense of humanity, in which compassion is regarded as a weakness.

However I am to a degree encouraged by your headline of August 7, “Davidson widens rift with Boris on Indyref2 and Brexit” in which Ms Davidson is reported as warning the PM "struggling families could not afford the economic shock of no-deal”. The impact of Brexit on those at the margins of our society is an issue I have addressed on previous occasions and so I hope that her MSPs who have declared their support for a no-deal are listening.

John Milne, Uddingston.

THERE it is, straight from the horse's mouth: "There's quite a lot of people that would struggle if there was a very mild economic shock to the UK, even if it is only a short term one. There are millions of people in this country who have no savings, whose wages haven't kept up and overtaken inflation in the last 10 years, who live two or three weeks out of every month in their overdraft as it is and can't afford an economic shock".

What of course Ruth Davidson didn't say was that for nine years and three months of the quoted 10 years, we have been saddled with the excesses of her Government. She also fails to mention the dramatic rise to well over a million-plus people per annum forced to use food banks.

What a record, what a disgrace, what a brass neck expecting people to vote for that.

David Hay, Minard.

STEVEN Camley (The Herald, August 7), as ever entertaining and pointedly relevant, shows Jeane Freeman, Health Secretary, and John Swinney, Education Secretary, finding shelter from life's slings and arrows under the bed.

They should be ready to squeeze up to make room for Humza Yousaf, Justice, because of the adverse results of the Government's soft-touch community service scheme, and Derek Mackay, Finance, who has faced Scotland with a new £1 billion black hole in its tax returns in the first year after the SNP Government took charge of substantial new financial powers.

Perhaps the two existing incumbents under the bed should just find a larger one for themselves and others.

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.

IAIN Macwhirter states that “Parliament is sovereign in our system” ("The question for nationalists is: what would Alex do?", The Herald, August 7). I disagree; the people are sovereign, this brief phrase defining democracy.

The SNP and its supporters, controlling the Scottish Parliament, seek to inflate the power of Parliament, but by doing so inevitably seek to diminish the power of the people. The SNP strives to win and not to be democratic.

William Durward, Bearsden.