Herald on Sunday letters: what readers are talking about this week

Friends may be split over the question of Scottish independence, but I've been heartened by the number who have changed their minds or are considering the options.

For me it comes down to democracy. The reality is, no matter how Scotland votes at Westminster, our 59 MPs can be outvoted by the 73 MPs representing the Greater London area alone.

As a first-time grandparent, I believe we need to vote not for our future, but for the generations to follow.

The future is stark – an outward-looking independent Scotland where we decide our own future or an inward looking Brexit Britain where we have no say?

I want my family to live in a country that has a national health service free to access, whether you are young or old. One where you don't have to work till you are 75 before you get your pension. One where weapons of mass destruction are removed from our soil. One where everyone is treated fairly and respectfully, no matter their sexuality, no matter where they are from.

One where there are equal opportunities, no matter where you are born, rich or poor. One where we use our vast natural resources for the benefit of all. One where we get the government we vote for. One where we care about the sick and less fortunate. One where we are an outward looking inclusive prosperous country that measures its success by the happiness of its people.

It’s time to choose.

Carole Inglis

Dunvegan, Isle of Skye

As the courts now attempt to intervene in the ongoing political nightmare that is Brexit, my thoughts turned to what is happening to our country.

My two younger grandchildren, aged 11 and 12, stayed over with us recently.

The older told me of a recent incident at his school. At a Modern Studies lesson they were asked about voting intentions. Apparently the vast majority of the kids chose the SNP. Several, however, rebelled and did not.

My grandson told me of how these "rebels" were treated in the playground later. They were told several times that they were "traitors" and suffered some really nasty abuse.

What kind of parent would brainwash their children to abuse in this way? I was reminded of the Stalin era in the USSR when kids were brainwashed into informing on "traitorous" schoolmates and parents.

It was for me a frightening glimpse of the SNP’s Scotland. No, not an Orwellian 1984 but in 2019.

Alexander McKay

Edinburgh

It’s time to resist the pernicious lie that Britain chose Brexit. A minority of the electorate supported this lunacy and nearly as many people voted against it.

The referendum was also tainted with anonymous fake news hostile to Europe. Negotiations about an organised departure are a fiction. The charlatans and dandies running the UK government have tried to lock the controls at setting Kamikaze with Parliament either prorogued or dissolved.

It’s time for a new referendum on Europe, with a majority of qualified voters required for any drastic change. The Conservative Party held the centre ground since 1950 and is now destroyed by extremists and entryists. It’s always been hard work resisting them, and now they’ve won, and lost.

Parties which lose their way are supplanted by other parties. That has been the key to the survival of the UK, and to the survival of the Scottish nation whatever future she chooses.

Tim Cox

Bern, Switzerland

In defence of the V&A

As a season ticket holder for the V&A, I agree that some aspects of the interior could better utilised, but the remarks from Loren Macneal that the hanging concrete elements being alarming for elderly people beggars belief.

How many"elderly people" has she spoken to? I have spoken to many members of the public and never has the so-called alarm been broached.

Perhaps the writer should take some time to understand the concept of the museum as the hanging concrete elements on the building is part of the design and read Kengo Kuma's thoughts and insight on his design.

Tom Smith

Dundee

The climate needs sacrifice, not strikes

Dylan Hamilton is 15 and active in Scottish Youth Climate Strike (SYCS). He has written an article in the Scottish Left Review where he advises that from 20th to 27th September there will be a massive week of action (demonstrations) in over 100 countries because governments and businesses are ignoring climate change.

I wager that demonstrations will not be held in China which is responsible for 30 per cent of global emissions. People would be more impressed by these activists if every one of them in every country were to cancel their passports so they would never be able to fly. Similarly those with a driving licence would hand it back so that they could not drive a petrol diesel vehicle and would pledge never to travel in one. No foreign holidays, iPhones, computers, goods from China. No wood burning stoves, no food cooked by gas and they must turn off their gas central heating. In view of the emissions created by cattle, sheep and pigs no burgers, lamb chops or crispy bacon.

Reducing emissions requires personal sacrifice not just attending disruptive demonstrations.

Clark Cross

Linlithgow

Independence: the truth about mandate

Alan Sutherland suggests that Nicola Sturgeon “will need a lot more than the one million votes and 37% share she got in the 2106 Scottish and 2017 general elections” to claim a mandate for another referendum (Letters, September 9). On several levels this quite simply is untrue.

Mr Sutherland avoids sharing with us what he specifically means by “a mandate”. In the UK tradition it is often said “one vote is enough”. Thus when he argues “Nicola Sturgeon might publicly claim a mandate for Indyref2 based on seats, but secretly hope that, if it's a very, very sub-50% vote a British Prime Minister will refuse and let her off the hook”, he ignores that in elections the currency of UK politics is the number of seats not the number of votes. This might have consequences we don’t always agree with, but it is how political success is determined in the UK.

The SNP, as Mr Sutherland notes, already hold 35 of the 59 Scottish Westminster seats, which is of course a majority. They may have secured "only" 37% of the vote, but David Cameron was able to call the EU referendum because he held a majority of Westminster seats, having also won "only" 37% of the vote in 2015.

Mr Sutherland next speaks of “the 1.8m required to win Indyref2”, but that presumes almost everyone would vote, which is very unlikely. However, that said, the turnout at the last referendum in 2014 was 84.6%. Applying that to the current number of electors (3.9 million) suggests that a referendum could be won with just over 1.65 million Yes votes. Perhaps too alarmingly close (for Mr Sutherland and his fellow travellers at least) to the 1.5 million votes the SNP won at the 2015 Westminster election? And that was well before we knew what Brexit even meant!

As with “mandate”, Mr Sutherland never shares with us what majority he would consider appropriate. However, despite the fact that the UK will leave the EU on the basis of a four-point majority, is it an entirely groundless suspicion that Mr Sutherland and his fellow travellers would look for more than a simple majority of those voting? So, for instance, if support for independence was polling regularly at 55%, they would argue for a majority of 60%. Or that a minimum percentage of the electorate must vote Yes? Or is there some other barrier that they are still working on, but will share with us at the appropriate time?

I don’t think anyone would argue against the proposition that a referendum’s outcome is better supported by a large majority than a marginal one, but surely all referenda need to be run along the same rules and requirements? Or is consistency contingent on the matter in hand?

Alasdair Galloway

Dumbarton

SNP MP Kirsty Blackman tells us the people of Scotland “deserve the choice of a better future”, which is doubtless a sentiment most people wherever they live can relate to (Comment Special, Herald on Sunday, September 9). Yet this presupposes that the alternative being offered is indeed a genuine improvement and can be delivered with a reasonable degree of certainty, avoiding undue risk along the way.

The case being made by the SNP over the last few years has focused primarily on grievance over Brexit to justify a dogmatic pursuit of independence, without revisiting the now widely discredited prospectus for the 2014 referendum.

All of Scotland has heard the SNP leadership’s message, delivered relentlessly, that leaving the EU will be disastrous, and that the majority in Scotland did not want Brexit. Yet Scotland is closer with the UK than the EU in every way, has extensive devolved powers, and for all Westminster’s faults, has an influence there it could never replicate in Brussels.

Indeed, Scotland would largely be a spectator in the EU’s ever closer union project, always assuming of course that it does eventually meet the EU’s demanding membership criteria.

Doubtless the majority across Scotland expect that outside of the UK we could ultimately not only survive but go on to thrive, but would it be worth the pain of getting there? Arguably, Brexit makes all the advantages of being in the UK all the more important to us.

Kirsty Blackman and her colleagues want us to put our faith in yet more of the political wishful thinking that we have all had more than enough of over recent years.

Keith Howell

West Linton

Martin Redfern assures us that the Tories and Labour "have repeatedly made clear" that there won't be another referendum on independence any time soon (Letters, September 8). What Mr Redfern repeatedly makes clear is that he believes Scotland is not a member of the UK, but a prisoner of the UK, although doubtless he would have been highly indignant if the EU had refused to grant David Cameron permission to hold his referendum.

Mr Redfern should perhaps take note that not only do the opinion polls show a huge lead for the SNP, they also show support for independence in the lead, and rising. As for Mr Redfern's contention that Nicola Sturgeon is "whistling in the wind", I would suggest that there is a wind of change blowing throughout Scotland, and that it is for the people to determine their own future, not a collapsing government in a chaotic parliament four hundred miles away.

Ruth Marr

Stirling

Monarchy and a dodgy memory

Alexander McKay’s memory plays him false (Letters, September 8).

It was I who proposed the motion (at the 1997 SNP Conference) to hold a referendum on the monarchy within a few years of our winning independence.

Roseanna Cunningham’s only involvement was to speak in support of an amendment which aimed at getting the SNP to campaign – in the event of such a referendum – in favour of a republic.

The amendment failed. The resolution in favour of holding the referendum was carried.

Over the next few years the referendum was regularly quoted as SNP policy on the monarchy. The policy has never been officially rescinded. So no U-turn.

These days our Scottish Government faces many more pressing issues. Priority must go to saving our devolved powers from clawback by a Prime Minister who holds even Westminster-based democracy in contempt. The Scottish Government must also persuade this extremely right-wing UK Government to respect the right of the Scottish people (expressed in three mandates) to self-determination.

So the matter of the monarchy must rightly go on the back burner to await a future date when the Scottish people will be free to decide for themselves the values of the country they want to live in.

Mary McCabe

Glasgow