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

The obverse of many in the north of England giving their vote to the Tories in their desire to achieve Brexit, many in Scotland loaned their vote to the SNP on the premise of stopping Brexit due to a Labour Party struggling in the polls in Scotland.

Some of us had already made the decision to reconsider Scottish independence were the Tories to achieve a majority under Johnson, aware that the key argument for Scottish independence is the democratic one, the economic argument being difficult to demonstrate on either side and the cultural one equally valid from a Scottish and a British perspective.

As Labour struggles to work out in which direction to turn after being scalded by the essentially xenophobic decision of voters in the north of England, the SNP needs to look to who they need to break the 50 per cent barrier assuming they manage to achieve a second referendum. It could be argued that among their supporters are already those Scots who share the same small-minded attitude of the Britain-first English nationalists who exposed themselves so distastefully in the UK election.

The SNP needs to win the hearts of those who share a modern-thinking, anti-racist, plural and redistributive perspective whose traditional home lies with Labour and may already be looking forward to expressing their true views in the proportional representation Scottish elections in 2021.

Scott Clark

Edinburgh

How can one man's mandate be another country's failure?

Boris Johnson has declared the result of the General Election as a “stonking mandate” for his policy of Brexit. Forty-three per cent of the popular vote and 56% of the seats available possibly is a “stonking mandate”.

Having being educated in Shettleston and Coatbridge rather than Eton I regret “stonking” was not a word regularly used on the playground. However, I think I do get the thrust of his meaning as being pretty impressive.

So had his result had been 45% of the vote and 80% of the seats available, how would Johnson have described such a result. Maybe a stonkier mandate or the stonkiest mandate. The 45% of the popular vote and 80% of the available seats were exactly what the SNP achieved in Scotland.

Has Johnson noted the Scottish results and congratulated the First Minister. From the messages to date from Johnson and his acolytes, is that rather than recognise the magnificence of the result in Scotland, it is being alluded to by these people as a “stinking failure”.

For a democratic country this is a dangerous road to take. When a government seeks to decide which part of the democratic process to recognise then the whole concept of democracy is put in jeopardy. It is quite legitimate to continue the debate but it is not legitimate to pretend the democratic result was not delivered.

The danger in such a move is that there are those in any society who would subvert democracy. These elements should never be given any succour. Johnson by his short-sighted blindness is doing precisely that.

George Kay

Burntisland

Congratulations to the SNP on their stunning win on Thursday. Nicola Sturgeon absolutely called it right.

It's now clear that, in an election where all sides insisted a vote for SNP was a vote for independence, the needle has stuck on 45% for "leave".

Around 8% of the SNP vote came from independence supporting Labour voters, there were no Green candidates, so we now know the true extent of the emotional, political and economic-fuelled separation vote.

Boris Johnson will no doubt refuse Indyref2 and enable Nicola Sturgeon to deploy a grievo-max strategy while hiding her reluctance to fight a referendum on such low support.

This will enable the PM to get us out of the EU on January 31 and shape a future EU deal, based on the political agreement, by the end of 2020 that enough Scots voters and politicians can at least accept and see the benefits of.

We were supposed to leave the EU nine months ago, on March 31, so if required Boris could request a restoration of the 21-month transition period to September 2021, well after the Holyrood elections.

An Indyref2 moratorium should be used for the Remain side to create a positive case for staying in the UK, and find ways reach the majority of Scots who seem oblivious to the issues, arguments and facts.

The Tories also need to love-bomb Scotland in a way that also boosts the LibDems and the rump of Labour, who in turn will have to accept that Brexit is a done deal.

The Growth Commission has highlighted the SNP can't untie the Gordian knot of currency, deficit, borders, EU relationship, transition cost and timescale.

This combination of completing Brexit, positive argument and the SNP's own showstopper should encourage all who emotionally and logically support the UK.

Allan Sutherland

Stonehaven

In his address to the party faithful on Friday, Boris Johnson declared that his significant majority gave him a "thumping great mandate" to get Brexit done. However, during the endless post-election coverage endless lines of Tories were wheeled into the TV studios to endlessly repeat the mantra that the election result in Scotland still did not provide the SNP with any sort of mandate to press ahead with a second independence referendum.

Two principal reasons were given. That the SNP campaigned on a Stop Brexit ticket and not on independence, even though the Scottish Conservative leaflets suggested otherwise. Or the promise made by the SNP that the 2014 referendum was a "once-in-a-generation" event, conveniently overlooking the caveat that that depended on there being no material changes in circumstances.

And talking of breaking promises, I recall that the Prime Minister made a promise to have the UK leave the EU by the end of October "do or die" and yet on the 1st November the UK was still in. And that same man claimed that he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than have the UK stay in the EU beyond that October deadline still looks remarkably alive. Another broken promise it would seem.

In this world of pick-your-own democracy, obtaining a mandate and making a promise obviously means whatever you want it to mean especially, it appears, if you are a member of the Conservative Party talking about the political situation in Scotland.

David Bain

Lochwinnoch

Nicola Sturgeon’s impressive General Election victory progresses her raison d'être – Scexit – not a single inch. In an election she made all about holding indyref2 next year, she could only persuade 45% of us (familiar number?) to vote for her UK break-up dreams.

That the SNP recognises how pyrrhic their success is was underscored by SNP Commons leader Ian Blackford telling the BBC that he relies on Boris Johnson's "generosity of spirit" to grant a Section 30 order enabling the SNP to stage another independence referendum whenever it wishes.

indyref2 next year -–or even during Mr Johnson's premiership? Don't hold your breath.

Martin Redfern

Edinburgh

Beginning of the end for Labour

The Tories were in a mess with Brexit and should have been easier to beat than at any time in living memory. Yet Labour, under Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum, somehow contrived to lose the general election in humiliating fashion.

There can be no question the downfall was due in great part to the leadership and stance of the party. In fact this could well be the beginning of the end of a once great political movement.

In Scotland, once a Labour stronghold, the end is already nigh and their downfall has run in parallel with a frightening upsurge in nationalism.

Those who inflicted Jeremy Corbyn upon us and accused anyone daring to oppose as "Blairite scum"’ have a lot to answer for.

Alexander McKay

Edinburgh

Border trouble

I was deeply concerned at Nicola Sturgeon's interview with Andrew Marr where she admitted there would be a hard border between Scotland and England if she got her way.

Ten million people in England don't own a passport so a hard border would destroy the Scottish tourism industry, breaking it from our biggest market of tourists – England. A hard border would cost millions in lost trade and hugely increase the cost to Scottish businesses exporting to our largest market – England.

I beg the SNP to stop their obsession with building a wall between our countries.

Tracey Thomas

Edinburgh

The NHS con trick

The British media constant lies about NHS being fully devolved – they just miss out the part that recent stats show Scotland's NHS performs the best in the UK.

We also know Scotland's purse strings are controlled by Westminster – if England spends more we get more or less and we get less. Having control of the purse strings is important. For example, the UK spends 9.7% of our GDP on health, that's one of the lowest in the EU, Germany spends 11.1% and France 10.9% – a difference of billions of pounds.

An Independent Scotland would decide how much our NHS is worth rather than Westminster. The other fact is Westminster has the power to take back control of our NHS so it's hardly fully devolved.

Scotland has been in control of NHS Scotland bar the purse strings for 20 years while Westminster has had complete control of NHS England for almost 70 years. What's their excuse for making such a complete mess of things?

Rod Selbie

Dundee