AS Brexit Day looms, it’s worth giving some thought to what we will be losing. For young people especially, doors that allowed them to live, study and work without hindrance in EU countries will be closing.

We will no longer be part of the discussions and decisions in the EU – rule-takers now, with no say in the rule-making process.

This time next year we may be clearer about the reality of any trade deals. It will be a number of years before the full impact on our society and economy is felt.

Leaving the world’s largest trading group to go it alone, a small state off the north-west coast of Europe, is, to put it mildly, not without its risks, especially as Westminster is still sending out mixed messages about its objectives.

Having been a citizen of Europe for the greater part of my life, I cherish that identity. For most of us in Scotland, January 31 is not a day for celebration.

Margaret McIlhinney, Moffat.

ON Friday of this week I will lose privilege that I cherish – my citizenship of the European Union. Scotland too will leave, forced out – in my opinion, by a wave of frustrated English nationalism.

We have been here before. At the time of the lopsided Union of 1707, Fletcher of Saltoun warned Scottish politicians that their Westminster MPs would be a perpetual minority – "dancing in a trap for all eternity’ – and the speaker of the House of Commons declared: "We have caught Scotland by the tail, and will hold her fast."

Now history repeats itself, as our elected representatives are powerless to stop or even modify Brexit, and Boris Johnson decrees that we have no right to hold a post-Brexit referendum on our own future.

EU or UK? Opinions differ, but a Scotland without the power to decide is – to borrow a phrase from Jacob Rees Mogg – "a vassal state.

John Coutts, Stirling.

AS the UK leaves the EU, what makes Nicola Sturgeon think that pressure or support from EU states will have any influence on Boris Johnston’s decision regarding a referendum ("Sturgeon out to build 'grand alliance' with EU states to back Indyref2", The Herald, January 27)? The cost of this wasted effort will be borne by Scottish taxpayers who would better see the money spent on public services or supporting Scottish businesses to export to Europe post Brexit.

Any work on arguing for a new referendum should be met in full by the SNP and not by taxpayers who have already demonstrated that they do not want to leave the UK both at the last referendum on independence and through a majority voting for Unionist parties at the General Election. It is only the vagaries of the electoral system that saw the SNP with a majority of MPs; that in itself is not confirmation that the majority of the population want either a referendum orindependence.

The Scottish Government and SNP members of the UK Parliament must publish all of the costs of this new and totally irrelevant exercise of courting Europe.

Bill Eadie, Giffnock.

BREXIT is coming. A deal will be negotiated over the next year or two (or three). I agree with Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar when he says that the “British” misunderstand how the EU would proceed in this process.

As he states, the Tories probably thought London, Paris and Bonn would carve out a deal and impose it on their smaller members. But the EU, with 27 member states, will look after all its members; interests, while Britain with four constituent parts, is only concerned with England (we will see what happens to Scotland’s fish stocks this time round). This does not only involve the politicians, but the London-centric media as well. When the dust settles, people will see that the UK Government health warnings about Brexit were actually true, but by then fortunes will have been made (not least in the Cabinet) while the rest of the country get comparatively poorer than they would have been.

GR Weir, Ochiltree.

IT wasn’t that long ago that Nicola Sturgeon declared a Climate Emergency. Is it not now time that she declared an NHS Emergency?

Greater Glasgow Health Board is now in special measures and the Sick Children’s Hospital opening has been delayed till at least the autumn. This delay is costing just under £1.5 million in monthly repayments.

Jim Robertson, Darnley.

THE regular outpourings of vitriol by Dr Gerald Edwards against our First Minister bears some comment with his obvious support for the English Tory Party (Letters, January 27).

Who is the leader sacked from two journalistic jobs for lying? Who was dismissed from the UK Cabinet for similar actions? Who lied throughout the Brexit campaign about the finances to be allocated to the health service? Who is claiming that Brexit is done when only half a deal (the leaving part) is done? It is the man residing in Downing Street, not our First minister at Holyrood. Nicola Sturgeon could neither effect or control the abysmal performance of the Labour Party in England but she did sweep the board in Scotland.

Scotland has not voted for a Tory government for decades and yet here we are yet again subject to the right-wing ramifications of the recent General Election.

I think it is time Dr Edwards took a step back and looked the reality of the performance of the two leaders and the wishes of the Scottish electorate expressed at the last election.

Dave Biggart, Kilmacolm.