IN reply to my letter of February 4, Ruth Marr (Letters, February 5) used the old trick of attacking what I did not write about, thus avoiding what I did write about. My letter made no mention of an EU role in the damaging domestic policies, cited by her, of UK governments, because it had none. Her claim that the EU did not stop the UK holding the 2016 referendum was not an example of EU virtue, as it had no power to do so. But look what it did when it did exercise power within two member states via the Troika – Greece and Portugal – ruining people, and ignoring the result of a referendum it did not like.
In my original letter, I did not mention other matters of fundamental importance as a reason for leaving the EU and its treaties, the most important of which are the Viking and Laval judgements of the European Court of Justice where it found (and I do not disagree with its reading of the treaties) that while workers have the right to strike, that right is subordinate to the superior right of capital to move as it wishes within the member states, with nothing disadvantaged workers can do about it. It puzzles me why some on the Left and in the trade union movement continue to support an organisation which states bluntly in its foundation treaty that capital comes before labour.
Finally, may I ask those in the SNP and the SNP Government when they are going to tell the Commission that its claim to another 25 years of access to our fisheries waters is unacceptable?
Jim Sillars, Edinburgh EH9.
GRANT Frazer (Letters, February 4) asserts that the difference between the EU and UK unions is that all the EU nations have equal rights and votes, with "tiny Ireland being on a par with mighty Germany", yet he fails or ignores the fact that Ireland, which was bailed out by the UK and whose people voted No in the Lisbon Treaty referendum, was "invited" by the EU to have another referendum so as to come back with a more favourable answer and get it right.
Here in the UK it is the SNP which wants to "invite" us to have more "opportunities" to get it right.
As one of the tens of thousands of Remainers in the 62 per cent who voted for the UK to remain I object to my vote being hijacked by Nicola Sturgeon as a vote for Scotland on our own to remain in /return to the EU where we would be swallowed whole by the EU and "invited" to change our minds by the same EU countries more equal than us.
Ms Sturgeon and SNP's new-found love for all things European was not in evidence in 2014 when a Yes vote was taking us out of both unions.
We seen the upheaval of the Brexit debate before the democratic result was finally "done"; we do not need it all over again and probably worse. Give democracy a chance.
Allan Thompson, Bearsden.
WHEN Nicola Sturgeon and her team shout for independence and membership of the EU, they are deceiving the Scottish people.
Ms Sturgeon must know there is no such thing as an independent country within the European Union and of course the main aim of this unelected organisation is to drain the sovereignty of nations in the quest to have a federal state. The SNP would be handing over Scotland’s sovereignty to Brussels. I am assuming Ms Sturgeon’s enthusiasm is based on the expectation of receiving large financial handouts which might help to fill the holes in Scotland’s mismanaged balance sheet.
Scotland will have far more power and influence over the governance of the country if it stays with Westminster.
Why are the opposition parties in Scotland not shouting from the rooftops regarding this issue? Are they still around?
James Rait, Leven.
THE prospect of an independent Scotland rejoining the EU is quite ridiculous as the process is now irreversible.
I would instead ask Nicola Sturgeon to "leave a light on" for our failing Scottish health service, which has now become a weekly scandal report of health board failures.
Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen AB21.
SNP MPs were outraged at being excluded from a vote on the funding of the NHS in England ("SNP MPs protest at ‘English’ bill vote", The Herald, February 5). These are the same SNP MPs who have no vote on the funding of the NHS in Scotland because it is a devolved matter on which MSPs vote. Further, English MPs have no vote on the NHS in Scotland.
This is the paradoxical pass to which devolution has led us. All it has achieved is the provision of fertile ground for yet more SNP grievance.
Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh EH14.
ANENT the distribution of the Brexit 50p coin, I shall be collecting mine to a total of £10, then taking them to a bank to exchange for a note, which I will then donate to the food bank – the only good use I can see for them, short of discarding them as vainglorious junk. Anyone join me?
L McGregor, Falkirk.
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