Looking for answers amid the post-Brexit rhetoric

Topic of the week: talk about foreign workers

AMBER Rudd’s statement on firms being required to declare the number of their foreign workforce was a clumsy attempt to address the important issue of UK firms recruiting foreign workers directly from abroad in order to pay lower wages while refusing UK workers the opportunity to apply for the jobs (Sturgeon savages ‘reactionary’ Tories over ‘ugly rhetoric’ and party’s ‘naked xenophobia’, News, October 9).

Instead of making knee-jerk statements for political gain, opposition politicians and trades unions should also be challenging an exploitative practice that drives down wages and denies employment opportunities to unemployed UK workers.

I have no problems with UK firms employing people from abroad but UK workers must be given the same opportunities to fill these vacancies and at a fair wage. P Lewis Edinburgh IT IS interesting that while the UK appears to be experiencing its greatest economic and social upheaval in over 70 years, Keith Howell seems incapable of seeing beyond his disdain of self-determination for the citizens of Scotland (Two views on independence, Letters, October 9).

Even allowing for the possibility that his incessant attempts to exaggerate any negatives and undermine the positive achievements of the Scottish Government have been a deliberate distraction from the travails of the UK Government, one would think such a staunch defender of the Union might wish to make a constructive contribution to the current debate around Brexit and perhaps even have something enlightening to say about Amber Rudd’s statements made in connection with the subject of immigration at the recent Conservative Party conference.

The fact that he doesn’t speak volumes and is consistent with Scottish Conservative Party leader Ruth Davidson’s attempts to distance herself from the actions of the same Tory Party that she wishes Scotland to embrace at Westminster as representing the views and aspirations of the whole of the UK, including Scotland.

Perhaps it is time for both Keith Howell and Ruth Davidson to honestly ask if their visions for their country and the manner in which it considers the citizens of other countries around the globe are better reflected in the words of Theresa May’s appointed spokesperson Amber Rudd, or in the words of Nicola Sturgeon? Stan Grodynski Longniddry