New framework needed for Scotland in Europe

Topic of the week: our post-Brexit future

IAIN Macwhirter writes that “the cardinal rule of Scottish politics [is] that it is fatal to diminish the status of Holyrood” (The surest way to secure independence? Tell Scots they can’t have it, Comment, March 19). But as he well knows, Holyrood, under the devolution settlement, is an entirely subsidiary parliament which Westminster can overrule when it pleases. We have been advised by the Supreme Court that “normally” it won’t do this in respect of devolved issues but the point is that it can.

So the first objective of any self-respecting independence movement should be to achieve a fully independent parliament in Edinburgh, truly equal to Westminster. There is no reason at all why this should not happen within the existing United Kingdom. A new framework, not federal but confederal (that is, involving inter-government co-operation between Scotland and England) needs to be proposed and worked on while Brexit takes its course.

Then, of course, we would share the same currency, the pound; and there would be a British Shengen area with full control of external immigration.

The SNP Government needs to wake up, ditch the EU, and focus on transforming the United Kingdom on these lines. Randolph Murray Rannock REGARDLESS of our individual attitudes to EU membership, there is one position on which those of us who favour Scottish independence can surely unite. I don’t think any of us would want the Westminster Brexit team to be solely responsible for negotiating a new relationship between the Scottish population and the EU. We cannot surely be happy for the Westminster elite to be able to use Scottish assets, to be given away in return for favourable concessions for the City of London.

The Scottish Parliament should hold an advisory referendum on independence (announced now but with voting in about two years’ time – which would not need formal Westminster approval) thus sending a message to the EU negotiators that Scottish assets are not legitimate bargaining chips and any offer of that kind coming from the Westminster negotiators will be repudiated. That advisory referendum on independence could also promise another referendum on EU membership for a newly independent Scotland.

I have no doubt that Theresa May and her close colleagues will try to keep the terms negotiated a secret until it is a fait accompli, but if we send a strong enough message of that kind, friendly sources within the EU will doubtless leak information about negotiations as they progress. We could also send a message to others (President Trump et al) beyond the EU that the Scottish NHS, the railways, the subsea territory etc are not tradeable commodities. Hugh Noble Appin