Neverending cup final

Sir, – The Courier letters page is full of references to “mandates”, yet the reality is straightforward.

Winning a parliamentary seat gives the victor a mandate to represent his or her constituents.

Winning a parliamentary majority gives the leader a mandate to form a government and exercise governmental powers.

However, the vote of the public in a single issue referendum must surely trump all of that.

So, Boris’s mandate to implement Brexit comes not from last Thursday but from the public vote in 2016, just as his mandate to preserve the UK comes from the public vote in 2014.

There’s no reason to believe the public view on either issue has shifted significantly, so there’s no need to re-run either referendum.

There seems to be an acceptance that Brexit will happen, as the public mandated.

It is unhelpful that, here in Scotland, the Yes side’s definition of referendum is something that should be re-run till the “right” result emerges.

Imagine how cup finals would operate in a separate Scotland.

Dave Dempsey. 7 Carlingnose Park, North Queensferry. demonstrate how we are “shackled”, “oppressed” and “treated with contempt”; how the “will of the unionist majority” is yet again ignored.

This childish behaviour will continue until we get our own way. Rev Dr John Cameron. 10 Howard Place, St Andrews.

Once again she is displaying her overwhelming bias to talk up a party that Scots rejected in huge numbers.

It is time that Conservatives stop trying to spin that somehow this victory was some kind of one-off.

That’s three general elections the SNP have won in Scotland and it is now time to “get independence done”.