Case for separation does not make sense for the foreseeable future

SOME in the SNP speculate that they might do better by being less misleading about the consequences of separating from the UK (“SNP signals independence would mean ‘painful’ cuts”, The Herald, July 20). Yet as George Kerevan admits that shortterm economic pain would be required to secure independence, it is clear that this is to be just a partial admission of the truth.

He claims that after cuts in public spending to reduce our deficit and the sell-off of public assets to pay for the setting up of a new central bank, Scotland could then be converted into an economic powerhouse within just one term of parliament. It seems this new SNP plan is simply the same vision of independence where Scotland can do the national equivalent of walking on water, but delayed by five years, in the hope that an honest appraisal of a short period will somehow render what comes next more credible.

Real honesty from the SNP would be to accept that the economic case for independence does not make sense for the foreseeable future but that if you are sufficiently anti-British you might be prepared to put up with a great deal of pain and uncertainty to get separation from the UK.

It might not have the inspiring feel of the SNP’s 2014 pitch but it would be getting closer to the real truth than the partially reimagined case the SNP seem to be cooking up for us. Keith Howell, White Moss, West Linton, Peeblesshire. LAST week Alyn Smith MEP admitted the SNP had misled voters about their position on Europe before the independence referendum (“Smith enters the battle to become SNP deputy leader”, The Herald, July 15). Now George Kerevan reveals that they lied about the economics.

Why doesn’t the SNP just re-issue its infamous White Paper with its millions of words struck through and a huge stamp on the fly-leaf saying: “We lied”? Alex Gallagher, Labour Councillor, North Ayrshire Council, 12 Phillips Avenue, Largs. I’M hearing a lot about the stress our new Prime Minister is putting on her party’s name, which, it would appear, is the Conservative and Unionist Party. But the Union in the title she clutches to her bosom is the union with Ireland. Given that we now know what happened to that one, what are her chances of keeping Scotland under her thumb? AJ Clarence, 40 Biggart Road, Prestwick.