Letters Special
REFLECTION needs time, yet 24 hours on since the Prime Minister’s oration on quitting the EU (“Crisis looms over Union as May goes for broke on ‘all-out’ Brexit”, The Herald, January 18) there are still troubling questions causing disquiet.
An initial observation offered the impression that the rhetorical advocacy style of the speech as well as its timing appeared to target the judges of the Supreme Court as in “get your retaliation in first”.There were of course several glaring contradictions from Mrs May’s previous position on the EU that made the messenger appear less than candid. What was most troubling, however, were the glaring gaps of uncertainty – the several “what if” possible conditions of dislocation and insecurity that will proceed from an extended period of negotiation. Our economy can’t handle dislocation and insecurity.
Finally, where does Scotland stand in all of this? Last weekend the independence convention conference offered much in winning hearts but the heads still need to be convinced. What is left for Ms Sturgeon? Alison Rowat indicates that the pressure is on Nicola Sturgeon (“May’s ‘one out, all out’ puts the pressure on Sturgeon”, The Herald, January 18). I suggest that the First Minister is familiar with the Strip the Willow dance. You know the routine. You link and birl with all the other members of the dance while remaining with and still birling your main partner. Let the dance begin. Thom Cross, 18 Needle Green, Carluke. FOR months now Theresa May has bluffed and blustered about the Conservative Government getting the best deal for the UK disquiet. Well, packing our bags and walking out the door was in reality the only deal available, particularly given the hubris with which the UK approached the job of persuading the other 27 EU ministers that they really needed the UK to stay in the club disquiet. Our price for staying quickly emerged and was discarded: disengagement from the free movement of labour principle of the EU and the protection of the UK financial services sector – the appeasement of the right wing of her party and their friends in the City of London. Everything else would be, well, negotiable.
Of course, the unravelling of 40 years of complex treaties and agreements would be reasonably simple according to the Brexiters – until Sir Ivan Rogers, UK ambassador to the EU rubbished that notion, talked about “ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking”, then was promptly sacked for his indiscretions, even after his resignation.
Philip Hammond then told us we could be up for transitional arrangements, perhaps lasting a couple of years, Reports of alleged support for the UK position emerged fromcountriesbothinsideand outside the Union, presumably to support the negotiating position of the Brexiters.Theywerefrankly,red herrings. The unvarnished truth is that we cannot have immigration control and stay in the single market, wetriedthatroadanditledto nowhere. It was all made-up stuff in place of a real plan, a negotiating position, we never had one.
So the game is up. The other EU member states, presumably, have told us the plain unvarnished truth – that they see no reason to negotiate with us as we have nothing to offer.. Ian McLaren, 27 Buchanan Drive, Lenzie. ON reading Alison Rowat’s column, I wasstruckbyhercomment“what does Nicola Sturgeon do now about red lines?”
I looked at my recently renewed driver’s licence, which now shows a Union flag – first time ever, but I’m only 82.
Idle thought – if we remove the red lines from the Union flag, are we not leftwiththeSaltire? Jim Lynch, 42 Corstorphine Hill Crescent, Edinburgh. THERESA May’s promises to come out of the single market and give Scotland’s First Minister a sympathetic hearing provide clear contradictions in her intentions.
It was good to hear positive and optimistic statements about the future of the UK economy after Britain’s withdrawal but these appeared to be wishful thinking in the light of predictions by many economic experts including Professor Anton Muscatelli of Glasgow University.
I am puzzled by the frequently repeated claim that the British people voted to come out of the EU because of migration/immigration issues. I haveyettoseeanycarefulanalysis showing this. It appears that there were a range of reasons why different areas, regions and nations voted as they did. There is no question that some areas in the north of England whoformerlyvotedLabourhave probablyusedthisvotetoprotest about their political neglect and exclusion by previous Labour governments and their centre-right politics.
TheScottishGovernmentisrightto ca’ canny in its approach to the next stage. It must listen to the Prime Minister’s proposals for the other nations and regions of the UK. At the same time it seems clear that the planning for another independence referendum is beginning to be seen on the horizon. The weekend meeting of the Scottish Independence Convention would suggest that there is some enthusiasm for beginning this process.
The fly in the ointment for Theresa May and the Conservative Government must surely be the political divide in the Northern Ireland Assembly. It seems difficult to envisage how this will result given the bitterness between Sinn Fein and the DUP.
One thing is certain. The UK exit from Europe and European laws will not be simple or speedy and will in all likelihood produce outcomes that were never intended. Maggie Chetty, 36 Woodend Drive, Glasgow. I NEVER cease to be surprised at how muchUKgovernmentsseemtobeso full of self-importance and imagine thattheirviewsarecrucialtothewellbeing of the wider world, as opposed to being of some moderate interest. This bizarre exceptionalism continues to haunt Westminster’s attitudes, not only in its relationship with the EU, but in its dealings with the other members of the Union. Echoes of empire appear to resonate in the minds of those still clutching at a longdeparted status.
Rejection and isolationism are not characteristics which will win any friends abroad. We are squandering enormous amounts of goodwill built upoverdecadesandwillpaythe consequences of this in the end. Dave Stewart, 6 BlairAtholl Avenue, Glasgow. WILLIAM Durward (Letters, January 18) takes Donald R Buchanan to task for his claim that Scotland “voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU” whereas only 62 per cent of the Scottish electorate who voted to stay intheEUrepresentsjustover40per cent; an overwhelming minority according to Mr Durward.
IwouldrespectfullydrawMr Durward’s attention to the UK figure which, as our Prime Minister has just emphasised, is the only one which matters, regardless of Scotland’s majority wish to the contrary: 17,410,742 voters opted for Brexit out of a total UK electorate of 46,500,000. By my calculation this equates to just over 37.4 per cent of the UK population eligible to vote. Hardly an overwhelming majority and not one by which we should have made such a crucially important decision to leave the EU. Craig JC Wishart, 75 Brackenrig Crescent, Eaglesham. THE Prime Minister’s Brexit speech and the First Minister’s petulant reaction put them on a collision course.
There can only be one winner: legislation agreed by our UK Parliament and devolution agreed by two referendums (three if you count 1979) suggest that it will be Mrs May. Hopefully Ms Sturgeon will accept the limitations of her position in a UK devolved institution with good grace. Time will tell.
In the meantime, we can ponder justwhyMsSturgeonbelievesthatto leave the EU single market would be “economically catastrophic” but actively seeks to leave the UK single market, which is four times as important to Scottish businesses. Peter A Russell, 87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow. DEPRESSING, grim, bleak, pathetic, and catastrophic; a selection of words from your Letters Pages today (January 18). My Chambers Dictionary defines democracy as a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people collectively.
The people voted in 2014 and in 2016 ; the desire of the doom-mongers to overturn the results of these referendums disturbs me. Oh, for some positive thinking. David Miller, 80 Prestonfield, Milngavie. PERHAPS Nicola Sturgeon would be better advised to direct her energies towards a second EU referendum once the darling duds of May have “negotiated” their way to economic uncertainty and decline rather than pressing for a second independence referendum which is likely to be unachievable in the same short to medium term timescale (“Sturgeon says second referendum on independence is now almost certain”, The Herald, January 18. R Russell Smith, 96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie. DONALD R Buchanan (Letters, January 18) takes the Prime Minister totaskoverherviewthattheUnited Kingdom is a nation. It is, perhaps, worth pointing out that the UK is recognised by the United Nations as a founding member of the organisation and is a permanent member of the Security Council. Additionally, of course, it is the UK which is currently a member of the European Union. It would, therefore, seem that she is not alone and that the wider world accepts that the UK is a nation. Jim McIntyre, 8 Chestnut Crescent, Hamilton.