Indy without poll? Not a chance

IAIN Macwhirter’s thoughtful and thought-provoking article asks a tantalising question (Independence without a referendum?, Comment, September 25).

I’m afraid the answer must be not a snowball’s chance in hell.

I agree with Mr Macwhirter that Nicola Sturgeon will, coolly and calmly, take her time and let her head decide the date of the next independence referendum, although the red herrings which were strewn before the voters as they made their way to the ballot boxes in September 2014 have now been exposed.

A No vote did not deliver Gordon Brown’s Vow and a No vote did not secure Scotland’s place in the EU while. the agreement that there will be no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland post-Brexit has knocked on the head scare stories of a hard border between Scotland and England. Before the 2014 referendum, when asked to give a view on the wording of the question on the ballot paper, my proposal was “Scotland should be an independent country within the Commonwealth”.

I can therefore appreciate Iain Macwhirter’s suggestion that Westminster could voluntarily grant political autonomy to Scotland, as they did to Australia and Canada.

The problem is that the Westminster-based political parties view Scotland as a trophy, and have done since 1707 when the Speaker of the English House of Commons declared: “We have catch’d Scotland and will bind her fast.”

Neither Prime Minister Theresa May, nor I, suspect anyone else who follows her into Downing Street want to go down in history as the prime minister who cut the cords which bind Scotland, viewed by Westminster governments as virtually the last colony of their defunct empire. Ruth Marr Stirling