Brexit hypocrisy

It was very interesting listening to the new SNP deputy leader, Angus Robertson, speaking on STV’S Scotland Tonight programme about Brexit and a second Scottish independence referendum. The misinformation and hypocrisy emanating from the man were just astounding.

Like Nicola Sturgeon, he commenced with the old chestnuts that 62 per cent of Scots voted to Remain in the EU and that the people of Scotland are therefore entitled to their democratic right to a second independence referendum in the event of a “hard Brexit”.

In fact, that 62 per cent he speaks of was 62 per cent of the 2.68 million who actually voted, not 62 per cent of the 3.98 million Scots who were eligible to vote.

In reality, then, only 1.66 million of almost four million Scots voted to Remain in the EU while just over one million voted to Leave and 1.3 million (33 per cent of the population) didn’t bother to vote at all. This significantly alters the intensity of what the SNP calls “the voice of the Scottish people”.

As for the “democratic right to a second independence ref- erendum”, the SNP is still furious with David Cameron for granting the people of Britain a democratic vote on the EU, a right that they and others resolutely declare should have been denied us. Yet now they demand the right to a second referendum on independence, having already been accorded that privilege just two years ago. What about “the voice of the Scottish people” in 2014, a voice that said NO in proportionally greater numbers to separation from the UK?

So here’s where we actually stand on true democracy. By the democratic voice of the Scottish people we remain part of the UK, and by the democratic voice of the British people we are leaving the EU. Attempts to undermine this free and unanimous choice of the people with nationalist propaganda is not democracy, it’s a form of anarchy.

Furthermore, if David Cameron, then Prime Minister of the fiftth largest economy in the world, could not persuade the unelected bureaucrats who run the EU to grant a few urgent constitutional concessions to the UK, then what chance does Nicola Sturgeon think she has persuading them to act in Scotland’s interests?

Like the old Supreme Soviet of the Cold War era Brussels has become the centralised government of Europe. Its apparatus exists to gradually eradicate national identity and sovereignty from individual member states, primarily by the bait of the single market, and bring all under the control of unsympathetic and untouchable foreign dictators. Our military personnel fought and died in two great wars to preserve us from just such a fate.

Woe betide us, then, if we sever the bonds of a 300-year successful union with the rest of Britain in order to shackle ourselves to a centralised government in Europe. It would be the equivalent of selling ourselves into slavery. MARTIN BLACKSHAW

Glen Road, Livingston It was refreshing to hear Angus Robertson’s measured tones in his interview with Gordon Brewer regarding negotiating a good Brexit deal for Scotland.

I hope Nicola Sturgeon, Theresa May, Mike Russell and David Davies take their cue from this and get into a private room and try to hammer out some agreement and a working relationship.

I don’t think the SNP want a referendum any time soon and both they and the Conservatives will gain a lot of goodwill by taking a co-operative approach to such a huge negotiation and decision. ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven