No great expectations from talks with our soon-to-be-ex European partners
Much has been made of the fall in the oil price and its effect on the Scottish economy, but in point of fact oil revenues, amounting to many billions, went, and continue to go, to the UK Treasury.
Scotland has certainly suffered thousands of job losses, yet, according to the latest statistics, unemployment north of the Border is lower than in the rest of the UK.
The guesstimate of a £15 billion deficit for Scotland fades into insignificance when compared to the UK national debt of £1.7 trillion, a debt that now attracts more in interest payments than the entire UK defence budget. What’s happened to “the broad shoulders of the UK economy”?
The self-inflicted austerity of the Tories has failed to reduce the trade deficit, and, with the submerging pound, it can only widen further.
Cameron crept into Europe telling everyone we were determined to continue membership and returned with absolutely nothing. Now we are coming out, does anyone imagine we will emerge from the negotiations with anything more than “hee-haw”?
Mrs May has asserted she will not negotiate in French. I don’t think negotiating in 27 languages would help much.
JOSEPH MILLER Gardeners Street, Dunfermline I refer to Donald Thomson’s statement (Letters, 26 October) that 62 per cent of Scots voted Remain in the EU referendum, which I think is accompanied by some head shaking. No wonder! It is an oft repeated lie.
62 per cent of those who cared to vote voted Remain. Do not forget about the 1.3 million Scots who were so little interested in the EU that they did not vote at all. Compare this with the overwhelming turnout for the UK referendum when Scots looked into the SNP abyss and said no thanks.
The correct figure for Scots voting to Remain in the EU is 42 per cent of the whole electorate. Quite a different picture. A convenient lie, often enough repeated becomes the accepted truth. Personally, I voted Remain, but it is called democracy.
The bandwagon of “being dragged out of the EU against our will” is nothing more than the latest attempt of the SNP to provide cover for their single aim – independence. ALISON FULLARTON Lumsdaine, Eyemouth It is an oft-repeated soundbite that Holyrood is “one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world”.
I find this intriguing, especially when I note that the proposed trade deal between Canada and the EU had to be passed by 47 parliaments, 28 of them state parliaments, the 19 others sub-state. The parliament which rejected the deal, in the Wallonia region, comprising 3.5 million people, has held up this mega deal due to concerns over industrial agri-corporations driving down environmental standards. This puts the argument that small states have little power in the EU into context, and this is not even a state, but a region.
If Holyrood is such a powerful heavyweight parliament it should clearly have been consulted on the Canada-eu deal by the UK Government, and it should be consulted on the Brexit settlement, as these sub-state parliaments will be. That it is not involved highlights where it truly stands in the pecking order.
ALEX ORR Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh Les Reid is right (Letters, 26 October) when he says that getting the best deal should be the primary objective of every politician, and that’s exactly what Nicola Sturgeon has been doing for the last four months while Westminster still doesn’t have a coherent Brexit Plan.
David Mundell could kill off talk of an independence referendum if, rather than acting like Theresa May’s poodle, he stood up for Scotland by telling the UK government that we voted by a large majority to remain in the EU and demanded that the Scottish Parliament has the right to veto a bad deal, just like Wallonia.
MARY THOMAS Watson Crescent, Edinburgh