Scotland needs early referendum before Brexit chaos wrecks Britain’s economy

The Tories’ Brexit “strategy” is farcical, with the Prime Minister and Chancellor openly contradicting each other. The hapless Philip Hammond stated that no money had been put aside for the “no deal” doomsday scenario on Brexit. Barely an hour later the equally bungling Theresa May have said that, in fact, £250 million had been set aside from the doomsday scenario.

The consequences of the no deal scenario were laid out in a paper by the Centre for Economic Performance based at the London School of Economics. They found that it would lower productivity by between 6.3 per cent and 9.5 per cent of GDP. This equates to a loss of income from £4,200 to £6,400 per household per year. A House of Lords report issued on Brexit in May found that in the event of a “no deal” scenario 97 per cent of food and drink exports to the EU could be slapped with tariffs’.

Around 100,000 jobs could be at risk after MEPS warned financial business denominated in euros must move from the UK to the EU after Brexit.

EU officials have repeatedly said London can no longer maintain euro-denominated business.

Scotland could lose between 30,000 and 80,000 jobs as a result of Brexit, according to Frazer of Allander institute. Research by the Centre for Cities and the Centre for Economic Performance predicts that Aberdeen will be hit worst by Brexit, with Edinburgh not far behind

May is increasingly isolated and increasingly weak. She heads a minority government, and a cabinet split over the terms of Brexit. She is being held hostage by the hard Brexit faction of her cabinet being led by risible buffoon Boris Johnson. The major banks and corporations want an arrangement with the EU that will enable them to maintain access to the single market or customs union. However, the EU insists there can be no preferential treatment for the UK, and that it must settle its divorce bill (estimated at up to e100 million) before any discussions can take place on future trade relations. The Tory hard Brexit faction want the talks to fail so they can turn the UK into a giant sweatshop. The only plausible way out of this for Scotland is an early referendum before the Brexit chaos engulfs the Scottish economy.

ALAN HINNRICHS Gillespie Terrace, Dundee Andrew Vass evidently believes that there is no merit in the Brexiteers’ case (Letters, 12 October) and Rabobank’s survey predicts very high financial costs to us of leaving the EU, especially if our exit is “hard”.

Mr Vass’s declaration that we would “betray democracy” by leaving is hard to comprehend, the Leavers being a significant majority; predictions of the economic outcome, having thus far proved as unreliable as weather and global climate forecasts, like most politicians’ projections, must be taken with very large pinches of salt.

Individual opinions on Brexit depend more on our own priorities rather than on confident, reliable prediction. It is, surely, fair to say that no-one can know the economic or political outcome after Brexit, but two democratic aspects are clear.

First, democracy was shunned by the “great and the good,” albeit well-meaning people who made us join the EU and, secondly, there is a very strong case for us in our nation, the UK, to govern ourselves, that is, to re-establish our independent democracy. (DR) CHARLES WARDROP Viewlands Road West, Perth