If Northern Ireland merits special status post Brexit, Scotland deserves the same

The logic of special status for Northern Ireland is special status for Scotland and Wales as well. In fact, the logic of leaving the EU is the dissolution of the United Kingdom. After all, if Brussels is not good enough for Westminster, then why should Westminster be good enough for Cardiff and Holyrood? Taking back control? Where do we stop?

TREVOR RIGG Greenbank Gardens, Edinburgh

Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar recently said he considers predecessor Eamon de Valera’s greatest achievement as the policy of neutrality during the Second World War. This meant that as Britain fought for her survival against the Atlantic U-boat packs, de Valera denied bases for the Royal Navy and the RAF to strike back.

Just as de Valera undermined Britain in the Second World War, so Varadkar is undermining Britain as Brexit is executed. For both, the ulterior motive is the subversion of the United Kingdom in any way possible. Causing a split between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK over the border issue would be an early Christmas present for the current Irish prime minister.

Britain had a fair, open, free and democratic referendum in which the majority of the people voted to take back control, something Mr Varadkar conveniently ignores. UK Prime Minister Theresa May must realise that all parts of the UK must stay together under the same framework of rules, regulations, duties and tariffs. The clue is in the name: United Kingdom. WILLIAM LONESKIE

Justice Park Oxton, Scottish Borders

As each day passes, the people who voted to leave the EU because their communities had been left behind must be more and more wondering if they were right to trust the Conservative Party to carry out their wishes.

People voted because they were angry. They had been sold a lie about growth and prosperity but had seen neither. The services they had taken for granted, their many good well-paid jobs, their thriving high streets, had all been swept away. Millions of people and children are living in poverty. There is a housing crisis. And there is no end in sight to austerity. No wonder people lashed out.

What is happening now is not that these issues are being addressed, but that the right wing of the Tory party is leading us over a cliff with the hardest of hard Brexits. Last weekend saw the resignation of the Governments’ entire Social Mobility Commission, saying that there is little evidence that Theresa May’s belief in social mobility is being translated into meaningful action, and that whole communities and parts of Britain are being left behind economically and hollowed out socially, and nothing is being done to address the issues.

All pretence that the government is interested in dealing with the issues that caused the Leave side to win the Brexit vote has gone. It really says it all when the best the government could do to address the housing crisis in England and Wales was a stamp duty reduction for firsttime buyers who could afford a £300,000 house, instead of permitting councils to build houses for social rent.

All the Tories seem to be interested in is free trade. And to secure such a deal, they have now agreed to pay the EU €50 billion. That is about £44,000 million! When we left the EU, the NHS was supposed to receive an extra £350m a week. Nobody mentioned paying billions of pounds to the EU – some of which will go towards Nigel Farage’s MEP pension.

Many of the people who voted Leave have been used, and abused, and are now being ignored.

All the Tories are interested in is free trade, and are willing to break the bank, and throw Northern Ireland overboard, to secure it. Brexit is becoming a bigger disaster as each day passes.

PHIL TATE Craiglockhart Road, Edinburgh