Animal export fear

Anent your front page article (‘SNP fires the opening shots in post-brexit trade war’ Scotsman, February 5), perhaps those members of the SNP advocating the perpetuation of live animal exports to the continent should try standing for 48 or 72 hours crammed with dozens of others of their kind in the back of a jostling lorry without food or drink.

Added to the appalling conditions that livestock face on the journey, livestock handling standards and practices in continental slaughterhouses have frequently been exposed as barbaric and there is no real commercial need for our stock to be exposed to such cruelty.

Perhaps a visit to a slaughterhouse across the Channel would change a few minds

Wehaveahealthymeatpacking industry in Scotland where we process the finest red meat in the world – humanely. Our practice should be the export of humanely-produced chilled carcasses.

The SNP should examine its reasons for taking this stance. Is it really a commercial stance or simply another example of their determination to oppose Westminster at every turn, regardless of any harm done in the process? DAVID RICE

Belstane Kirknewton