The genie is out

Andrew Wilson of the SNP could be described as a master of understatement when he says Scots are “not quite ready yet” for a second referendum.

It is interesting that the SNP wanted to settle the matter of independence in the first place by asking for a referendum to decide the issue and the UK government did the same with the EU referendum.

Neither administration obtained the outcome they wanted and both the leadership of the SNP and large numbers of Conservatives, not to mention many of the other parties’ MPS, are still trying to overturn the decision by whatever underhand means they can.

The trouble is that a decision is, by definition, a decision. The die has been cast, the genie is out of the bottle and it cannot be put back.

Of course, there are political entities where decisions, once made, can, indeed, be unmade. The EU is one such entity and many who would want Scotland to be a separate state from the rest of the UK – like Mr Wilson, who wants a second “independence” referendum, with EU membership – are also in favour of holding the EU referendum again, to obtain the “right” decision. Such is the European way. It is not the UK way, however, as we are a democracy.

Regardless of Mr Wilson’s position, in light of the slowmotion car-crash that is the SNP administration, his comments on a second referendum are rather like rearranging the deckchairs as the Titanic sinks.

ANDREW HN GRAY Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh

The Scottish parliament is in recess for nine weeks, so Nicola Sturgeon can work on her latest plans for undermining the UK, which are to be unveiled in the autumn.

She likely hopes to pick a point at which the UK Government looks at its most vulnerable over the Brexit process, and then reveal her thoughts on the timing of a second independence referendum.

It says something for the prospectus for Scotland breaking away from generations of positive interdependence with the rest of the UK, that to try to convince people depends more on choosing a moment when a sense of ill feeling and exaggerated grievance can be used to best effect, rather than any detailed look at the case itself.

The recent Growth Commission report tried and failed in that regard, falling as flat with many SNP supporters as it did with the rest of us.

Nicola Sturgeon and her colleagues hope to sell us independence on the strength of what they say is wrong with Brexit, without too much scrutiny of just what they can offer us in return.

A Scotland separated from the UK and the EU for the foreseeable future seems to be the likeliest answer, which few would consider a palatable prospect.

KEITH HOWELL West Linton, Peeblesshire