Backstop seen by SNP as a way of achieving no-deal, hard Brexit and Indyref2

Will, as The Scotsman editorial comment on Saturday argues, a No deal Brexit be the UK government’s fault? You could argue that having a referendum at all was the Tories’ fault, but the huge turn-out and large “Leave” vote from Labour voters suggests the boil had to be lanced.

It is absolutely the case that the Remain campaign was arrogant, complacent and – in its failure to identify key showstoppers that could have secured a “Remain” vote, namely the Irish backstop and the uncertain status of EU citizens – intellectually lazy. The process and debate since the referendum has been tortuous, error-strewn and unseemly on all sides, but it does seem that enough parliamentarians are willing to swallow their hard and soft prides and prejudices in the interests of the country if only the Irish backstop can be settled.

And whose idea was the backstop? Step forward the EU and Leo Veradkar, aided and abetted by the likes of the SNP, who never raised it before the referendum as it evoked images of border posts in an independent Scotland, and who now see it as a way of achieving a no-deal, hard Brexit and their dog’s chance of Indyref2.

ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven

Nick Boles and Oliver Letwin have belatedly hit upon the Norway option as a way out of the self-inflicted Brexit morass the English and Welsh voters have inflicted on the country in the first instance and the hubristic red lines set by Theresa May with accompanying mantras such as “Brexit means Brexit” or “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

The Metropolitan focus on politics is so narrow it fails to have noticed the Norway option was first mooted by the Scottish Government in Holyrood.

Given the cumbersome, top-heavy and introspective UK system, it was dismissed! If this Union were a proper union then a proper, all-inclusive sounding to effect Brexit could have taken place in place of bungs to the Democratic Unionist Party, for example.

The journalist George Monbiot likened the EU to “an association based on equal standing”. The complete antithesis to the UK union of 1707.

JOHN EDGAR Langmuir Quadrant, Kilmaurs

There must be many folk dismayed at the number of influential people, including politicians, who are not prepared to accept the result of a democratic vote.

There cannot be a lie in the simple statement “We want out”! There were no doubts, no side issues, no deals. In the EU referendum debate the lies stem entirely from the Remain side. “Deals” were invented by Remainers who have created the most inventive fear agenda. Nearly every piece of news is seized upon and given an anti-brexit twist, with no explanation or quantitative evidence attached.

A “deal” implies a “no deal”, which becomes top of the fear agenda. Remainers know that a “deal” can be rejected to increase the spectre of a “no deal”. How clever! How undemocratic! How sad!

J. MACKAY Glen View, Cumbernauld