Stupidity of fear

Brian Monteith’s article (Perspective, 8 April) claims that another referendum will highlight the way voters in Scotland vote differently from RUK on the EU and this will be the essential fuel to propagandist calls for independence.

Does he think we are stupid? Thisisprojectfearonsteroids. We already know that support for Remain is high in Scotland by comparison with RUK. He wants to have his cake and eat it. He tells us that the Scottish Secretary, David Mundell, is completely disingenuous to suggest there is any sign that voters are so disenchanted with Westminster’s Brexit blues that they are switching to the independence solution. So is there a danger of independence or is there not?

Polls, though, haven’t all been negative for the SNP. One suggested 38 per cent of undecided voters were considering independence.

Unsurprisingly, things may look up a bit more for the SNP when Brexit finally arrives. Even Theresa May’s deal will be bad news for Scotland – computer firms in Dundee might not like it and fishing

areas will realise they were just cannon fodder.

A no-deal could be a nightmare for all farmers apart from livestock ones (a drop of import duties will not affect all farms equally).

No-deal could be the final blow to this badly split Conservative Party – and what if the SNP picked up all of the ten Tory seats in Scotland? Well then, they might just be on a run.

ANDREW VASS Corbiehill Place, Edinburgh

Itnowseemsthatthewishesof the 17.4 million who wanted to leave the EU will be thwarted, as the majority of MPS do not recognise that a referendum is a directive to parliament to carry out the wishes of the majority of the people who voted. Many MPS are voting for what they want irrespective of the result of the democratic vote in the referendum.

The Prime Minister’s withdrawal plan is not supported in parliament and will probably never see the light of day,

as she has now decided that the best way forward is to cobble up some sort of deal with Jeremy Corbyn.

The only answer from Labour, apart from another general election, is to join a customs union, which means open borders and complying with other areas which started off as red lines for the Brexit supporters.

There is now a distinct possibility that we will get a deal which is not wholly acceptable to either the Remainers or the Leavers, and while the whole of Europe is laughing at us, the one thing that is certain is that the commissioners will not let us forget that we are still bound by the EU strictures, as a warning to any other member state that has the temerity to consider leaving their Utopian wonderland.

Brexit still means Brexit and we should just get out and stay out.

JAMES MACINTYRE Clarendon Road, Linlithgow

Brexit was supported by four times the size of the Scottish electorate. Like most Scottish voters, I am a Remainer. However, one million Scots opted to leave the EU, not that that is much heard of within the SNP.

The fact is we have a democratic mandate to leave, albeit under a first past the post system – which is what a referendum essentially is.

Also, despite the SNP claims, we are still a union, not of individual governments but of devolvedadministrations.the SNP had to abide by the result of the 2014 independence referendum. Why not this one?

DONALD THOMSON Salisbury Terrace, Aberdeen

With the SNP conference coming up later this month, many dyed-in-the-wool separatist attendees will be unhappy about the precedent Nicola Sturgeon is setting, campaigning for a second confirmatory vote on Brexit.

Arguments for a People’s Vote focus on the public having changed its mind, in the realisation that what the Leave campaign promised is unlikely to materialise.

The SNP’S independence 2013 White Paper has been largely discredited as strong

er on spin than reality by Alex Bell, who worked on its compilation. Plus, it has been undermined by subsequent events, such as the collapse in the oil price of $113 baked into the SNP financial forecasts – and its premise that separation would take a hassle-free 18 months.

If the nationalists had won in 2014, based on Ms Sturgeon’s current logic there would have been a clear case for a People’s Vote.

Should the SNP ever succeed in staging indyref2 and, even more unlikely, actually win, surely Westminster must insist, before Scotland formally secedes from the UK, that a People’s Vote be held, with options including overturning the initial result, if that reflected the will of the majority?

MARTIN REDFERN Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh