Out of options

More than one million Scots voted to support B rex it– where will our votes go in the unwanted elections to the European Parliament?

Not to the SNP, who currently only offer Scots the freedom to serve Brussels. Not to the Labour Party, whose MPS can’t be trusted to back their own manifesto. Not to the Conservative Party, who have failed to deliver what they promised. Not to the Liberals or the Greens, who worship the European Union.

With the entire Scottish political establishment refusing to even acknowledge Leave supporters here, I must ask: Is Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party the only option left?

Many of us will abstain rather than back him – however, many Scots will also hold their noses and vote Brexit Party to break the “coalition against the people” at Westminster and defend our democracy.

Scotland could well wake up on 24 May to find our country represented in Europe by one or two Brexit Party MEPS. If so, then the fault will rest with the politicians who refused to represent us: prepare for the Scottish Brexit backlash.

CALUM MILLER Polwarth Terrace, Prestonpans

Regarding your leader comment“Far age mask slips under scrutiny”, if Nigel Far age dislikes scrutiny as claimed, why does he participate in inter views in the first place?

It’ s the same silly charge label led against Jeremy Corbyn and Jacob Rees-mogg 24/7 – they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

As for “the truth is that Mr Far age peddles messages which rely on fear to strike home ”– have you paid attention to the last five general elections? Or the S cotti shin dependence referendum, for that matter? From ‘Labour’ s Tax Double Whammy’ to ‘24 Hours To Save The NHS ’, British elections resemble horror movies as each side attempts to outdo all others in portraying the army of hobgoblins awaiting the electorate and their children if the ‘other side’ wins.

Let’s not forget the fear factor used by Remain in 2016 was that in three years unemployment would jump by a quarter of a million. Instead it fell by that amount to the lowest figure since spring 1975 (source: Office of National Statistics).

Farage “fears” strike home most because his lasted the test of time, especially in those areas where the only benefits they’ve seen from the EU are those claimed at the DWP during perpetual unemployment, or being used as sociological experiments like lab - orator y rats. Britain has the four most deprived areas of the EU (as well as the single richest). It used to be the six most – until Brexit. Funny that.

Farage was correct to pull up journalist Andrew Marr and the BBC in denial of the reality for the many it purports by the licence fee to serve.

M arr himself said in a 2006 seminar :“The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly-funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities, and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.” Pulling up for past pronouncements cuts both ways.

From Easter house to Jay wick, Far age resonates precisely because he’s part of that “elite” openly admitting our current political system has meant misery for the majority masked in a haze of record recreational drug abuse (to say nothing of prescription drugs, as any GP and pharmacist will confirm).

Until that is addressed, he will continue to do so, no matter how many times the Establishment and the media shoot the messenger.

MARK BOYLE Linn Park Gardens, Johnstone, Renfrewshire Having eagerly andvoluntarily defenestrated its most powerful bargaining card– the no-deal European Union exit option–the government has systematically and relentlessly set about, via the news media, including the BBC, to both scare and indoctrinate the voters into believing that a no-deal exit is some kind of “crash- out’’ or “cliff edge’’ – or even “Armageddon’’.

The reason it has done this is, of course, not hard to discern – it is because the government is composed of a very high proportion of Remainers, who are determined to thwart the 17.4 million voters who voted democratically to leave the EU.

The complicity between government and media has ensured that the public has been denied the opportunity to study the no-deal option in the same depth as the now discredited withdrawal deal.

I believe that, given the shambolic situation the government has got itself and the country into, it is now morally bound to replace no-deal on the table for genuine and serious consideration.

DOUG CLARK Muir Wood Grove, Currie, Midlothian

On reading the article by JeanChristoph eL a garde( Perpective, 13 May) on relations between Scotland and France, I was reminded of an incident while on holiday a number of years ago in Brittany.

I was chatting to a primary school class who were receiving sailing instructions. One asked me what nationality I was, so I said “guess”. The first suggestion was German and the next English, at which I made a face.

With one voice the children all shouted out: “Ecossaise, Ecossaise!”

JOYCE CORMIE Church Road, Leven