Wednesday’s SNP Westminster walkout provoked lots of interest. Here is a selection of your letters
I had hoped that wheniun folded yesterday’ s edition of The Scotsman I would read banner headlines ‘Ruth Davidson slams Westminster Government’s treatment of Scotland’.
It has, however, come as no surprise to me that I did not. Instead, all we got was a predictable knee-jerk reaction from her party’s spokesman (Conservative MP Douglas Ross condemned the SNP going down a “pathetic theatrical route)”.
It would be ironic indeed if the silence of the leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party were to contribute in no small way to the break-up of the United Kingdom, the preservation of which I campaigned for in 2014. I am so embarrassed as a born and bred Scot with close relatives down South, with the ridiculous behaviour of the SNP MPS in the House of Commons at PMQS on Wednesday.
This is nothing other than grabbing at straws in vain to keep their single purpose policy, ie breaking up our Union!
This bunch of sycophants need an injection of reality. The great majority of Scots have had enough of their shenanigans. Goodness knows how much it costs us to keep this bunch in office, their time has come. It is disappointing that Edinburgh MPS Christine Jardine and Ian Murray attack the SNP walk out as a stunt and grievance politics (Scotsman, 14 June) when the SNP were standing up for democracy.
If the SNP walk out was orchestrated, then the Speaker, John Bercow, was a willing accomplice as he ignored parliament’s rules. If it was a stunt, then so was the Tory engineered lack of debate on the House of Lords Brexit amendments.
Allowing 15 minutes to deal with devolved issues with no Scottish speakers is an affront to democracy and David Mundell should resign after failing to keep his promises.
At least the SNP has put the devolution power grab on the UK agenda after the issue has been ignored by Theresa May. London-based broadcasters, the Tory press and even Scottish tabloids kept the 15 minute insult off the front pages.
When the Tories refused to set up a Scottish select committee in 1987, Donald Dewar marched Scottish Labour MPS out of the Commons. They were joined by SNP and Scottish Liberal MPS but political tribalism stopped others from backing the SNP in defence of the devolution settlement.
Guerrilla-type actions are needed when democracy is under threat and regardless of party affiliation we need to unite against the Tory disregard of the Scottish Parliament and on Scotland’s choice to remain in Europe.
When the architect of The Vow that stalled the self-government campaign in 2014 now supports independence then the tide is surely turning. FRASER GRANT Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh The staged walkout at Westminster achieved what the SNP wanted in getting publicity for the independence cause in what can be described as an orchestrated ‘publicity grab’.
Any gains from this publicity was lost with the sight of SNP MPS lining up and grinning for ‘selfies’ to underline what was just a cheap stunt. DENNIS FORBES GRATTAN
Bucksburn, Aberdeen On Tuesday, Nicola Sturgeon declared the EU Withdrawal Bill debate an affront to devolution. Her ‘outrage’ was immediately cut and pasted by her loyal acolytes who shouted into the echo chamber of social media and heard back cries from the die-hard separatists who stalk the internet for SNP MPS to abandon Westminster.
On Wednesday, Ian Blackford played to his audience by obliging them with a grand gesture. In doing so he lost the opportunity to ask the very questions he and his fellow SNP MPS had wanted the Prime Minister to answer.
A Scottish MP, like all other MPS, is elected to represent the interests of their constituents not to pass on grievances from Holyrood or pander to the demands of their hard-core supporters. At very least they should turn up to their place of work and not flounce out to get a bit of attention.
If SNP MPS can’t or won’t work within the bounds that all other MPS seem to be able to cope with then they should resign their seats en masse and not contest the resulting by-elections. No one should be under any illusions about the SNP’S primary goal with its latest antics in walking out during Prime Minister’s Questions at Westminster.
The grievance over Brexit powers is largely manufactured, by an SNP government determined to create a constitutional crisis when none is needed, in the hope of stirring ill feeling in Scotland.
The so called ‘power grab’ is not of any real concern to the SNP leaders, given they would happily give all the powers in dispute back to Brussels if they got their way and separated from the UK only to rejoin the EU.
Ironically, however, the recent SNP economic rethink, points to a decade or more before Scotland could even contemplate applying for EU membership, so its independence offer would leave us outside the UK and the EU.
Marching out of the House of Commons simply plays to the SNP faithful, while the rest of Scotland is left dismayed. KEITH HOWELL West Linton, Peeblesshire There are some things at which the SNP excel. They are superb at posturing, infantile, Primary One antics and, when they are in a corner, stunts in place of serous politics.
In 1979, for example they voted down Jim Callaghan and ushered in 13 years of Margaret Thatcher in an act of political hara-kiri, unprecedented before or since.
They lost almost every seat they held at the next election. That act was meant to impress, no doubt, the zealot fringe of the SNP, much as was the PMQ antics on Wednesday. I fear many of their existing MPS will share the same fate as their predecessors in 1979.
The walk-out at PMQ was about as spontaneous as the nationalist march on the BBC’S Glasgow offices. Steeped in selfishness, those mps stopped members with genuine concerns getting a chance to speak and was shameful and embarrassing. There are other things at which they are not so good. For example, running the NHS, transport and the economy.
As always, the ultimate sweet SNP irony is that John Swinney once called the disruptions by the SSP at Holyrood “stunts’’. ALEXANDER MCKAY New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh With the Tories in complete disarray over Brexit and Labour displaying a pathetic lack of fight against a mortally wounded government, at least the SNP are showing encouraging party unity.
By refusing to allow their country to be steamrollered into a Brexit impasse they are, at least, reflecting Scotland’s overwhelming vote in favour of remaining in the EU. DOUGIE MITCHELL Cramond, Edinburgh Supporters of independence must be grieving today for the demise, at the last election, of Angus Robertson as SNP leader at Westminster. Mr Robertson could do indignation and faux outrage like no other. Ian Blackford is but a pale imitation. His pre-planned expulsion from the house had more of an amateur dramatic society feel to it, as against the full blown hysterical whingeing that earned Mr Robertson so much respect among like minded people. HOWARD LEWIS Hailes Avenue, Edinburgh