Torybrexitfailings

I note that the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, stated on Saturday that it may not be possible to get any sort of deal with the European Union.

How can this be? This surely can’t be the same Liam Fox who stated only last year that a trade deal with the EU would be the “easiest negotiation in history” and that they would be “falling over themselves to offer us the best possible terms”.

I checked. Yes, it is the same man.

So here we are, only days away from the negotiation deadline with absolutely nothing accomplished by the Conservative government and with their ministers leaping off the Brexit bus before it goes over the cliff edge.

Tory spokesmen are now trying to pin all the blame for the forthcoming disaster on the European Union when it is obvious to everyone that the EU has been constant in its position since the start and it was the Tory negotiators who assumed that “Johnny Foreigner” would do just what we told them to do.

Throughout it all the only voice of reason has come from the Scottish Government, who point out, correctly, that the only viable Brexit is one which keeps us in the Customs Union and the single market, but the

Westminster incompetents are not listening.

JAMES DUNCAN Rattray Grove, Edinburgh

Margaret Thatcher called referendums the device of the dictator and the demagogue, as public opinion is constantly changing and a referendum merely reflects what people are thinking at a particular moment.

But even if a change of public opinion becomes self-evident after a referendum, our idea of democracy at all costs demands that the referendum result be carried out regardless of consequences.

So rather than a single stage straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, a two-stage process over a period might be better.

First the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, and then if a ‘yes’ answer prevails, a second stage question with more information, and if ‘yes’ again, government proceeds, but with the right to abandon the execution of the referendum in the light of subsequent events or information.

Or perhaps we should adopt the Swiss system of direct democracy, where the people make decisions via referendums, and the local or national government carries them out. Well, not in my view anyway, when a person I know votedfortheuktoleavetheeu because he thought it would improve his local bus service. MALCOLM PARKIN Kinnesswood, Kinross

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were in our beds asleep and missed it.

If Renewableuk or Scottish Renewables can’t manage to spin wind’s unreliable contribution to our energy needs they wheel out yet another tedious,pointless poll about how so many people support

onshore wind and that we should be listening to those people and the scientists who say we need to make decisions urgently regarding climate change.

As has been pointed out time and again, those who were polled were, no doubt, highan