United we love

SNP councillor Chris Mceleny suggests holding a second Scottish referendum before the UK’S new Brexit deadline of 31 October, to “allow the 200k EU nationals who live here to vote in it and allow Scotland to choose its own future with Europe”.

Along with 800,000 fellow Scots living in England in 2014, my wife was not allowed a vote, yet English students from Berwick who had just gained a place to study in Scotland that autumn were.

We are a mixed race couple, living on the border by the banks of the River Tweed. My wife is a Scot, I am a Yorkshireman, the thought of a second referendum fills us with dread. Like most on either bank of the Tweed, we see ourselves as folk of two united nations, living in harmony along a common border.

We try for a daily game of Scrabble. Although our games are battles, as we resort to raiding our individual armouries of national colloquialisms, we felt an affinity with a word which offered itself. My wife often secures the Scrabble “holy grail” of seven letters in one turn irritatingly regularly – she puts it down to her superior Scottish education; recently the word was “uniters”.

ALAN HUGHES Governors Gardens, Berwick-upon-tweed,

Northumberland

The Scotsman last week had many headlines featuring Nicola Sturgeon, usually with the words “demands” and “warns” featuring prominently. The latest spin word is “vows”.

Is the FM, a Glasgow MSP,

addressing the HIV crisis in her home city? No. Is she talking about deaths from bacterial infections in Glasgow hospitals? No. In fact, no minister has mentioned these issues. Today it is the state of vehicles driven by our police force. Maybe an announcement from her on this?

Oh yes, I forgot about Ms Sturgeon’s vow. That one is to let us know her thinking on independence. Maybe it is time her inner circle asked her to think about other issues affecting all the people of Scotland, not just her supporters? And to answer the questions without resorting to the tired “it is all Westminster’s fault”.

On her second favourite subject, Brexit, could someone take the First Minister aside and tell her that scotland is not a member of the EU, has never been a member of the EU and voted as part of the UK!

DORIS DUFF Belmont Gardens, Edinburgh

It’s time for the First Minister to drop her threats of a second independence referendum and focus on domestic issues such as the NHS, the economy and improving Scotland’s transport services.

These are more important than another divisive referendum campaign which could last a year to 18 months. It’s about time she stopped the Indyref2 games and got back to the day job of running Scotland. It was right to have had the referendum but both she and the SNP must accept the result. There are more pressing issues, like improving much-needed bus services in rural areas like mine, which many locals rely on.

EWAN BIRNIE Glenshee Road, Braemar, Ballater

I agree with Martin Redfern (Letters, 15 April) when he says that independence will simply remain a dream for those in the independence movement with the current political dynamic the way it is.

Nicola Sturgeon is way too cautious for a nationalist political leader. If she wanted to take the lead and call another vote, the time to have done that would have been in June 2016, immediately after the Brexit vote. That was when

her party was at its strongest, and the Westminster parties at their weakest. The Brexit vote had thrown everyone into turmoil, with politicians of all parties struggling for a new and persuasive narrative.

A political leader with one eye on their place in history would have recognised the opportunity and gone for it; risking it all, yes, but being brave when the moment demanded it.

She could have called the vote the day after the referendum vote, with a date pencilled

in for August or September, set the agenda, and would probably at that point have achieved support from many world leaders.

However, Ms Sturgeon did not have the courage of her convictions. She hesitated, and the moment was gone.

The situation is a lot more messy now, other parties have got their heads around the issues a lot better and the potential for another referendum resolving an issue where two others have failed is increasingly seen to be fanciful

and remote. Ms Sturgeon is a party animal, a product of the machine around her.

She is not the leader her members hoped she might be. The paralysis by analysis we have seen after splitting hairs on every small development in the Brexit story demonstrates that. The dream may not have died, but it looks a lot less convincing to people as time goes on. Whatever your views on Brexit, independence is not the answer.

VICTOR CLEMENTS

Aberfeldy, Perthshire

We should be grateful to Lesley Riddoch for flagging up the possibility of a political marriage made in hell of Corbyn’s Labour and the SNP (Perspective, 15 April).

Unfortunately, she relies upon highly insignificant political statistics to support her case, namely the recent council by-election in Leith to show how support for the Conservatives is sinking fast.

I can think of several places in Edinburgh in which the Conservatives would do well and she will, I am sure, not disagree that Leith is not one of them. So, the SNP won. One swallow doth not a summer make, butiexpectt hat the s np need all the help they can get.

The Government is behind in the polls, because the PM wants the UK neither in nor out of the EU with no say and paying £39 billion for the privilege.

Even Lesley Riddoch will know that the great majority of Conservatives do not want that. In fact, it is the opposite of what they and 17.4 million of us voted for, not that that matters. That is why the Conservatives are behind in the polls. Most governments have a mid-term slump and it may be that the current Government is having it because it is mid-term.

However, I think that most SNP supporters would be equally appalled at the idea of gaining independence by destroying the nation. Even the most fervent Nat does not want that, surely?

However, perhaps I am wrong, but I would dearly like to know, like most of the rest of the population.

ANDREW HN GRAY Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh