‘Splendid isolation’ didn’t work out last time, why would Johnson want it again?

As Boris Johnson and his band of ultra-fundamentalist Tory Brexiteers drag us into a period of Victorian ‘splendid isolation’, deluded into thinking we still have an empire, anyone with a rudimentary O-grade knowledge of this period of history knows how that ended.

His disdain for even his own Scottish Tories and the installation as under-secretary at the Scotland Office of the Honourable Member for Worcester, wherever that is, gives a strong indication that the union is a very low priority. Maybe with an inevitable general election on the cards he knows his toxic brand north of the Border will mean the loss of most, if not all, Scottish Tory seats, so putting English MPS in charge of the governance of Scotland is merely good short-term planning.

As his future as PM is dependent on delivering on the rash promises of leaving the EU in October and being at the mercy of Brexiteer Tory members with little interest in the Union, Scotland is clearly a price worth paying to save his own political skin. Given the shambles he and his narrowminded, inward-looking party have created and will continue to create, I, as a once unquestioning Unionist, also believe it’s a price worth paying.

D MITCHELL Coates Place, Edinburgh

It is not surprising that Gill Turner (Letters, July 24) concluded I had failed to understand her claims about the prospects of an independent Scotland within the EU. I carelessly wrote not “EU countries” as intended but that “UK countries” could relocate some of their operations to Scotland. Mea culpa.

The events of the last week, however, increasing the likelihood of a no-deal Brexit, have reinforced the main thrust of my argument. A no-deal Brexit would see tariffs being imposed on trade between the EU and the UK.

An independent Scotland within the EU would be forced to operate within the EU’S regulations and be liable to these tariffs on its £48.9 billion of exports to the UK in order to secure tariff-free trade on its £14.9bn to the EU. That doesn’t sound like a winning gambit. Moreover, is it not likely that at least some companies would be likely to transfer their operations south of the Border, increasing the negative impact on the economy?

Indeed, that is a scenario which has been frequently aired, and not just during the 2014 referendum campaign when it was, needless to say, pooh-poohed by nationalists as scaremongering.

It is not the case that for me the Union “transcends everything”. Certainly a no-deal Brexit under Boris Johnson is a distinctly unappetising prospect.

However,iintendtoawaitthe outcome and the full impact of Brexit before considering the option of catapulting ourselves out of another union which is significantly more important, at least in economic terms.

At that point a reasoned and logical assessment of independence is not beyond even committed Unionists.

COLIN HAMILTON Braid Hills Avenue, Edinburgh