THE Tories have no interest in Scotland over Brexit, just appeasing Middle England, and Theresa May has said nothing about the oil and gas industry in Scotland since becoming Prime Minister.

It’s obvious she is only playing to the Ukip and eurosceptic tune and it’s the poor and disabled and working class who will pay for Brexit when it goes belly up.

Why don’t Unionists get it? The Tories don’t care about Scotland.

It was Thatcher who inflicted the poll tax on Scotland first of all. They care about the elite in the south of England and corrupt London bankers.

It might never happen in my life but I hope so: Scotland should take back control of “our” food and drink revenue money the oil and gas industry and let us do our trade deals.

Do we really want to trust Davis, Fox and Boris to stand up for Scotland’s interests?

We need out, just look at the mess in America. We could be independent and ban Trump from Scotland!

Stephen Kelly
Motherwell

SOMETHING smells in the state of Unionism. Theresa May states that the UK is entering a golden era in trade and investment with

China, while China cancels a memorandum of understanding with the Scottish Government. Allegedly this was caused by Unionists in the Scottish Parliament, and others, creating a negative climate which dissuaded the Chinese from proceeding with the Scottish Government deal.

Although we can’t prove it yet, this is how we probably arrived at this sad state of affairs – Theresa May wanted the decks cleared for London to be seen to be leading on the China deals and relationships with China. It would never do for the Scottish upstarts to be seen to be leading on this. So the order went out from the Unionist parties’ HQs in London to the Unionist parties’ branch offices in Scotland to create as much negativity around the Scottish-China deals as possible, aided and abetted of course by the Unionist media. This was done through back channels. Discreet and sleekit. The blowback eventually surfaced, was deflected, and the SNP got the blame for the Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese, falling through.

Ask yourself this question: why would the SNP want to harm Scotland? They have the best interests of Scotland at heart. Then ask yourself another question: who does want to harm Scotland, and who does not have the best interests of Scotland at heart? Answer – the Unionists. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think so. The Unionists were too quick to blame the SNP and fell into their own trap.

The irony is that Scotland is supposed to be an equal partner in this so called all-encompassing Union. The Unionists have reached new levels of stench at Holyrood. They are contaminated with the stink and corruption of Westminster. The real truth surrounding this matter will surface eventually, and when it does, the Unionists will have nowhere to hide in Scotland. The political smell is getting worse by the minute, and it’s not coming from the SNP.

William C McLaughlin
Biggar

IS nobody else suspicious regarding the withdrawal of the Chinese memorandum of understanding with Scotland?

I’m willing to bet that Theresa May’s fake pause over the Chinese deal to build Hinckley Point was her trump card to force the Chinese to pull any Scottish investment!

Steve Cunningham
Aberdeen

WELL, that’s good news! The Labour Party in Scotland isn’t unionist any more, according to its deputy leader. On the other hand it isn’t nationalist either.

No, it’s something else. Just not sure what. In fact it sounds more and more like the Liberal-Democrats.

Perhaps a merger could be arranged? Scotland really needs a wishy-washy political party with opinions and policies that depend on who you ask.

“Nothing if not flexible”. What a great campaigning slogan!

Peter Craigie
Edinburgh

LABOUR’S deputy, Alex Rowley, in his latest anguished wrestling with “the Union”, is subconsciously slowly edging towards independence, despite denial.

He says he is not for independence, but for a confederal union, whatever that means. It is a contorted term among the many formats of constitutional set ups.

But he then kills his own argument against independence. He says that Westminster and Whitehall cannot deliver the sort of social society he envisages.

Does he not realise that under a “confederal union” or whatever, we would still be linked to Westminster and Whitehall? He needs to get real! In a four-nation ‘federal’ UK, England does not envisage anything of the sort: Whitehall and Westminster would still be in charge of the commanding heights of the macro economy, fiscal and constitutional levers. The elephant in the room would still be there!

His concerns for the survival of Labour in Scotland are genuine. He should think back to 2014, when Labour for Independence and the Yes campaign stated quite clearly that independence would enable Labour north of the Tweed to recover from New Labour and get its party back. Even the then leader, Johann Lamont, summed up the inner crisis when she herself hit out at being treated as a “branch office”, but did draw the logical conclusions.

Alex Rowley, Henry McLeish and others in Labour are in crisis, yet do not take the logical step. They should cast their minds back when they opposed every SNP proposal for more powers for Holyrood during the Smith consultations. Their proposals were conspicuous by their feebleness. Independence is not about the SNP, it is about Scotland and the powers Holyrood will repatriate from Westminster and Whitehall, powers which any future Labour government at Holyrood would use if elected to govern. But Labour north of the Tweed has not grasped this yet. Until it does, it will continue, as Rowley himself states, to decline.

John Edgar
Blackford

WHILE I was at the Paisley Remembrance Sunday service it seems that Marine Le Pen was being interviewed on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme.

Hardly seems right somehow. I have to wonder if mass TV had been around in, say 1936, would Marr want to interview Hitler ? Answers on a postcard to BBC London.

Councillor Brian Lawson
Renfrewshire Council