FOR someone who is so cock-sure in his dismissal of Patrick Harvie, Jim Sillars ought to have been certain of his facts (Letters, June 18). He is not, but we have come to expect this economical relationship with the truth from the Leave campaign.

First, Sillars conveniently ignores a whole suite of rights which originate entirely from working with our partners in Europe and had no equivalent in UK law before joining. These include maximum limits on working hours (Working Time Directive); protection for part-time workers, fixed-term workers and agency workers (EU Agency Workers Directive); protection for employees when their business is transferred to another employer, which is a radical break from English common law; and protection against discrimination on the grounds of age, religious belief or sexual orientation.

The UK has over the decades successfully blocked action which would give employees statutory rights in the governing of their workplace. UK governments of all colours have expressed displeasure about the WTD and AWD: if Sillars genuinely thinks that these rights would not be under threat post-Brexit he is making a serious misjudgement.

Second, Sillars’s account of the rights he does mention is incomplete. The Holiday Pay Act of 1938 only covered workers who had minimum wages set by a wage regulating authority – no general right to paid holiday existed until the Working Time Directive. Equal-pay legislation has been substantially improved by EU law: to cover cases where men and women perform work of equal value, and increasing back-pay claims from two years to six. And Ireland voluntarily introduced austerity in 2008 (after their banks collapsed, an entirely home-grown catastrophe), long before they asked the EU to step in with a bailout. Spain’s problems were also homegrown.

The real threat to the right to strike comes from the Tory anti-trade union laws. Who is trying to criminalise picketing? The Tories. Who is trying to permit the hiring of strike-breaking labour? The Tories.

Missing from all this are the real progressive reasons for voting Remain on Thursday: to co-operate with our European partners on challenges we cannot solve alone. We’ve abolished roaming charges by the rip-off mobile phone operators. We’re cracking down on tax avoidance by multinationals like Starbucks and their sweetheart tax deals with national governments. We’ve set world-leading climate-change targets. We capped bankers’ bonuses. As internationalists and progressives, remaining in the EU is critical for progress.

Daniel Wylie, Dunkeld

JIM Sillars’ reply (Tory party will tear itself apart if there is a Brexit, Saturday June 18) to Patrick Harvie’s excellent column last Friday, fails on several accounts, the most telling being the idea that the middle classes will protect us from future Tory attacks on workers’ rights.

This is Jim’s bulwark against the few remaining workplace rights that our forbearers fought so hard to secure. Forget about the protection given by EU employment legislation and trust that the most reactionary Conservative government in modern British history, headed up by Boris and his chums, will quake at the sight of the middle classes. Did this social group prevent the emasculation of the Unions after the Battle of Orgreave, Jim?

Jim also tells us that we will be safe from the Tories after Brexit because the party can be relied upon to go into meltdown. This will be a dream of nirvana to many but how realistic is it? To rely on it as a means of securing workers’ rights is nothing short of reckless.

Gordon Murray, Lanark

I FULLY agree with Patrick Harvie in his assessment of

Jim Sillars’ s views on the Brexit debate. When it comes to environmental issues,

Jim has a long history of being disparaging about the need for environmental legislation. It is that need which is at the top of my agenda about the EU.

Everything from climate change to the Water Framework Directive to clean air and Natura 2000 legislation has been part of the raison d’etre for the EU. The natural world does not follow the desires of individual countries or individual polities, who must work together to get things done. The UK has a motivated populace when it comes to wildlife conservation, but that is not reflected in our lacklustre attempts to right the wrongs of previous generations when it comes to dealing with our natural resources. How slow are we to realise our duty to protect and enhance biodiversity compared to many of our continental brethren.

Even the Common Fisheries Policy, roundly condemned by many in the fishing community, is at last coming good as politicians take heed at long last of the need for conservation measures, including the creation of Marine Nature Reserves. There is still much to do to create a sustainable future, but pulling out of the EU does not advance the cause of protecting the natural resources of our planet.

Of course I am also much in agreement with the other arguments for retaining our membership of the EU, but environmental issues have been grossly underplayed in my view.

Bill McDermott, Drumnadrochit

DEAR Jim Sillars,

OK Jim, we get it, you are an outy! But I think it is about time that somebody called your bluff.

Firstly lets put you straight on something. Aye, we have had paid holiday for a very long time but as a poorly paid bus driver the good old British government allowed me 20 days’ holiday a year. It was the EU that told them they could not count bank holidays as part of the annual leave and decided that we lowly serfs were due eight more days’ leave. In one fell swoop we had nearly two weeks’ extra holiday. The British Government fought against this tooth and nail.

So when you are arguing so fervently for Brexit, I believe that you should temper all your correspondence with the fact that you wish to take us out of the frying pan and into the fire. While I believe that the European Union is a flawed institution I also believe that the only chance we have of a fair and peaceful future is to stay in and try and fix it.

I cannot for one second comprehend the idea of handing the future of Scotland to the near-certifiable Boris. This is the man whose economic model is that if you give the rich heaps of jam us serfs will be happy with what they spill, that if you give the rich enough biscuits then there are certain to be crumbs aplenty to keeps us overjoyed. I am waiting with bated breath to hear Boris quiz as to the existence of food banks by saying “let them eat cake”.

I know that Mr Sillars sees the future of Scotland as an independent nation but can Mr Sillars please tell us what happens to the farming industry, whisky industry and the rest when it has to pay tariffs to trade with the EU, and does he imagine that England will be giving us a tariff-free existence as reward for the break-up of the UK?

Neil Morison, Dornie, Kyle of Lochalsh

THE letter from Roddy MacNeill of East Kilbride on “More Democracy in EU than in Commons and Lords” is not quite comprehensive in its covering of the topic (Letters, June 17).

I agree with all that he had to say but wish to add that the fact of the EU Parliament being subject to “proportional representation” voting at election time, rather than “first past the post” as for Westminster’s House of Commons, means that it has that added democratic quality in result.

For example, no party or grouping could secure a majority unless singly or together they achieved more than 50 per cent of the EU votes cast, whereas Mr Cameron’s government is in power in the UK under “first past the post” principle on the basis of securing 37per cent of the votes cast at the last Westminster election to the House of Commons membership.

J F Petrie, Perthshire