YESTERDAY seemed to be all about taking a second referendum off the table. Might I remind everyone that this is not solely for Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP to decide.

There was a chance for David Cameron to avoid this when he was asked to ensure that all parts of the UK produced a majority for Leave before going ahead with Brexit. He refused. Now, the opportunity has existed since before Christmas for Theresa May to take it off the table, simply by acknowledging the different needs of Scotland and discussing seriously the proposals in our government’s document. That could still happen if she so chose. She still refuses.

And let us not forget that honouring fully all the promises of 2014 that achieved a No vote would have avoided the problem altogether. So who is to blame for this situation?

P. Davidson, Falkirk

I READ Rory Steel’s contribution in today’s National (Letters, June 14) with some interest. It is contradictory in many respects and proceeds on a number of false premises. These can be dangerous. Independence is not for a “socialist” Scotland. It is not for a “Tory” Scotland or a republican Scotland or a Buddhist Scotland or any other Scotland than an independent Scotland. That is a Scotland in which the people of Scotland by democratic process decide how and by whom they are governed. That is all.

There is a lazy misconception held by some that Scotland is a largely socialist country. It is not and never has been. Even at the height of the Labour (Red Tory) success in Scotland it never had a majority of the Scottish vote and the notion that most of the Labour support in Scotland is seriously socialist is simplistic and open to very considerable examination. Trident anyone?

Scotland in fact is a fairly socially conservative society but much more communalistic in most ways to the rest of the UK with a Labour vote concentrated in the ex-industrial heartlands and a majority aversion to that in much of the rest of the country. To imagine that we can ride to independence on the back of a socialist vote which has little or in many cases no appeal to a majority of the country is very weak judgement.

That is very different to believing a more just and indeed more socialist agenda will be the norm in an independent Scotland which I believe to be the case.

But surely recent events have shone some kind of light on the way forward. I confess my own culpability.

I was sailing happily along with most of us on the assumption that the collapsed Labour vote would come to us and we would carry most before us when that happened as we took on the Unionist Tories.

In fact we were entirely understandably targeting that vote in an attempt to reduce Labour to irrelevance – but this was at the expanse of lots of support from other areas of the political spectrum and when that Labour vote (which was largely coming to us as anti-Toryism, not support for independence) went back to source we had nowhere to go as we had made little effort to appeal to other non-Labour inclined votes in other parts of the country. That may be a simplistic view but it is largely valid.

It is also a validation of Harold MacMillan’s epitaph “Events, dear boy. Events,” and illustrates a sometimes dangerous difference between short term tactics and resilient long term strategy (ask Mrs May about that one).

We have to provide a vision of a better Scotland for all and when over 50 per cent of them (of whatever political persuasion) believe it will be better for them we will win independence.

To do so we campaign for independence continuously and the very last thing we do right now is capitulate to our enemy and take the demand for a referendum off the table. And, Rory, if I’m spared I’ll be fighting for a socialist Scotland in an independent one.

David McEwan, Hill Sandbank, Argyll

A LOT has been written and broadcast by salivating, ubiquitous Unionists about the “set back suffered by the SNP”. Let’s just get the election result in its proper perspective. No one believed that the SNP could retain every seat from the unprecedented 56 MPs won in 2015. This year, all three Unionist parties knew that they couldn’t fight the SNP on head office manifesto policies so they cynically fought the Scottish election on two phony fronts: no referendum and devolved issues.

On both of these they lost. Contrary to what you hear on BBC Scotland radio and television and the London press, the Tories did not win and Labour came third. The SNP had a majority. So who were the losers, the media? The establishment media hate Corbin and Sturgeon in equal measure and threw the kitchen sink at both but at great cost to themselves. Only people already poisoned by the tripe written by these papers will buy them. As for BBC Scotland, you will not be able to find any viewer or listener figures for individual politically orientated programmes including Reporting Scotland or Good Morning Scotland. I wonder why?

Mike Herd, Highland

CAROLINE Leckie (The National, June 12) and Cat Boyd (The National, June 13) plus articles in CommonSpace have said most of what we need to know and what The SNP needs to do next. Two years and nine months is easily enough time to come up with answers, principles and a vision for taking our struggle for independence forward and to celebrate the diversity of the movement that we need to win.

From June 9-10 the Labour Party recruited 150,000 new members (now at over 800,000) who were inspired by a progressive manifesto with a leader who at every turn confounded every one of his critics. The SNP were like a rabbit caught in headlights with its lacklustre campaign. However, enthusiasm for independence remains high. I just hope they learn from Corbyn that a radical programme will do so in a similar way. In 2014, we awoke the sleeping giant of the south which produced a movement led by Corbyn. Now it is our turn to learn from them. They have changed the rules. Blairism is dead. Red Tories no more! I see a lot of wiping egg off faces amongst Labour MSPs from whom we await apologies.

Tony Martin Gullane, East Lothian