UNLIKE real fog, the Tory/Ukip/Brexit Party/Reform UK/DUP Brexit fog over the Channel looks to have been constantly and unrelentingly thickening over recent weeks, but presumably in the minds of the Brexiters, a price worth paying, for isolating the United Kingdom of Great Britain from the continent and its wicked “free movement of people” ways.

So, the EU with its customs union and single market supply chains, will now operate largely to a current “just in time” delivery, for immediate use, methodology, and the UK will largely operate on an “order, supply, store and use” methodology, proven to be perfectly adequate in some past decade.

EU-based trade and retail operations may of course choose to be generally inclusive of the retro trade practices proposed by the UK, which are more costly, or instead generally keep and retain its current “just in time” practices, albeit with new EU suppliers.

The impact of this on Scotland’s export market should not be understated, nor the immediate need for direct transport connections to both EU islands and the EU continent. Perhaps such a costly commitment should be sanctioned by the electorate at the Holyrood 2021 elections, via detailed manifesto commitments or otherwise, related to Scotland becoming an independent EU nation state.

Stephen Tingle
Greater Glasgow

VOTE Tory, get UKIP!

With Michelle Ballantyne’s “ascension” to the leadership of Nigel Farage’s UK Reform Party in Scotland, and Brian Monteith waiting in the wings, it is clear that the Tory Party in Scotland is following the path of Boris Johnson and the Tory Party in England in becoming more ‘right-wing’.

Of course this is essentially the same hitherto successful path of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the USA where a more competent and astute statesman would have ‘democratically’ remained in power while Government in the USA swung even further to the right.

No doubt the Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland, and its ‘leader’ Douglas Ross, will strongly deny that the Tory Party is moving further to the right, but historically across Europe and beyond such denials have invariably proven to be ‘deceiving’. The people of Scotland have learned from the past and will not be duped or seduced by assurances and promises of Douglas Ross, or those of his ‘master’, Boris Johnson!

Stan Grodynski
East Lothian

WHY, in 2021, are citizens in the UK that have fallen on hard times, for whatever reason, having to rely on charity to feed themselves and their family? Why, during these days when we open our curtains in the morning to be confronted by hard white frost outside and plummeting temperatures, do those without the wherewithal to do so, are unable to heat their homes to a reasonably comfortable level? Of course I could go on and on but these two very basic human requirements should absolutely be a “given” in such a rich place as the UK.

Well of course the answer to these two questions is they don’t have enough money, obviously. So where has all the money gone in this rich UK? It’s surely time to stop talking about big global corporations but to drill all this down to individual human beings.

At a time when millions of families throughout the UK are pretty near the breadline we have to be totally honest and acknowledge that there are many, many people, who if their income stream was stopped tomorrow, they and their families (and in many cases their descendants for some considerable period of time) could still live a very comfortable lifestyle for the rest of their days. Some might say they deserve the position they have attained due to hard work, great entrepreneurial flair, being brilliant at kicking a football about, etc (you get my drift). Basically at doing what needs to be done to play the capitalist game to maximise the benefits for themselves and their families.

Well, I have a theory. There is a massive, humungous much talked about, money tree out there. Those most adept at the capitalist game, the billionaires, have first dibs (although once they have filled their overflowing pockets they will, I can assure you, be back for more). Then it’s the multi millionaires, then the mere mortal millionaires, and so on down the rungs of society until those on the rungs at the bottom have to scrabble over the dwindling coins lying around the tree trunk.

My idea of an independent Scotland is where no matter how brilliant anyone is at playing the capitalist game they cannot plunder our Scottish money trees in such a way where there is damn all for the rest of us. These trees are for the benefit of all in society and need to be carefully managed and nurtured and anyway, they help the environment!”

Ivor Telfer
Fife

THE disgrace of ‘free’ school meals in England. Boris admitted that the pictures shown on social media were a disgrace and was grateful to Marcus Rashford for his campaigning and highlighting this.

However Keir Starmer was able to read out from the Governments own Guidance on school meals:

  • lOne loaf of bread
  • Two baking potatoes
  • Block of cheese
  • Baked beans
  • Three yogurts
  • Tin of sweetcorn
  • Packet of ham
  • Bottle of milk

This is the recommendation example for FIVE days schools meals and my first though is will that bread, yogurt, ham and milk still be safe to eat in five days.

These contracts are given by local authorities to private companies – and the picture on Social Media is called a ‘food hamper’ suppose to be in value £30 but contains food probably worth around £5.

Then we find out that Chartwell is part of the Compass Group and its former boss is Paul Walsh a multimillionaire Tory donor and Dominic Blakemore the current CEO of Chartwell earned £4.6m in 2019.

I then looked at the calendar thinking we have morphed back to Victorian times but no it is 2021 and we still have the tories handing out contracts to there friends and donors and very willing to take food out of the mouths of children to enhance their own profits – self-serving conservatives is the only polite way I can describe them.

Winifred McCartney
Paisley

DOESN’T Chris Duffy’s position that the only way we can achieve independence is at the ballot box in a referendum that both sides have committed to respect (Letters, January, 12) have serious flaws?

First, doesn’t his premise deny Scotland its nationhood status, its alleged position as a “partner” in the UK union, its claim of right acknowledged by the Westminster parliament itself, and Scots’ fundamental right to determine their own governance?

Second, by playing the restricting Westminster game alone, doesn’t his premise consign us to certain defeat, because the Prime Minister holds the power of veto. How is it in any way tenable in an alleged democracy for such control to be acceptable, where in the face of intransigence there is no allegedly “legal” way round this?

Joanna Cherry may be wrong in appearing to align the drive for Scottish independence with that of Ireland’s. I actually read her offering as her suggesting we will likely need to think outside Westminster’s carefully restricted box if we are to succeed, rather than as a direct historical parallel.

In the face of such Westminster intransigence, doesn’t the likely solution really lie in history, not the contemporary? If a referendum is refused after an independence supporting result at the election in May, then shouldn’t we be addressing the original Treaty of Union in 1707 and establishing our legitimacy from that? We’ve been told we are “partners” in union, doesn’t acknowledging this clearly establish our right to ownership and democratic determination of our futures?

Scotland is a nation, bonded to an overbearing “partner”. The world knows this, and I’ve no doubt they will formally recognise it when asked. Our struggle may have a different starting point to those of the near 60 other territories that have successfully broken away from London, but our rights are no less legitimate and equal.

Don’t we need to highlight the democratic deficit being inflicted on us by Westminster and its unionist politicians and scream it internationally from the highest rooftops to bring the highest diplomatic pressure to bear on those democracy deniers holding power over us?

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

WITHIN the last few weeks the “UK” Westminster Government has rushed through extremely worrying procedures.

First of all they have enabled the re-introduction of the use of neonicotinoids in farming insecticides despite them being known to kill bees and other pollinating insects on farms, in the wild environment and in gardens. And so in fact these neonicotinoids endanger our entire ecosystems and resultantly our entire food chain.

Additionally the “UK” Government is also entering crop genetic modification consultation.

Both of these practices are banned in Europe as being unsafe, however now that the “UK” has left the EU and is no longer a partner to its standards and regulations we already have red flag signals of a lowering of environmental and food safety standards within the “UK”.

Should we not be very concerned about a race to the bottom in terms of food standards, animal welfare and our health?

Could it be that these “initiatives” are in fact “UK” Government sweeteners to pave the way for Trade Deals with the likes of the USA, which has lower food standards than those of the EU we have been taken out of and which we now seem to be abandoning in the search of straws to clutch at?

Chlorinated chicken is a highly publicised possibility – but it’s very much only a harbinger of what may well be brought to our tables via Trade Deals which are NOT scrutinised in Westminster and so not allowed to be in our Scottish Parliament or the Welsh & Northern Irish Assemblies.

Please be aware and do what you can to address these issues.”

James Dippie
Dalry

WHILE noting that new Members of the House of Lords are being appointed, I was reminded by a tale from Dr Robert McIntyre about his campaign for Motherwell in 1945, when he won that seat in a by election.

At one meeting a heckler asked “Will the candidate get peyed?”. Robert said no, but as he was a doctor he would be able to survive. The heckler responded “Weel, how can we expect the candidate to look after our affairs when he clearly canna look efter his ain?”

It is something I did not think about at all, but the only people who could afford to get elected were those with private means, and from the Tory and Liberal classes.

As Gilbert and Sullivan put it, “Every little girl and every little boy who is born into this world alive, is either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative”

Anyway, they now get paid, but there are more in the unelected House of Lords than in the Parliament – all right for some if your face fits.

Jim Lynch
Edinburgh

The FM asks that we do not try to push the boundaries of what we can do, instead should we not, on wakening healthy each day, ask what we can do to make sure the same thing happens next day.

M Ross
Aviemore

Gavin Brown (Letters, January 14) is right to suggest that Ian Blackford should give Johnston a taste of his own medicine by mis-naming the Conservative and Unionist Party as ‘Nationalist’. However using that term misses the point that nationalism can sometimes be inclusive and outward-looking, unlike Brexit nationalism. Maybe a more cutting name-call would be the ‘Colonial and Unionist Party’.

Derek Ball
Bearsden