OPENING various papers and checking social media over the weekend, I wasn’t surprised to see rather a lot of words like “reject”, “change”, “negotiate”, “shambles”, “basic” and “backstop” – and that was just the in relation to the Tory party in general and the embattled Prime Minister and her Cabinet in particular.

With the derisible situation of the PM fighting off a possible vote of no confidence coming from her own party, whilst at the same time Five In The Cabinet Go Fishing for potential amendments to take back to the EU, you have to ask: who’s got a plan, a real plan, any plan beyond the take-it-or-leave-it draft? Tory in-fighting is reaching new heights, Corbyn continues shilly-shallying as ever, with everything on the table, starting with Labour waiting for the Commons to reject May’s deal, so the answer is apparently neither of those two!

It has taken almost two years to “achieve” this draft, a document that the EU and rUK have agreed. Or rather the PM and her trusty stalwarts have agreed, since those 500 or so pages came as a surprise to the population, never mind the actual political parties. But hey, that’s negotiations. Keep them secret, then declare: “this is it, this or nothing, take it or leave it”. Now, then, post two years of negotiations, two Brexit Secretaries, Davies and Raab, both gone, there is a belief within five in the Cabinet that renegotiations with the EU are possible, presuming those five can agree amongst themselves, and that the PM allows them off the leash?

Sunday’s Andrew Marr TV show with the First Minister made it perfectly clear that Scotland’s government has a plan, one that it has been discussing cross-party (well, with those parties willing to engage) from the start: continued membership of the single market and customs union for all of the UK. With the omnishambles and agitation across rUK, this must be on the “table” for consideration for the future wellbeing, job security and recovery, post-austerity, of the UK. But will it win out against May and the increasing of her own Project Fear, the use of the threat – I concede she called it “the possibility” – of a “no Brexit”?

READ MORE: David Mundell refuses to deny Scots will be worse off under Theresa May's Brexit deal

Her way or no way is most definitely not the way. Especially since her way contained a special status for Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and Cyprus. And us?

Who cares? We do, but Westminster doesn’t. Whisper it very quietly: I doubt I have ever agreed with Mundell, but he was correct when he reminded us (and justified his not resigning) that “Scotland is part of the UK and not a partner in the UK”. If it is to be either the current draft, a no-deal Brexit, or something tinkered up by the five, Scotland will be the poorer. We know that.

Previously we were told that amongst other deficits, we were too poor to contemplate anything other than being better together, especially by those governing us from afar. Those very same people have reinforced their disregard and disdain for us yet again. They cannot be allowed to make us worse off through their inability to listen, engage, and negotiate for the whole good of (their vision of) the UK.

The FM told Marr she’d be making her announcement as and when. I am not alone, then, in believing that we in Scotland should determine our future, and that we should exercise that determination sooner rather than later.

Selma Rahman
Edinburgh

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I WAS very disappointed to see George Kerevan refer in yesterday’s edition of The National to people giving the Greens “their second preference votes” at Holyrood elections (SNP cannot afford to ignore Labour’s popularity among young Scots voters, November 19).

The election of list MSPs is not a matter of “second preference”; the additional member system is a mechanism for introducing some proportionality while retaining a constituency connection, and I would have expected George to know that.

Perhaps it would be useful for The National to publish a guide to the four (soon to be three) different voting systems used in Scotland, since even former elected representatives appear not to understand how these systems work.

S Fisk
East Ayrshire

READ MORE: The SNP cannot afford to ignore Labour's popularity among young Scots​

“I DON’T know.”

Seriously?

That was the Leader of the UK Opposition’s response to the current Brexit mess when questioned at the weekend on how he’d vote.

Yes, he’s been an embarrassing disaster from day one. Our own political vegetable astonishingly exhibited the kind of ego we heretofore associated with dear leader Tony Blair when, instead of interpreting his surprise election as the party calling for a left-wing leader, he interpreted it as “my people have been waiting for me

all these decades and now they are truly blessed”.

Jez is a barely closeted Europhobe whose ideas about Europe – like his ideas about pretty much everything else – are stuck somewhere in the 1970s, but dear lord – can he still not get it? Is that possible?

“I don’t know.”

The best that can be said about that statement is – he is speaking the absolute and ongoing truth…

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

READ MORE: Corbyn: Second vote on Brexit is 'not an option for today'​

I DON’T normally say that I feel sorry for people, but I do have sympathy with our friends south of the Border who, faced with Brexit chaos, have no real opposition to speak for them.

Jeremy Corbyn has publicly said that, after more than two years of negotiation, he does not know how he would vote if there was a second referendum.

This does not speak well of his ability to make decisions in a crisis, where fast and decisive decision-making may be required.

No wonder the Scottish people are ever more in favour of being in control of their own destiny.

Pete Rowberry
Duns