MANY commentators in the press (down south) and on the Continent refer increasingly to the country as a global “joke” given the Brexit farce and antics recently in Westminster. But which country?

It is noticeable that the antics emanate predominantly from the English and DUP MPs in their gadarene rush for the cliff edge.

With the army being brought into the equation, one must suspect that there are more sinister reasons why this is being done. Put down unrest? A prelude to state of emergency being declared and martial law? Theresa May is the “darkest” of persons to occupy the post of Home Secretary. Beware, the British state will do anything to enforce its jackboot!

The SNP phalanx has been a model of seriousness and decisive action culminating in the action leading to the ECJ’s judgment on Article 50.

Are we Scots “better together” now in this Greater England? The incorporating Union aka UK is a misnomer. We must be realistic now. The Union is just a cover for an increasingly Anglo-riven chaos leading to a no-deal. As Theresa May’s deal is now a bad deal, the former chant “no deal is better than a bad deal” is uppermost once again.

Leave the House of Commons to its antics, archaic drivel and chaos. The Union is holed below the waterline. We must not let “that lot” in the Commons, the May-Corbyn duopoly, destroy Scotland.

John Edgar
Kilmaurs

THERE I was enjoying my Christmas morning breakfast, and I almost choked on my bacon when on the news there was Ben Wallace MP, security minister, telling us equipment that will allow detection of drones is to be provided at all UK airports. Yet a week ago this Tory government told us that no such equipment existed. Obviously after a quick call to the North Pole, Santa and his elves managed to use their fantastic magic to produce these devices in a beyond belief record time!

Who do they think they’re kidding? Many of us know that this equipment was available at the time of the Gatwick fiasco, for it’s installed at many European, American and other airports worldwide. I hope Wallace and the rest of his Tory buddies don’t think that they can lie their way out of this one. More importantly, what are they and the “gutter press” going to do to reinstate the good names of Paul Gait and Elaine Kirk, whose lives and home were ransacked in full view of the media? Did they learn nothing from the Cliff Richard fiasco? I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping that they sue the pants off the offending papers.

Charlie Gallagher
Sullom, Shetland

THE National has published a series of articles on the “hostile environment” experienced by people who want to bring in a spouse from a third country.

My son, who is a Dutch-Irish national, sponsored his long-time American girlfriend. The first application was refused. At the appeal process the Home Office representative argued that my son didn’t have settled status in the UK, despite being Irish and despite living in Scotland for more than20 years.Thankfully the judge threw this argument out.

Looking around us in the tribunal waiting room it was obvious how lucky our children were: both families supporting them; having the money to employ a immigration lawyer, having knowledge of the system and the appeal process. Many in the waiting room were not so fortunate.

Trudy Wigman
Crook of Devon, Kinross-shire

THIS year I spent Christmas in the Republic of Ireland with my in-laws. Four of my five brothers-in-law have partners from all around the world – USA, Spain, Japan, Sicily – and they have managed to do something that would have been unthinkable to their parents’ generation.

These four young men have all persuaded their partners/wives – who are all outstanding people – to move to Ireland, put down roots and begin families, having promised them at least as good a life – economic, political and social – as they could expect to live in the countries of their birth.

It is my firm belief that an independent Scotland, setting its own economic and social policies based on the needs and desires of its citizens, would be able to offer at least as good a guarantee to all its citizens, including “new Scots” from wherever they come.

David Patrick
Edinburgh

AT the risk of being labelled a trainspotter – the usual term of abuse for anyone who takes an interest in the technicalities of rail transport – I must express my disappointment at the simplifications of Monday’s Long Letter. The letter implies that nationalisation is a solution to the problems associated with ScotRail’s “new” inter-city service carriages, but these carriages were in fact built by the nationalised British Rail in the 1970s. Whatever their defects in relation to today’s inclusiveness issues, they remain the last trains built in the UK to a specification rather than to a price, to the benefit of most passengers.

The basic idea of shortened HST trains for inter-city services has been in use in Australia since the 1980s, while versions of BR trains exported to the Irish

Republic in that same period were fitted with disabled-friendly doors. Any shortcomings real or perceived in ScotRail’s so-called “new” trains are therefore more attributable to a national culture in which transport policy neglects railways and exalts road building. If our railways had had a fraction of the attention and investment lavished on roads in the last 40 years, the author of the long letter would have nothing to complain about.

A nationalised railway only delivers results in a nation which values railways!

Andrew McCracken
Grantown on Spey