I AM afraid that, from the moment Theresa May waved her “deal in our time”, I have been almost certain that somehow, despite the total opposition from all sides, she would still get it through the Parliament. Perhaps it is just cynicism, but my long life has taught me that, for Tories, when it comes to a choice between their power and political career and making a stand for principle, principle will be ditched.

We are at that crunch point now and Theresa May is playing a very clever, if devious, (under)hand.

I believe the ECJ ruling, coming immediately ahead of the expected vote on her deal, confirmed her pre-emptive course of action to head off the option of delaying Article 50 to allow a People’s Vote. Had she gone ahead as planned, that ruling might have seen amendments vote down “no deal”, leaving a choice between her deal and a People’s Vote. So she deliberately created a delay and if she can continue to stretch this out, many of the dissenters in her own party will finally realise that time is too short for new options and will fall into line over her deal to save their own skins.

So where does this scenario leave our chances of independence? There is too little time for a referendum before we leave the EU and the public are totally scunnered with political machinations. Perhaps we should be looking at a completely different way for progressing our ambitions. To this end, certain questions need answered.

Firstly, I believe the 1707 treaty allows for either signatory simply to decide to leave. Is this the case? Secondly, has Westminster not broken a number of the conditions of that treaty? We still do not have a Scottish Mint. Scots Law was protected in perpetuity, yet decisions by the Supreme Court, a part of English Law, overrule the Scottish Court of Session. Legal minds can probably find a few more examples. I suspect that the treaty has been surreptitiously broken many times and should therefore be regarded as rescinded, by England.

As a footnote regarding a national anthem mentioned in your Sunday edition, what could better describe Scotland’s desire to be part of the wider world on the basis of friendship, co-operation and respect than Burns’s “A Man’s a Man… Should our motto not be the determination and hope ...that man to man the whole world o’er shall brothers be for a’ that”?

L McGregor
Falkirk

DIRK Bolt certainly put across the Brexit argument very well and his observations on how other parliamentary processes throughout Europe would not have gone down the “first past the post” route (Letters, Dec 27).

But we need to be very careful. The SNP among others are pushing for a “People’s Vote” on Brexit and again I fear this is a dangerous precedent.

As indyref2 is a possibility in the near future I want it to be as straight forward as the Brexit vote – a first past the post system. If we persist with pushing for a second vote on Brexit what’s to stop the Unionists doing the same thing after indyref2?

We should let Westminster get on with it and watch it crash and burn, not run to its aid by suggesting another rerun. The Scottish people will make their own mind up by seeing the disaster unfolding in the next few months. I say let it happen, it will only strengthen the independence argument.

Iain McEwan
Troon

READ MORE: Claims that a ‘clear majority’ voted to leave EU are false

I MUST disagree with Iain Ramsay over his criticism of the EU in its attitude to the Catalonian crisis (Letters, December 24). Contrary to the propaganda we have been regularly fed over the years by Westminster, I believe that the EU constitutionally cannot and does not interfere directly in the sovereign and/or constitutional affairs of its independent member states, unless asked to do so from within that state.

As Spain is treating this matter as a constitutional one, the EU has no legal right voluntarily to interfere, but I understand that an approach has now been made to the European Court from within Catalonia as part of Spain, which may now justify that “interference” going forward and therefore allow Ramsay’s points to be progressed.

Perhaps Ramsay’s views are understandably the result of the years of propaganda from successive Westminster governments blaming the EU for anything and everything they do which they think the public will not like.

READ MORE: Letters, December 24  

P Davidson
Falkirk

I WAS sitting quietly on Christmas Eve reading Carolyn Leckie’s article (Forget party politics and put these women first) when I discovered a startling fact.

Leckie tells us that in October 2004 she was at a Scottish Socialist Party Rally on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill calling for “an independent Scottish republic based on the principles of liberty, equality, diversity and solidarity”. What startled me was that one of the keynote speakers was Adam Tomkins, the same one who is now a Tory MSP for Glasgow. He is currently complaining that Glasgow City Council equal pay for women should be paid by the Scottish Government, and not by putting any of Glasgow’s buildings up for rent.

Tomkins also wanted the SNP government to up the wages of the wealthy as well, but doesn’t say where the money should be taken from. The equal pay for women was strongly resisted by Labour, aided and abetted by the GMB, and only agreed when the SNP won control of Glasgow City Council. The women, aided by the GMB, went on strike earlier this month to try an speed the payment up, and lost wages.

I do not know when Tomkins found his Road to Damascus, but it looks as if it has ended in a dead end.

Jim Lynch
Edinburgh