WHAT does it say when the PM stands up in Westminster for what is laughingly called Prime Minister’s Questions, coming as it does without real answers, and she has to listen to a call for her resignation coming not from the so-called opposition benches but from her own side? Interesting times or farcical ones? The latter I think.

Irrespective, then, of any mayhem elsewhere, we dare not take our eye off the prize here, independence. And just for once, can we please pay a wee regard to the Tories? Yes, them. They are destroying themselves from the inside out.

And no matter how they spin it, Labour aren’t faring all that better. Corbyn saw traditional Labour areas swing not to Ukip but to Greens and Independents.

Though the local elections were bad enough for those two parties and their leaders, we have to remember that those elections aren’t an end in their own right, since there is the little matter of the EU elections to contend with. So how do they, can they, campaign with the unfinished business that is Brexit and a deal?

May may have the urgency of a deal, her deal, any deal, hanging over her. After all, her pension is secure, but her legacy isn’t. If she were to secure some deal with the support of Labour, then that Tory self-destruction is virtually guaranteed. Labour’s reaction to rescuing the Tories would presumably see a large proportion of their MPs, front and back benchers, finally “grow some” and potentially refuse to help get the deal through the Commons.

Surely a Tory-Labour stitch-up would come unstitched in the Commons. But in the interim, what do they tell potential voters come campaigning? Are they prepared to see their constituents in rUK high tailing it to the Greens, LibDems, Change, and the extreme far right? Farcical indeed, verging into frightening. After all, we could see Farage, Yaxley-Lennon and their cohorts as MEPs. In all of this if any reminder of why we need independence is required, let us remember that as a nation, within an unequal union, we return a mere six MEPs.

We need to get the pro-indy vote out. Did we miss a trick on that glorious Saturday in Glasgow, or were we promoting voter registration as we weaved through the streets? Did everyone get their registration papers in on time earlier this week? I hope so, because every opportunity we have to show how determined we are, how powerful the push for indy, we need to use it. It’s time to increase increase our pro-indy MEPs.

Let binary party politics create and implement their own self-destruction, not just due to Brexit and their past failures. The current lack of policies and vision for the future of rUK from both Tories and Labour, the political in-fighting over future leaders all aid their undoing. Let them get on with that. We know what we have to get on with, so please, let’s start with the EU elections and leave self-defeating tactics to “the others”.

Selma Rahman
Edinburgh

TORY ministers have generally said: “We have consistently been clear that when we leave the European Union, we leave the Common Fisheries Policy. That means under international law we become an independent coastal state and we will manage the fisheries resources in our exclusive economic zone and manage access to our own waters.”

Full return of our coastal fishing waters presents the most economically sustainable opportunity.

Protecting our valuable sea beds from destructive trawling could encourage only small-scale sustainable fishing methods and result in thousands of possibly self-employed jobs into the future.

This is probably the one and only chance to begin to recover thousands of square miles of sea beds previously damaged by destructive trawling.

The Law of the Sea Convention establishes a general duty to protect and preserve the marine environment in Article 192 and clearly requires in Article 194(5) measures to be taken to protect and preserve rare or fragile ecosystems as well as the habitat of depleted, threatened or endangered species and other forms of marine life.

An Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is a concept adopted at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (1982), whereby a coastal state assumes jurisdiction over the exploration and exploitation of marine resources in its adjacent section of the continental shelf, taken to be a band extending 200 miles from shore. States are required to take into account the interdependence of stocks and effects on associated and dependent species when managing stocks.

What is needed is for campaigners in all coastal communities to make themselves heard urgently and hold all our Westminster MPs to account, before Teresa May once again sells regional interests off for London benefits.

Ernie Hasler
Old Kilpatrick

THERE is a well-known saying in advertising, “there is no such thing as bad publicity!” I am concerned with the amount of coverage being given to the return of Ruth the mooth to politics, in The National, even though it isn’t necessarily positive.

Yesterday’s front page is no exception and this could put off many casual National buyers. Unionist newspaper buyers won’t buy it anyway because the paper supports independence, but they may well be cheered at seeing her face being so prominently displayed in The National and thereby keeping her front and foremost in the EU election campaign.

This campaign is over a very short time period and it is clear what strategy the Tories are up to, the same as 2017. Keep the Tory leader’s face and utterances in the public’s mind as widely as possible, because they have no policies for the EU election, or for Scotland and her future.

In my opinion for the run-up to the EU election, we should concentrate on getting across Nicola Sturgeon’s positive message for Scotland’s future as an independent European country, to win the maximum number of seats. This is the way to convince the many Conservative Remain voters in Scotland to vote positively for the future of our country.

Gavin Scott Moncrieff
Isle of Eigg