THE latest proclamation from Tory governor general Alister Jack that Scotland will not be entitled to another independence referendum for at least a decade is positively Trumpian. While the world watches on in horror as the Mango Mussolini tries desperately and pathetically to hold onto power, the Tories have decided to copy him.

This should be a clarion call to the upper echelons of the SNP. Plan A has failed. The Tories may be derided refusing a referendum. This will not matter. Tories have no compunction about starving children. The Tories simply don’t care about democracy, they don’t care about mandates. They don’t have any moral right to deny Scotland a referendum.

However, the Tories will pay no political price for this refusal. They are relying on the SNP relying on legalistic constitutional methods. This has put the movement in a straight jacket. Trumpian Unionism needs to be confronted in a robust and forthright way.

Tory economic greed/incompetence has drowned the UK in debt. At some point they will introduce tax increases and austerity of £50 billion. The Tories want to respond to the unprecedented financial and economic collapse by building a dictatorial state. They are seeking to use the Brexit chaos to impose a form of draconian rule.

The Tories are being assisted by the impotent opposition of certain factions of the SNP. This is centred around Andrew Wilson and Pete Wishart. They talk a good game and issue hollow condemnations on Twitter. But that’s it. Everything has to be done “responsibly”. This approach wants to utilize independence to serve the same class interests of the Tories.

The case for independence should offer a radical break from Tory neoliberal orthodoxy.

Alan Hinnrichs

Dundee

THAT there are similarities between Trump and Johnson is inevitable: two men both ill-equipped and unsuited to the top job they wanted. Trump appeared to want to take on the big boys – Xi Jinping, Putin and belittle little Rocket Man – but sycophantic like, all the while craving and relishing those meetings, anywhere everywhere. How much has come to pass of true worth and for whom since those photo ops?

Who benefitted from the home and foreign policies over the last four years? Was it trickle down? Or did the old adage of the rich getting richer apply? The USA will have to dig deep to find socioeconomic growth and wellbeing for those most in need during Trump’s presidency. Benefits accrued from the Obama period weren’t acknowledged, any surge up to 2020 was followed by a record fall, a consequence of the pandemic. And the USA doesn’t even have Brexit to worry about!

But Scotland does and there’s still Johnson, Gove and Cummings. Johnson didn’t get his river-crossing Garden Bridge. Trump built (some) walls and an actual fence round the White House. Johnson prorogued Parliament. Trump was successful at his third attempt to enforce his law of travel bans, mostly but not exclusively aimed at Muslims.

Both relied on snappy, mainly empty slogans: bluff and bluster is something they share before even thinking of hair and comb overs.

Neither has handled the pandemic well nor intelligently from either the public health or financial health perspectives of their nations.

Let’s face it, the pandemic has deprived Johnson of his opportunities to appear on the world stage as another hyped up self-promoting populist leader, whilst “cutting off your nose” has seen him lose the EU platform.

So what about us? We are bound by Covid: social distancing, no enthusiasm-building marches, no live hustings, apparently neither debate nor decisions on currency, Scottish reserve saving banks, nor how to actually enact the sovereign will of the majority of the people.

There is even more need now to ensure constructive engagement with the grass roots to continue to build the pro-indy vote. Could there be a programme of voter registration? Local groups did that well enough, though uncoordinated, across Scotland in 2014!

Lacking mass media backing (in exception of The National and Sunday National), do we promote social media, indy blogs, podcasts to the best advantage? Where are billboards extolling Scottish produce, #KSTB versus the blatant creep of Union Jackery? Open reminders of our potential purchasing power?

Yes, money, crowdfunding, organising, taking a lead – but who has a strategy to harness the power that lies with us? For politicians of established and newbie pro-indy parties and movements take us foot soldiers for granted. The time is always right to demonstrate the determined will of the people.

Selma Rahman

Edinburgh

I AM yet again struck, but hardly surprised, by the arrogant and misguided authority with which the Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack, parrots the UK Government line that there should not be another independence referendum in Scotland “for a generation”.

This is straight out of the Donald Trump playbook and it is of course not for Mr Jack, Mr Johnson or any other UK Government minister to decide whether there should be another referendum north of the Border. We live in a democracy and this is a decision for the Scottish people. One can, however, recognise the Tory Government’s concerns, as over the course of the last few months opinion polls, now 12 in total, have shown that the majority of Scots are now in favour of independence.

Mr Jack and his colleagues need to remove their tin-ears and listen to what the Scottish people are saying. If the electorate decide that they wish to back another referendum, and they give the SNP an overall majority at the next Scottish Parliament election, then it would be foolish in the extreme for Westminster to ignore this.

Alex Orr

Edinburgh