SO Boris Johnson and his Cabinet of Brexit ghouls are now propagandising about an “Australian-style deal”. This in reality is a hard Brexit. They have simply rebranded it.

What this means will be mass suffering for the population.

There will be shortages of vital medicines. This is the conclusion of the Tory Government’s own Yellowhammer impact papers. This is not speculative or fearmongering. It’s undeniable fact.

The same papers also showed food supplies will be affected, with price rises that will disproportionately impact those on the lowest income. Again, these are facts based on UK Government’s own forecasts. Not rosy Tory propaganda based on nostalgia for Empire.

Permission will be required to take lorries from the UK into Europe. In the event of a “No Deal” scenario, the UK would be limited to just 3000 trucks per day. That represents 5% of the current number of 30,000 that make the crossing daily.

In the event of No Deal, then World Trade Organisation rules apply. The WTO has 10% tariffs for cars being sent abroad. As the UK is part of the EU, it is currently zero. On shoes and clothes, the tariffs are 12%. Under the EU it’s zero. On beef, WTO tariffs in some areas are 90%. This alone will decimate the agricultural sector.

Again, these are the facts.

Not the lies of the Tories. The problem is Boris Johnson. He is a blethering clown. His whole life he has lied about everything to everyone. This incompetent buffoon is good only for amusement. It’s an absolute godsend that this imbecile is the face of the Unionist cause in Scotland.

Alan Hinnrichs

Dundee

IN what seems like an eternity ago, the UK electorate decided that it did not want its elected leaders to share UK sovereignty with other EU national leaders and decide what EU legislative principles should be put in place across the EU.

In addition, they voted for the centres of excellence in the UK not to get involved in looking into the detailed requirements of such principles, for onward transmission to the EU Commission, and furthermore not to take part in the EU Commission work to generate the required EU directives.

To complete the job of taking back control, they voted to remove themselves from the EU Parliament, which vetoes directives it disagrees with, and they also voted to distance themselves from the European Court of Justice, which has the task of determining whether the national implementation of such EU directives is in keeping with what the national leaders, the Commission, the national experts, and the EU Parliament were seeking.

Clearly, these UK voters will simply not accept the notion of not taking part in the decision and implementation process, yet still following the sovereign will(s) of the EU, as otherwise there would have been no point in Brexit, and Boris Johnson well knows this.

So, the transition dance routine to date has not really been about getting a deal, where each leader is obliged to demonstrate a win for their nation(s) or the EU as a whole, but not getting a deal, where each leader and the EU collectively must demonstrate that it was not their fault, or indeed in their electorate’s interest.

The final curtain approaches to this dance routine, and there are now only really two serious issues left for the UK as a whole to deal with: the optimum level of GBP devaluation to provide a stable base for future inward investment, and whether the relatively unmanaged market agrees with this level of devaluation.

As for Scotland, while the GDP devaluation will have substantive impacts – good, bad, mixed, and indifferent – the big decision to be made is whether January 1 is to be defined to the Scottish electorate as day one of Scotland’s re-accession to the EU as an independent EU nation state.

Stephen Tingle

Greater Glasgow

WELL said Alastair Naughton in Thursday’s National! I cannot understand at all why we are still waiting for “permission” being given to decide our own future.

I have thought all along that the direction of the UN was the answer. The different reasons “why we don’t need a Section 30” order are continually stated and yet, here we are, still a country “waiting” for one to take our country and our lives to a better future. I compare this to joining a gym. After many months or years of rarely using the gym, you decide that it’s just not for you. Also, the equipment is a bit past its best and the staff and members aren’t very nice.

At the reception desk, you explain this to the receptionist as you attempt to cancel your membership. They reply that they understand but that you just aren’t allowed to leave until they give you permission and that you just have to remain a paying member. Even if you don’t come back.

You couldn’t make this up and it’s high time we stopped waiting around and got world organisations on our side, publicly!

Marie McIlwham

Glasgow

WE are now beginning to realise the consequences of failing to reach a deal with the EU, one which we were assured by Liam Fox was the easiest he had ever known, and the insistence of Boris Johnson that the deal was oven ready. The economic consequences will be tragic, not for the rich and well connected, who will continue to prosper, but for ordinary people; inflation, food and medicine shortages, and tariffs which will damage our industries.

If some good could come from the Brexit farce, it would be the realisation that almost all the major issues that the world faces; climate change, pollution, over-population, ill-health, poverty and racial and religious intolerance, cannot be dealt with by nation states following their own selfish agenda.

While we have a regime in England which believes that these issues are best addressed by the free market, isolation and nationalism, we will never achieve enlightenment.

Pete Rowberry

Duns