THE result in Peterborough is a timely warning to Scots in one way, but a salutary relief in an other way.
The EU election result showed we here will have no truck with Brexit or the Brexit Party.
If ever there should be a jolt to Scots who were blinded by Better Together with its lies and Vows about the Precious Union, then look now at the portents waiting to erupt on the Westminster scene as the Tory hopefuls now try to outdo the Brexit Party. The Tories got 46% of the vote in 2017 and 21% in the by-election, for Labour it was respectively 48% and 31% and the Brexit Party 29%! All chaos down south!
The Tory panic had even begun before the result was known. Dominic Raab was boasting he would be “resolute” and would prorogue Parliament so that it would not sit until after October 31. Hence, no deal! The Leader of the House was insisting that the new Tory leader would fix it so that Parliament would be in recess when the new party leader was elected to avoid an immediate vote of no confidence! A foretaste of an assault on democracy!
Tory Brexit Party clone or Brexit Party in power will mean the same: no deal. Trump’s jackboot scourge in the new Special Relationship means simply a US assault and occupation in sinister form. A former Tory councillor in Edinburgh, Ashley Graszyk, recently wrote in the Sunday National that the Precious Union, the UK of 2014, “is no more”!
The official Unionist branch parties north of the Tweed need to drop the pretence that we are Better Together in a post-Brexit Union!
The ba’ is up amang the slates noo fur Engerland. Dinnae let that happen here tae!
John Edgar
Kilmaurs
I HAVE just put Tuesday June 18 at 8pm in my diary. It’s to make sure I am out of the house and will not see, even by accident, the BBC’s programme Our Next Prime Minister on BBC1. It is billed as the “first TV debate between Tory hopefuls vying to be the next party leader and the country’s new PM”. So by implication of it being the “first” of these debates, more will be certain to follow.
What is the point of these? The public have no input into this process, only Tory MPs and then party members have a vote, so why should we be inflicted with these arrogant, equally horrible folk for even a second of TV time? Frankly I would rather watch Jeremy Kyle. Actually there would be certain similarities as the warring dysfunctional Tory family members argue among themselves.
Perhaps the Yes campaign or the SNP could organise a night of leafleting and canvassing action to coincide with this nonsense.
Brian Lawson
Paisley
I FREQUENTLY read articles and letters in the National highlighting austerity, poverty, food banks etc.
Today I read about people queueing overnight for the opportunity to purchase the latest trainers, at £180 a pair. Apparently amidst the poverty we have some people with more money (than sense?) than they need to live comfortably, who are happy to pay this sort of money for an item which cost buttons to make, as the poor sods who make them are working for next to nothing. This occurred in Glasgow and Newcastle among other places – cities not particularly well known for affluence. Seems the problem isn’t the availability of money, but the way it’s spread around. THAT’S what we need to address in an independent Scotland!!!
Barry Stewart
Blantyre
THE farce that FMQs have become because of the behaviour of the three London-based and controlled parties in our parliament has never been more obvious than it was in the session taken by John “No prisoners” Swinney on Thursday.
Nicola Sturgeon has always treated the garbage spouted in the speeches made by the gang of three as genuine questions. John Swinney did not and it highlighted just how pathetic these so-called questions have become.
Researchers somewhere in their party headquarters gather statistics on devolved matters and the gang of three then present them so they appear to show the Scottish Government is a total failure in every area, week by week, drip-feeding the public in conjunction with the media.
It might not be so bad if their parties, the Tory government in England and Labour in Wales, were outperforming the SNP in Scotland in these areas, but this is rarely if ever the case.
The EU Parliamentary elections appear to confirm that Scottish voters have become fed up with the three parties in their parliament that are totally controlled from their UK party headquarters.
The fact these parties do not even have the power to produce policies of their own on matters that have been devolved to the parliament to which they have been elected, and the inability of their MPs in Westminster to put Scotland first, may be influencing this drift away from them at the ballot box.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
INSULTING someone’s intelligence is offensive and a very risky strategy, as it pre-supposes an intellectual superiority over your listener. We have now been informed by “a UK Government spokesman” that “the role of Secretary of State for Scotland is to champion Scottish interests at the heart of government and to strengthen Scotland’s place in the UK.”
Ye Gods! Does this “spokesman” actually believe that lickspittle Mundell has at any time in his glittering tenure “championed” Scottish interests, and does he, in his obviously fevered imagination, believe that Mundell has at any time been “near the heart of government”?
If so, I suggest that he stops insulting our intelligence and stays on his own planet.
Joe Cowan
Balmedie
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