We don’t need lessons about no-deal from a zombie prime minister

This is the woman who treated with contempt a sensible proposal from the Scottish Government, more than two years ago, which would have allowed the UK Government to exit the EU while retaining a place in the single market and resolving the Irish border question around a Norway-type deal.

May ignored this Scottish proposal and offered nothing but gratuitous insults to the Scottish Government and the SNP for their efforts.

Then she danced to the tune of the extreme Brexit gang on the Tory right and claimed “no deal is better than a bad deal” Now she comes crawling back to Scotland to lecture us on how terrible a no-deal Brexit will be. The Scottish people know that, they knew it from the beginning and long before she did, so where does she get the brass neck to come up here lecturing?

We, in Scotland, do not need any advice from her on Brexit, or on anything else, I’m sure we can manage just fine without her or the UK Government. We will need to act to save our country and economy from the disaster which now seems to be confronting the UK.

I have been a supporter of Scottish independence for many years and voted for it at the referendum. I expect, however, that many Scots who did not take that view then may well now see that Scotland can go down with that sinking ship or take another more sensible path.

What never fails to surprise me, although it should not because I have seen it so many times before, is how the British nationalists treat everyone else with disrespect yet expect respect and support from them. A classic example of this is how the Brexit Party representatives in the European Parliament turned their backs on the anthem – once again in a display of gratuitous insult to the other representatives – while they are supposed to be seeking agreement from the EU countries to save the UK economy from the economic disaster of a no deal. How this arrogance is supposed to win friends and influence people I fail to understand.

Andy Anderson
Saltcoats

IT is indeed welcome news that there is solid movement towards a majority for independence (Majority of Scottish Remain voters now back independence, July 2). And this may seem like an endorsement of the SNP leadership’s current strategy, which is to dismiss the valid concerns of Scots Leave voters over sovereignty and the economic policy of the EU as mere collateral damage.

However, this leaves a hardcore of 30% pro-independence anti-EU voters, unchanged since 2016, upon which the success of the next independence referendum will definitely rest. The imperative to get maximum consensus amongst Yes supporters demands that the SNP leadership drops its uncritical support for the EU.

A no-deal Brexit on October 31 will be the political cold shower the SNP leadership requires because there will then be a realisation that a no-deal England alongside an EU Scotland will create a hard border which will be bad for Scottish jobs, trade, and commerce.

Cllr Andy Doig (Independent)
Renfrewshire Council

THE actions by the Brexit Party leader and his stooges facing the wall during the EU anthem is surely the final insult that these obsequious individuals can render to us here in Scotland.

They do not represent Scotland and Scots who voted to remain in the EU. No doubt our EU friends will be glad to see them gone after Brexit, but the final irony would surely be if Article 50 were revoked and these nasties would have to continue!!

However, the EU’s representatives, in particular José Manuel Barroso, former President of the European Commission, must be squirming now having been led by the nose by Cameron to attack us during indyref1 and support Better Together. How they and he must feel now to see that Better Together has brought about a scenario where Scotland’s definitive vote to remain in the EU has been thwarted. So now you can start to stand up for Euro-positive Scotland.

The EU must ensure now that Scotland is fast-tracked into membership when the UK of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ceases to exist. In fact, as other nations from the former (United) Yugoslavia and Czechs and Slovaks who separated from Czechoslovakia were admitted, there is no reason now to consider the UK sacrosanct as the English and Welsh vote took the UK out.

No doubt the Anglophiles – or phools – on the continent will be reassessing their past folly in the light of the Faragists at Strasbourg and the chaotic state of the UK Government and leadership stramash at Westminster.

John Edgar
Kilmaurs

WOW. If Boris wins it seems that “proper Irn-Bru will return to the shelves” (Ross Thomson backs Boris Johnson’s sugar tax and Irn Bru U-turn, thenational.scot, Jul 3). It makes you wonder what other healthy innovations we could see reversed. Perhaps next week it will be a promise of the return of smoking in public places, cuts in alcohol and tobacco taxes, followed closely by the repeal of seat belt legislation, and free school meals. Health and safety at work could also be a casualty (pun intended).

There will of course be lots of room available on the supermarket shelves of post-Brexit Britain. Missing will be a whole range of healthy products that cannot find their way easily through the tariff walls and traffic queues at the Channel ports, and local Scottish produce which is rotting in the fields for a lack of EU workers to pick it.

Brian Lawson
Paisley