THE letters pages in Wednesday’s National clearly demonstrate exactly what’s wrong with the SNP and their move to independence in general.

The SNP does appear to be top-heavy with little or no possibility of new ideas, as outlined in Julia Pannell’s letter. They don’t seem to want any new ideas or to consider different ways of doing things. Instead it’s a case of “don’t rock the boat!”

In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if they have not become too comfortable in their present situation and are just dragging the move to independence out for as long as they can. Maybe they are still working out what they are going to do after they get independence. Will they remain as one party or split into different, smaller parties? Will they have to disband? Are they not better off just dragging it all out and staying the same as they are? Perhaps it’s all a sham and just a way of getting them well-paid jobs.

Julia Pannell is quite correct. They have missed two excellent opportunities for independence. When they returned the 56 MPs they should have demanded it, on the basis that Margaret Thatcher stated they could have Independence if they returned a majority of SNP MPs to Westminster. They didn’t need a referendum. They had the majority required by a former PM during her time in office.

They want the “Yes movement” to start being active but they are doing nothing to either encourage the movement or make any moves themselves. They’re not even discussing independence at the annual conference! And when will they set a date?

What they don’t seem to realise is this: we are the people who voted for them and put them into power at Holyrood. We are the people who are going out and giving our time free of charge to attend marches for independence and manning street stalls and Yes hubs around the country. We are the same people who want them to get independence for us and the rest of Scotland. So why will they not encourage us by giving a spare hour here or there to tell their activists (because we are their independence activists) just exactly what they are trying to do and how they are intending to do it? Many groups would be willing to pay them to come and give a talk, if that’s what’s stopping them.

Write to them, and as Margaret Cuthbert says, you get a standard civil service reply. It reminds me of the attitude of the Home Office regarding those people they kick out of the country without justification. “Every case is considered on its individual merits blah, blah, blah!”

Maybe, as WJ Graham states, they truly are waiting to pass the baton in this relay race to Independence, and maybe, as Hugh Kerr Ex-MEP implies, it’s time they extracted the digit and really got down to the business of independence. Stuff Brexit! England voted for it. Let them have it. Just get us out of it!

Charlie Kerr
Glenrothes

WITH proposals being put forward for a route to independence which does not involve a referendum, perhaps it is worth remembering how Scotland got into this Union in the first place.

Well, it certainly wasn’t the result of a referendum. The people of Scotland were not asked their opinion in 1707, although we know that the great majority were bitterly opposed to the Union. The decision was actually made by a tiny minority who passed in those days for our representatives.

Perhaps we should consider getting out of the Union the way we got into it – in accordance with the policy of our representatives. At present the majority of our democratically elected members of the

Scottish Parliament support independence, as do the majority of our MPs at Westminster. As things stand – referendum aside – we Scots have an undeniably stronger mandate to end the Union than ever there was for entering into it.

However, this is 2019 not 1707, and the method and timing of the recovery of our nation’s independence is a matter for our First Minister and the Scottish Government.

Billy Scobie
Alexandria