THE reference to Scotland needing a Section 30 order from Westminster before it can decide on its future seems to have become an obsession in the pages of The National.

At a wee meeting in the home of

an SNP councillor in the Isle of Skye, in August 1995, a group of us decided that we were not going to allow the Tory Westminster government to get away with imposing a toll on the new Skye Bridge, and that we would stop it.

Some people said it would be illegal for us to challenge this,

and we later discovered that it

would indeed be a criminal offence for us to do so. Undeterred by the legal threats against us, we took the view that the politicians were acting in a way that they had no mandate for and that our actions, whatever the courts might decide, were entirely justified.

We did not spend any time obsessing about the law, or the lawyers, or the courts, or the media, or the politicians, all of whom condemned us and castigated us. I was even sent to prison. We just stuck to our principled position and refused to pay the toll.

In spite of all the threats, all the condemnations, all the court findings against us, we just stuck to our task and treated the legal threat with the contempt it deserved.

In the end we won, the tolls have gone, the legal threats have gone, and many of the politicians went also, but we did not budge and we won.

Now it seems to me that if a small group of people on Skye can defend their rights whatever legal threats Westminster can throw at them, the Scottish people as a whole can do the same.

Our democratic rights as a people have no value if some foreign parliament can determine when we have the legal right to exercise our democracy, and when we can be stopped from doing so. I know that is ridiculous and so does everyone else. Our country has a long history of independent rule and has established that the Scottish people are sovereign. It is not possible to have two sovereigns in Scotland, and the people’s sovereignty is long established.

We should treat this claim with

the contempt it deserves and go ahead with a referendum when the Scottish Government decided it is right to do so.

Andy Anderson

Saltcoats

JEREMY Corbyn is still, poor soul, thirled to the Anglo-centric Westminster as if the duopoly is as of yore 50 years ago, although by then it was beginning to fragment.

Electing a government, but for whom and for what ends?

As Scotland has sent more non-Unionists to Westminster in recent times, it does not seem to occur to Jeremy Corbyn that Scotland wants to leave Westminster to its devices. The English can have it all to themselves as before 1707.

We are not hegemonists north of the Tweed. We do not want to deprive England of its choice of government, but aim for a government we have elected, with full powers in line with independent states in the world. The Westminster model – not exactly a blueprint in structure and process for the 21st century – is no longer acceptable. It denies our vote to remain in the EU.

Alas, poor Jeremy is caught in a contradiction. He is not even aware that Labour in Scotland is a minor entity in his “North Britain” politically, in fact it is off the radar completely. So, irrespective of his investment plans, or “bribes”, they are prefaced on the scenario south of the Tweed. We aim for a Scotland-focused government with its priorities to the fore, and are no longer interested in patronising hand-me-downs repackaged through the fixed Barnett formula. Jeremy Corbyn is a Westminster centrist who uses nationalisation to mean more Londonisation! We have seen through that ruse long ago! Like Gordon Brown’s Vow, Unionist pledges are worthless.

John Edgar

Kilmaurs

I FIND Alyn Smith’s latest article to be refreshing, as it highlights the that local SNP’s campaign in Stirling is all about going out and meeting people on their doorsteps and listening to their views on contemporary issues (This election is the most important we have seen, November 13).

In contrast I find that the Conservative and Unionist candidate seems to rely on expensive leaflets. The latest and I would think the most expensive has only one policy initiative, ie to prevent the indyref2. This is being flagged up as a major concern, as no doubt their bosses in Westminster are becoming increasingly aware that the people in Scotland want their country to cease being a colony and become an independent country.

I also find it hypocritical that the UK Government, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, is determined to deny the democratic right of the Scottish people to express their preference via the ballot box.

The leaflet makes no mention of the Farage, Johnson, Trump triumvirate’s plans to privatise Scotland’s National Health Service. Does this “policy” need to be kept under wraps until after the election as it is unlikely to be popular?

Alyn Smith’s assertion that “this election is the most important we have seen” is certainly true and the outcome will be determined by the Scottish electorate. Hell mend us if we vote for a government with Boris Johnson as PM.

Thomas L Inglis

Fintry

LABOUR spokespersons have been telling us we might get a second independence referendum under Labour “but not in the early years of a Labour government”. This reminds me of the 1945 election. Labour in Scotland had included Scottish self-government in its manifesto but when Labour won the new prime minister, Clement Atlee, said that now that there was a Labour government Scotland did not need self-government. So we got none. There is a saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!”

David Stevenson

Edinburgh