WHILE musing over the articles by various correspondent in The National over the last few days, I have come to the conclusion that there are two issues involved in gaining independence. As such your writers seem to be concentrating on the first point and missing the second point.

I would like to take the Wee Ginger Dug’s article on Tuesday as an example (Scotland in the Union has a safeword ... it’s indyref2, December 17). In this he quite correctly states that the solution to the independence question will be political and not legal. A time will come when the Scottish Government sits down with the Westminster Government and works out the terms of our separation. It should actually be much more straightforward than the negotiations that have been worked out with the EU. Very simply, everything that was Scotland’s before the Union, but is now handled by Westminster, should be handed back to Scotland again.

READ MORE: Scotland in the Union has a safeword ... it’s indyref2

There will have to be some consideration of our share of the Navy and the Air Force. After all, we have been paying towards their upkeep all these years so we should be entitled to some of the ships and planes to get our own conventional force established. The Treaty of Union decreed that the Scottish Court of Admiralty (the Scottish Navy?) was to remain extant, so there is a valid claim on naval vessels. Our navy was actually abolished in 1830 by Westminster (another breach of the Treaty by England!)

So, yes, the final negotiations will be political. But the second point is the question of how we get there. The Wee Ginger Dug suggests that a build-up of public opinion and public pressure is the way to do it. And that’s fine. But how do you get such a narcissistic bully as Boris Johnson to accept it. If he won’t acknowledge that the mandate to avoid Brexit (which we can only do with independence) given to the SNP at the recent election is stronger than the mandate given to him by England, then he is not going to bow to any build-up of public outrage.

He’s already made it part of the Queen’s Speech that “her government” will defend the Union. So, there’s no way he is going to give permission for another referendum; not now, not in five years’ time if he gets back into Downing Street. How much damage will have been done to Scotland and its economy in the interim? Can we afford to wait that long? Personally, I don’t think we can.

Therefore, it falls back to Plan B and a legal solution. How legal would it be to hold a referendum without permission from Boris? This was mulled over on the Alex Salmond Show on Thursday night but nobody was prepared to speculate on the enforceability of such a course of action. Would taking Westminster before the International Court work? Johnson certainly gave in to the courts over the prorogation matter, so that may well be the only way to get his consent to a referendum.

If Nicola Sturgeon did as Lorna Campbell outlined recently (Letters, December 18), she might well have the backing of the United Nations, and maybe the sanction of the International Court at The Hague. Would Westminster even listen to them? Much of the austerity programme of the Tories has already been condemned by the UN, but Westminster has ignored them. However, Scotland is becoming more and more respected worldwide, and Alyn Smith’s observations and comments about the EU attitude towards us confirms this. So, a little bit of international support for us to hold our own referendum without reference to Westminster could well be the way forward.

The ultimate negotiations may well be political but we might need to give Boris a wee legal “dunt on the heid” to achieve them.

Charlie Kerr
Glenrothes