SINCE 2016 and before, the Conservative party running Westminster and in Scotland have been denigrating the nation of Scotland at every occasion, and they will continue to do so as long as Scotland’s people and their MPs and MSPs let them.
It’s no use relying on the SNP to get Scotland back to a country that controls and governs its own future the way they are acting at present. The MPs who have just gone down to Westminster from the SNP are wasting their time again.
If Scotland is to control its own future it needs its voice heard, and that should be from The National. You could run a campaign for Scotland’s people to rally round another vote to stay in the EU before January 31 2020. The vote to be run by the Scottish Government. It can do this on the basis of the majority of 62% + in Scotland that voted to stay in the EU, and give the EU citizens the same right to vote as in 2014.
If the vote was successful it would need the SNP MPs to back it by removing themselves from Westminster, and for the First Minister to make it clear to the EU that Scotland is a nation in its own right and its voice and democratic vote must be respected and accepted by all. Failure to do this as a minimum short-term
action means Scotland will face the losses predicted by all the analysis that has taken place to date on Scotland’s future.
J Auld
via email
I AGREE with Richard Walthew (Letters, December 31) that a Scotland-NI fixed link would bring huge benefits.
Imperatives of more UK-wide infrastructure tend to unite both business and unions. In 2017 I was at my annual conference of Usdaw. A proposition was overwhelmingly carried calling for more UK-wide infrastructure included a Belfast fixed link. After the vote many visiting reps of different and diverse companies made clear the advantages of freight trains and road haulage alike being able pass between Northern Ireland and Scotland seamlessly. After all retail, distribution and food processing chains are highly integrated across the “British isles”. A fixed link would give these vital interconnections a boost – and develop them further. Employment, inward investment – and tax revenues for vital public services would be the winner.
READ MORE: Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge could bring great benefits
There is therefore major scope for several fixed link including the Antrim – Mull of Kintyre road bridge as proposed by Mr Walthew – but also for a road and rail bridge between Belfast and Galloway. Freight of the island of Ireland could then board trains at a freight terminal at Belfast and then proceed direct to continental Europe via Channel Tunnel.
By happy coincidence this would necessitate the reinstatement of the much missed Dumfries-Stranraer/Portpatrick line (Port Road line) to facilitate the direct flow of freight trains between Belfast and London – and continental Europe.
John Barstow
Pulborough, West Sussex
IT took three days to get water, petrol (for escape) and toilet roll to now homeless Australians stranded on a beach. Huge fires, toxic smoke, but quite modest amounts of internal refugees so far. Can you begin to imagine if there were more? When you think of how Australia has treated refugees to their shores.
We need to realise fast that the ruling class are a death cult – our deaths, not theirs. They will let billions of people perish in the coming climate catastrophes in order to save the capitalist system, if we let them. Every new generation needs to stop being naive, surprised anew at this unalterable truth, from Flanders Field to Yemen to 120,000 deaths due to benefit system changes in the UK today. OF COURSE Iain Duncan Smith got a knighthood. He ripped up the welfare state. That was his job.
We have to save ourselves, the animals, the planet. It took the Australian navy three days to begin rescuing a few hundred people. It’s not trendy, but realist feminist eco-socialism is our only hope. If you’re not up for that, do understand no-one is coming to save you. Are Scots brave enough to take the first step of independence to harness our own resources to play our part in sustaining our planet? Or will we meekly stay part of this grotesque “Union” where in the future no doubt mocking green wreaths will solemnly be laid by Tory politicians for billions of climate dead?
Carol Erden
Glasgow
I EXPECT the Queen will be very proud to give Iain Duncan Smith a knighthood. The robbin’ hood who steals from the poor to give to the rich.
James Arthur
Paisley
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