ADVICE being meted out to Scotland in its 700th anniversary year of the Declaration of Arbroath is to accept the illegitimacy of the conduct of the English Parliament at Westminster, apparently in the name of legitimacy – ie, a contrived legitimacy that applies to Scotland so as to enable the illegitimacy of Westminster’s conduct to proceed.

Michael Fry, for instance, articulates this meek acceptance in his Tuesday column despite castigating the ignorance and arrogance of three Tory principals in this subjugation of Scotland, Johnson, Jack, and Carlaw. What a pathetic statement is “there is, legally and constitutionally, no alternative to waiting till he changes his mind”, “he” being of course Johnson.

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Admittedly Scotland was a mere six years from its emphatic military triumph of Bannockburn when the nobles of King Bruce carried out their admirable “huddle” of heads together and forwarded the transcript to the Pope in Rome.

But the message was the testament of minds much ahead of the time and, as with Scotland in the political world of today, sidelined by the barbarities of countries that are still embedded in a time when the military prowess of knights was the norm and the deliberations of the Scottish nobles a glorious exception.

As for contrasting the recent events in Catalonia in any unfavourable future reckoning of an indyref2, common ground is scarcely present. While Scotland’s Yes folk, including its Holyrood SNP Government, have championed independence for Catalonia, the EU has notably stayed silent and too few voices have surfaced from it on behalf of those imprisoned by the Madrid-centred governments, and in support of non-violent reaction from authorities in such circumstances.

Such matters aside, civil disobedience has to be on an agenda for countering what amounts to the annulment of Scotland as a nation. The alternative is indeed to see Scotland as a word on a tartan shortbread tin and its proud, inventive and resourceful history erased from the records of human achievement.

To say that the authors of the Arbroath Declaration will turn in their graves is a terrible understatement. They will be in orbit!

Ian Johnston
Peterhead

MANY recent correspondents are rightly questioning what the response of the wider Yes movement should be to the wholly expected refusal of Boris Johnson to accede to the request from the First Minister to grant a Section 30.

It is very sad to recall that Angus Brendan McNeil MP and Councillor Chris McEleny did highlight that it would have been prudent to have kept the use of the parliamentary mandate as a manifesto commitment for the recent General Election.

However, the mandate exists now, and could be activated if the SNP leadership issue a Declaration of Sovereignty that in the event of Tory moves to undermine or dismantle a leading Scottish institution such as NHS Scotland will be kept in reserve to be invoked in defence of key Scottish interests.

The use of a parliamentary tactic such as that could be complemented by an extra-parliamentary campaign to form a broad-based Independence Convention, a Convention in which obviously the SNP will play a leading role but should not stifle the voices of others. The Convention can appeal to the broad mass of the Scottish people even, beyond the existing Yes movement, and working in alliance with pro-independence parliamentarians both in Westminster and Edinburgh.

An illegal referendum will be dismissed out of hand by domestic and international opinion, whereas a legal challenge only takes power out of the hands of the people and gives it to unelected judges who may or may not decide in our favour.

The great Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell famously said in 1885 that “no man may fix the boundary on the march of a nation”. Therefore mobilising the power of the Scottish people, both in the streets and in the parliaments, is the only radical and realistic option on which the Yes movement can proceed now.

Cllr Andy Doig (Independent)
Renfrewshire Council

IT gave me great pleasure to read recently about the proposed alternative Scottish finance figures to be released at the same time as the GERS figures by Derek Mackay.

This is the sort of “alternative information” that has been lacking for years. The voting public need to know that more reliable figures are available. I would like to offer an appropriate name for these new figures which epitomises what they are about. They will be called the REAL (revenue, expenditure and liabilities) figures!!

Imagine the “delight” of the opposition parties when the Finance Secretary announces the new figures as Scotland’s REAL figures!!

When asked how the figures are calculated, I suspect our Finance Secretary will respond by saying that they are calculated using the same principles and methods as the GERS figures, but instead of guesstimates as Scotland in Union, calculations as an independent Scotland. It’s worth noting that using guesstimates for the reporting of the GERS figures has never been questioned or challenged by the opposition.

I hope our Finance Secretary adopts this suggestion, as I feel that we have to start a programme of countering the constant barracking of misinformation and even blatant lies that we are subjected to on a daily basis.

If that means a little “one-upmanship “is adopted, then so be it. Let’s bring a smile back to our too small, too poor faces!!

Kenneth S Macrae
Renfrewshire