ONE of Boris Johnson’s principal reasons for taking the UK out of the EU was so that we would no longer be ruled by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.
Now the UK’s parliament is being topped up yet again with unelected friends of past and present UK governments, 36 new unelected peers, about one for every week since Boris Johnson won the General Election.
At this rate the House of Lords will comfortably pass the thousand mark before the next General Election. If the proposal to reduce the number of MPs elected to the House of Commons to 600 reappears sometime in the future, it would hasten the day when the UK Parliament has twice as many unelected members as elected members.
READ MORE: Lords Speaker urges PM to stop making a 'mass' of new peers
This farce is passed off as democracy in the so-called United Kingdom of four equal partners; a first-past-the-post electoral system in the Union/English parliament (the largest of the four partners) which usually results in a single party having an overall majority in the Union/English parliament, with proportional representation in the three devolved parliaments so that they can never have a dominant party, ensuring that England’s choice of governing party has permanent full control over the Union of four equal partners.
Our own so-called parliament is barred from making decisions on its own future; this is reserved to the increasingly undemocratic Union parliament in Westminster.
The people of Scotland have to unite and reassert their power, become a nation again and decide whether or not to remain in a union of equals (without representation in decision-making at UK level) that seems to have even less to offer than the much larger European trading block that we are being removed from at the end of this year.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
BORIS Johnson appears to be carrying out his threat to create a majority of Tories in the House of Lords: failed politicians, Tory donors and family. How much longer can the Scottish electorate stomach this corrupt and embarrassing charade?
READ MORE: SNP MP slams Boris Johnson's new Lords list
Colonel Davidson has also shown her true colours. During the leadership election she proclaimed Johnson unfit for office (something he has since demonstrated) and voted for anyone but Boris, but has now seized the opportunity to work under him with a view to replacing the invisible Alister Jack as Secretary of State for Scotland.
Do the people of Scotland require any more proof that it is time to break away from Westminster?
Mike Underwood
Linlithgow
WE live in unusual times and I think everyone has had new experiences because we’ve been locked down. However, and with all due respect, what has caused the PM to grant honour to Ruth Davidson?
Was it because Davidson is loud, grim and aggressive? Perhaps she’s the only Scottish Tory he can remember meeting.
It can’t be in recognition of her one and only election policy – stop indyref2. This is just another powerful reason why Scotland must go its own honourable and intelligent way. Without doubt we should never have a second level of government which can be used to gift friends and supporters fancy titles, which should be left in dusty old history books.
Without the slightest awareness, he who clowns about has only added weight to the independence cause.
Kenneth HW Campbell
Troon
I FIND it sad and disappointing that Ruth Davidson, a self-professed Christian and the mother of a young child, talks about her regret that the Tories didn’t put the boot in after the Scottish referendum in 2014. (I presume that her intended victims were those who voted differently from herself). Her involvement in politics with such verbally aggressive behaviour akin to that of a virago does not become her.
As media reports have it that Ruth is Westminster-bound, Boris Johnson should mind his back and other parts of his person!
Anne Thomson
Falkirk
WHEN I arrived in Scotland three years ago I was full of hope, hope that the SNP would be able to face down the power and privilege of the elite aristocracy and deliver a fairer and more equal society.
Recent news about the failure to protect our precious wildlife and its habitats has shattered that hope.
Drew Reid’s letter (August 1) points out the delay in implementing the major recommendations of the Werrity review, but there are also issues relating to logging in areas inhabited by Scottish wildcats and most recently, the decision to delay the ban on culling mountain hares to engage in “more consultation”.
We should remember that independence is not enough if it cannot deliver a fairer society and protect our wonderful environment and the creatures that live in it.
Pete Rowberry
Duns
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