IN his “private” comment on the Rwanda scheme, which he reportedly described as “appalling”, Prince Charles has merely added another word to the large lexicon of suitable words to describe it.

It is, however, not only appalling, disgusting, inhumane etc, but also self-defeating, as Yvette Cooper pointed out. How can anyone believe that people as uncaring and cruel as the people smugglers will be deterred by our Home Office from making their victims suffer even more? These criminals know full well that they are sending large numbers of these desperate folk to their death, but they patently care nothing for what happens to them after they take to the water.

WATCH: Rwanda flight protest gathers in Glasgow to condemn 'grubby' deportation policy

The people smugglers, therefore, will not let the small matter of their deportation to a country universally condemned for torture and murder affect their “business”. It will in all probability make the rewards greater, as they charge more to “guarantee” a safer route and simply set them out on even more dangerous waters to Devon and Cornwall from more remote areas along the vast coastal beaches of France.

After all, some of these routes were very useful and lucrative for smugglers in the past.

When did it become justice to impose more suffering on the victims to punish the perpetrators? Is this not simply a UK version of rendition and Guantanamo Bay?

L McGregor
Falkirk

AS Great Britain’s Tories indulge in human trafficking to Rwanda, and blame everyone else for the cost-of-living crisis apart from themselves, Lord George Foulkes chokes on his subsidised food and drink and wonders how he will survive if Scotland becomes a independent country, with no subsidised, unelected peers.

Douglas Ross, the flip-flopping Scottish Tory leader; Anas Sarwar, leader of the poisoned chalice called Scottish Labour; and Alex Cole-Hamilton, leader of the nonentities the Scottish LibDems will all be lined up by the totally unbiased media to inform the world that Scotland is too poor, too wee and too stupid to govern itself.

READ MORE: Protesters block vans taking migrants to airport for Rwanda flight

This is just the beginning of the campaign for a second independence referendum, and it’s getting dirty already. With the release of Nicola Sturgeon’s 72-page document, which mentions 10 countries of similar size to Scotland and how they perform at international level, we are about to get told by the aforementioned leaders and the one unelected lord that this is a deflection from bad government, and the document carries inaccuracies and deviations from the truth.

If things are so bad under the SNP, why are they still winning elections? And why is Nicola Sturgeon the longest-serving First Minister?

It’s because of the failure of both Labour and Tories to devote sufficient attention to Scotland. They only contribute to neglect, with the same old, same old.

READ MORE: How the Scottish independence movement reacted to indyref2 announcement

But many things have changed since 2014. The EU referendum, where 62% of Scotland voted to remain in the EU. Covid and the recovery, bringing with it VIP lanes and chumocracy. This year the triple lock on pensions being removed, and a 5.2% cut to the Scottish block grant. And although Scotland did not vote for them, the most uncaring, unlawful, extreme right-wing Tory government ever elected – making Margaret Thatcher look like Saint Francis, whom she had the cheek to quote.

The EU, UNHCR, Irish government and the American government are all shocked by their behaviour when it comes to international laws and protocols.

They must see the task Nicola Sturgeon has to get the Tories at Westminster to agree and to abide by the rules of an independence referendum. After the last referendum, Blair McDougall admitted that if the Better Together side had not focused on scaremongering, they might not have won.

This time it is imperative that the independence debate is won, as the Tories will introduce laws banning another.

Robert McCaw
Renfrew

FOR the Unionist parties and supporters, the launch of indyref2 by Nicola Sturgeon MSP and Patrick Harvie MSP should come as no surprise. After all, both the SNP and the Greens gave a commitment in their 2021 manifesto to hold a future independence referendum during this parliament, so why the outcries?

READ MORE: The 10 key points from the 'scene-setter' for an independent Scotland

Perhaps a reminder is needed that the SNP won the election and that a lot of voters would be massively let down if this manifesto commitment was not fulfilled. We simply cannot continue with the status quo, Scotland’s democracy is suffering.

Dragged out of the EU against the wishes of the people of Scotland, out of the single market and the customs union, governed by a Conservative government at Westminster Scotland did not vote for, it simply cannot continue. So the Unionists may want to ask themselves, “what right have I to deny the people of Scotland their democratic wishes and a future where re-joining the EU would be on the agenda?”

Catriona C Clark
Falkirk