The UK has had 300 years to deliver a just Union for Scotland, but it's failed

Here’s the unpalatable truth he won’t like: Scotland is a nation in its own right. There is no country called Britain, only a union of three nations and a province supposedly in partnership in the UK, and supposed to be equal within it.

England treats Scotland as a colony to spend its wealth as Westminster sees fit. Scots recognise we live in a country rich in natural resources and talent that the UK leeches from, and wastes its wealth pursuing policies designed to transfer wealth from the poor to the wealthy – as admitted by our new PM on video, as if such proof was even needed.

Scots have not voted for Watling’s Conservative party for 55 years, because the vast majority of our nation has utter contempt for everything it stands for. As a nation, which has an internationally recognised claim of right, the decision of how we choose to be governed, and the alliances we choose to make, are the fundamental democratic rights of all Scots and those who dwell here.

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It is a matter of record that Watling’s party is not only ignoring, but deliberately quashing the democratic rights of Scots, which reduces the Tories to a fascist party, aided and abetted by the inequality of our UK “partnership” through an unfair electoral system that allows the English a bigger share of power through returning more MPs with which to bully the other “partners” in the Union.

Such autocratic fascist control, compounded by the lies and exploitation perpetrated on us, is throttling the rights of Scots, which is what has fuelled the drive for independence. Watling should understand that had Scots not been lied to after the 2014 referendum, had promises made then been kept, and Scotland hadn’t been dragged out of the EU against its will, then there’s every probability that Scottish nationalistic fervour would have remained at the fringe.

The fact is, it’s 12 years of Watling’s party trampling on ordinary folk and creaming off the system to stoke the wealth of the rich that has exacerbated the imperative for change. In Scotland we might “a’ be Jock Tamson’s bairns”, but in Watling’s Tory UK we’re just the lowest of his low, to be dominated, dictated to and exploited for the gain of the privileged minority he represents.

The UK has had 300 years to deliver a fair and just Union. It has failed. And Watling’s Tory cronies over the last 12 years of their tenure have failed spectacularly.

Scots are behaving responsibly in their drive for independence. Perhaps Watling and his ilk should cast their minds back through history, to all those cases where colonies have binned Westminster’s colonial rule, and recognise just how reasonable we are. Intransigence in the face of our democratic rights being denied–- who wants to repeat bad history, and why should we have to? Denying the right to the referendum for Scots kills the UK’s claim to be a democracy. Scotland chooses democracy!

Jim Taylor

Edinburgh

GAVIN Brown (Letters, Oct 26) exposes “integrity” as having a different meaning in Tory Speak. To the current party it means, “I can do anything to save my place in government”. The deal between Sunak and Cruella de Vil to keep Boris Johnson from breaching the 100 votes rule would have put Boris head-to-head with Sunak during a party membership vote, which Johnson probably would have won. Thus, her place in the Cabinet was assured.

Rishi Sunak’s defence of his re-appointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary is laughable

Sunak’s defence of the appointment as Home Secretary to achieve continuity is laughable. She was in the job for a few weeks before resigning over a choreographed misdemeanour, probably couldn’t even remember the names of her senior civil servants. How much longer does Scotland have to be tied to a country which has become the laughingstock of the world?

Mike Underwood

Linlithgow

WHAT a brilliant headline in last Sunday’s National: Scots’ bills will rise to fund nuclear plants in England. If that doesn’t make No voters think again, nothing will. I know of at least two who voted No in 20014, then regretted so, moving to a sitting-on-the-fence position, wondering if they should face the facts and change to a Yes vote. Well, thanks again to that headline, they are now totally converted to Yes for independence. I am sure that they are not alone.

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All over this fair land of ours, hearts and minds are slowly but surely realising that the only way forward is to become a normal self-governing, sovereign, self-respecting, independent country. A country whose wealth will cease to be siphoned away by an arrogant and greedy neighbour. That this comic light opera is being played out whilst the people face a real heavy tragedy only adds to the farce, which makes Westminster the laughing stock of Europe, and beyond.

Thank goodness we have the (limited) power of our devolved government, which has banned fracking units and nuclear power stations on Scottish soil. If we had been without those powers, guess where the proposed nuclear power stations were to be? Scotland of course, it’s a good safe distance from the holy city of London.

The Russians did the same when they gave Ukraine Chernobyl. Have they forgotten that terrible disaster, after which all the Scandinavian countries abandoned any plans to go nuclear? Ukraine didn’t have any power then, as they were part of a union, the Soviet Union.

Now Ukraine has had 30 years of independence, and loved it so much, its people are willing to fight for it.

We only need to vote for it. If we don’t, things can only get worse.

Iain Ramsay

Greenock