IT’S time and there is nothing to lose.

If you masochistically torture yourself watching Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) from Westminster, you will be more than familiar with the futility of the whole performance.

Ask any question you like and get, well, any old answer. An answer often completely unrelated to the question asked. It may be lots of fun for those involved (how they laugh), but in furthering accountability from the UK Government, it is a woeful failure.

So does it really matter if the SNP attend? I would suggest their absence would be far more effective than any questions they might ask at the present time.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting Blackford does not attend because of his two-question allocation. A weekly question or two on democracy for Scotland is an imperative, but the rest of the SNP? Next week, for example? Even once in protest?

Does anyone think that empty green benches behind and beside Blackford would not generate headlines in even in the most unsympathetic of media?

It’s a stunt in part, sure it is. But it’s also a hard to ignore protest and it keeps the democracy-denying court’s decision front and centre. That’s important, because it’s clear the UK media has moved on already and the UK Government is desperate to do so too.

So surely now is absolutely the time for the SNP in Westminster to start rattling those gilded cages and disrupt the antiquated protocols and conventions, as they promised us they would do. What’s left to lose in that Westminster forum?

I Easton

Glasgow

MILLIONS of us want a divorce. This Union is a farce. A bad marriage where one partner dominates and oppresses the other to accepting its policies and rules via the medium of gaslighting propaganda, a political system that favours a larger population of English voters, and laws propagated to trap Scotland in an unhealthy marriage.

The question of the Scottish independence referendum needn’t have gone to the Lord Advocate or any other puppet of the British state. You don’t need five judges to interpret the glaringly obvious.

Schedule 5 (Section 1) of the Scotland Act states: “The following aspects of the constitution are reserved matters, that is – the Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England.” This is a snare written in black and white since reserved matters like the “Union” rest with Westminster to determine. What we need is a legal challenge and an amendment to Section 1 since it is glaringly undemocratic and unethical. Section 1 should no longer be in force, just like its predecessor (paragraph 5A, with reference to succession to the Crown – another load of archaic twaddle).

Westminster should not be able to hold a nation prisoner, no more than you should a marriage partner. Westminster should not have the power to deny Scots the right to vote on fundamental matters that affect its future and prosperity. Does Ukraine accept Russian rule? These laws set to ensnare us are the ugly last remnants of an imperialist outlook.

Surely Rishi Sunak should understand that? Weren’t his ancestors of Indian descent? And didn’t India free itself of Britain in 1947? The time was right for India over half a century ago but not for Scotland now? Are we to be perpetually insulted and subjected to instruments of tyranny? Effectively, the Lord Advocate is telling us that we can never divorce. The oppressor will never release the oppressed. Not only that, but Lord Reed has denied history itself. Scotland has been subjected to cultural, linguistic and political oppression for centuries – and it continues to this day. Clearly. What’s wrong with these people? Ignorance is no excuse, he can read. Or is it the case that Lord Reed and his entourage are not politically impartial at all? Is anyone?

Every lever will be pulled to keep this nation in a bad marriage – legal, state-sponsored propaganda, skewering of the historical facts, the threat of economic devastation (a recession the Tories just brought about again), and the political sway of a larger population in England. Does that seem right, ethical or democratic? Is that a union of equals? Scotland’s democratic rights are non-existent. And any law that maintains that status quo – and anyone who perpetuates it – has no place in our society or legal system. Everyone has the right to escape a bad marriage. Prepare yourself for the fight of your life.

R McCallum

via email

KEVIN McKenna’s column, “Scotland must seize independence momentum from Supreme Court ruling”, reminded me of an expresion from my social science training days. It is the four elements of “Power”: Wealth; Knowledge; Status; and People.

This leaves the only one open to the majority of the electorate as the latter, “people power”.

Hence, the importance of organised gatherings, and we owe thanks to The National and other – though they tend to be few – pro-independence media groups!

More power to their elbow!

E Hope

via email

SOME readers, like myself, will occasionally look at The Guardian. Wednesday’s Steve Bell cartoon was no less than offensive.

The Guardian’s readers chimed in with a good deal of criticism of the cartoon. But it is so important to remember the intolerance of Scotland. On the wireless, I once heard a Yorkshireman compare Scots to haemorrhoids.

“I don’t mind when they come down and go back up again. It’s when they come down and stay down it makes me uncomfortable,” he said.

I was so warmly welcomed to Scotland in 1978, and I have always tried to remember how I felt during my 10 years in London. I’m ashamed of the way I joined the rest of the English people I knew in regarding Scotland as irrelevant. They neither knew nor cared about Scotland – try paying for something in the Home Counties with a Scottish fiver – but the welcome I was given made me realise how wrong that was.

England will undoubtedly laugh at Scotland’s predicament, but all they have to look forward to is another right-wing government, possibly led by Keir Starmer. I can’t think of a Scottish politician less relevant. Oh, sorry. I forgot about Douglas Ross and John Lamont.

Tony Kime

Kelso

IT’S official, I don’t matter, I don’t count, I’m an irrelevance, I’m a nonentity. I’m afraid I’m basically just a piece of shit! Well, after comments from anti-independence politicians following the Supreme Court decision, that’s the way I’ve been treated.

I’m sure the vast majority, like me, will agree that their vote which accumulated in a democratic mandate in the Scottish Parliament for a referendum on independence to be held has been treated with disdain and contempt.

If you live in England, your vote is valid and pretty well respected, no matter which party you vote for. If you live in Scotland and vote Tory, Labour or LibDem likewise, the English state recognises and respects your decision. To vote for the SNP or any other independence-supporting party, however, is a totally different kettle of fish.

We are grudgingly permitted to have an SNP devolved government as they won the election, with a co-operation agreement with the Greens. However, the main part of their manifesto – that they would move to arrange another independence referendum if they win the election – is just totally ignored by the English state. By law they have the power to do so and don’t they half know it!

It’s wholly undemocratic and although more subtle than autocratic countries like Russia, China and North Korea, the reality is it’s still the action of an autocratic state. Did I just say that? It’s 100% true, though! A layperson watching most news reports about the matter would, however, understandably not pick up on the horrendous, insidious and sinister reality of the situation, given the extremely biased coverage.

We all know we are not pieces of poo. Those that treat us as such are just abusers, plain and simple. We shall stand up to our abusers. We shall overcome! (Apologies for the mushy end to my letter but it does reflect the depth of my feelings.)

Ivor Telfer

Dalgety Bay, Fife

IMAGINE the scenario if one of the UK’s political parties stood in a General Election on a manifesto pledge to give the people of England the right to hold a referendum to cede from the Union and after winning a majority of English seats at Westminster, a referendum was effectively blocked by Scottish MPs.

The London-centric UK media would be in uproar and would be vehemently claiming that parliamentary democracy had been denied while right-wing groups would be on the streets demanding immediate constitutional change.

The hypocrisy at the heart of those arguing to deny the democratic mandate of the current Scottish Government – including both Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar – is shameful, as is the duplicity of those claiming that neither a Holyrood nor a Westminster election could be considered as a “de facto referendum”.

Those who don’t believe that self-determination is the most important issue in such a plebiscite simply have to vote for one of the pro-Union parties, and in fact, if they are correct in their thinking, then it should be more likely that the independence parties will not even win a majority of the seats representing Scottish constituencies, especially as 16 and 17-year-olds could be excluded from voting.

What seems to be clear now is that many, if not a majority of, pro-Union supporters would disingenuously prefer that the democratic rights of the people of Scotland were sacrificed on the altar of Anglo-centric imperialism rather than allow the majority to achieve the self-determination that they desire.

Any claim that such a stance is not self-centred and is consistent with building a fair and egalitarian society should be deservedly viewed with absolute disdain.

Stan Grodynski

Longniddry, East Lothian

WEDNESDAY’S Supreme Court ruling is of course in the context of a “Union” signed up to in 1707 by a small group of affluent Scots parliamentarians, which was not the democratic will of the people of Scotland and was extremely unpopular.

So, 315 years on, we are still tethered by the actions of those to whom Robert Burns referred as “sic a parcel o’ rogues in a nation”.

I wonder what Mr Burns would make of Wednesday’s pronouncement?

James Dippie

Dalry

I COUNTED at least three occasions during this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions when Rishi Sunak was asked about there being a voluntary union and the democratic way out of it.

He ducked and dived and avoided giving an answer, and as usual it was followed by “I think what the Scottish people would like” blah, blah, blah, rhetoric.

Hopefully all Conservatives will be hounded by the likes of Martin Geissler and Laura Kuenssberg on this till they get the answer! Is it going to take all our MPs turning up in T-shirts emblazoned with, “Answer the question I ask”?

Steve Cunningham

Aberdeen