REGARDING Tony Perridge’s letter of Jan 6, I can’t agree with him when he states EU membership is not a matter for today. It is very much a matter for today. Brexit was the biggest act of self-harm that the UK could have committed.
It’s had a terrible impact on almost every person in Scotland, our businesses and economy have suffered, our rights and protections are being eroded, and our young people have had the freedom of travel, educational and work opportunities ripped away from them.
The fact that the SNP and Greens are totally committed to an independent Scotland becoming a full member of the EU is the major reason why those previously opposed to independence are now switching allegiance.
READ MORE: The progressive case against rejoining the EU is not being heard
To push the EU question onto the back burner, declaring that we will make a decision after independence, is a vote loser and could cost us independence.
While Mr Perridge states that he favours EFTA over full EU membership, he might take a moment to consider why all those former Soviet Union countries did not consider the EFTA route a viable option, but opted for full EU membership.
Acquiring EU Association Membership, during the interim period between voting for independence and the actual Independence Day, would not only give us immediate access to to the EU, but would undoubtedly speed up our full membership.
Iain MacEchern
Crieff
SO Starmer can find similarities between those that voted for independence and those that voted for Brexit. In the same breath he claims that the answers to both camps’ deep desires can be delivered with the same cure.
READ MORE: Keir Starmer says independence and Brexit supporters want ‘same’ thing
Remove the chaff and he’s saying that my family and friends share the same belief and values as those influenced and duped by the likes of Rees-Mogg, Farage, Braverman, Patel, Johnson and various others with the same roguish aims and ambitions. Definitely time to man the lifeboats. It really is past the point of no return now.
Jim McGuinnes
Oakley
RISHI Sunak’s proposed strike legislation could see unions sued and workers sacked. This must surely be one of the Tories’ long-awaited intended “benefits” of Brexit.
Isn’t this precisely the race to the bottom widely foreseen by those who opposed abandoning the higher level of workers’ rights enjoyed by EU membership? Might a cynic easily surmise that this Tory government’s failure to engage directly with striking public-service workers is designed to foment the conditions to “justify” this assault on workers’ rights?
Isn’t it typical of the Tories to meet the turmoil of the deterioration they’ve caused in our public services by attacking the workers protesting about it?
READ MORE: Anti-strike proposals show that the ‘stakes have never been higher’
Forget the pandemic, the war in the Ukraine or any of the myriad other excuses offered by this devious government as explanation for poor service delivery, it’s the reasons that matter, and they are in plain view the 13 years of austerity that have hamstrung our public services and decimated the pay and living standards of those workers. This is a shambles deliberately crafted by the Tories, and which any political observer could see coming. Enough is enough!
This dead government walking no longer has the political or moral right to govern. It is intolerable they are allowed to limp towards the certain electoral defeat they deserve while heaping injustice and their morally bankrupt right-wing ideology on us. We need them gone now!
Doesn’t Labour more than ever need to rediscover its roots and declare it’s not anti-strike legislation required, rather it’s a settlement with the workers involved along with a root-and-branch review of the ownership, structure, management and funding of all our public services?
READ MORE: SNP challenge Labour to join forces to stop Tories anti-strike law
Shouldn’t Starmer state immediately and clearly that any new draconian anti-labour laws enacted by this failed and dying Tory government will be repealed within the first 100 days of a Labour government? Wouldn’t such declaration render this government a dead duck and precipitate the General Election sorely needed?
Meanwhile, shouldn’t all workers support widespread action against this government, because failure to do so will send the message of acceptance that fair and equitable working rights in Britain have floundered on the reef of Brexit and Tory elected dictatorship?
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh
IT was announced over the weekend that since the last election MPs have earned more than £17 million in addition to their salaries. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if MPs who feel they need to do another job, for whatever reason, do it unpaid? Some MPs and MSPs work in the NHS. How comforting it would be to know that they were there for patients and not extra money. Some write books. How refreshing it would be if they took no fees. Perhaps Douglas Ross could be an unpaid linesman. After all, they receive very generous expenses. If we’re lucky and gain independence, I would be so grateful to live in a country where MSPs worked in the voluntary sector, whatever their party.
Tony Kime
Kelso
GIVEN the recent publicity given to Harry and Meghan, would it not have served the powers-that-be in the British establishment better if they had appointed a very competent social worker to the Windsor households at the outset, rather than us having to be subjected to this daily drivel from a family who are the biggest-ever beneficiaries of British state aid?
Gus Connelly
Calderbank
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