I UNDERSTAND from the media that the Scottish Government’s deposit return scheme could result in an unlawful trade barrier with the rest of the UK.

I have long known that what goes on in Westminster is simply the ramblings of an elite coterie of bampots who have a sense of entitlement due to their public school education.

For more than 60 years, scientists and conservationists have been warning that we are causing so much damage to the environment that we are going to make the Earth a toxic place to live, which means that our years here are numbered in single digits.

So our democratically elected politicians passed a bill to try to reduce the number of one-use bottles, making an effort to stop the stupid waste of resources by those who refuse to understand the importance of protecting the only planet we have to live on. And what happens? The crazies in Westminster don’t want to save the future for our children, they want to delay the scheme because it suits them to deliberately sabotage the bill, thereby destroying our children’s future.

Scotland’s only hope of surviving the calamity facing us is to cut ourselves free from the elite right-wing cabal in charge of the UK Government before it’s too late. Trident will not save us from what Lord Attenborough has been warning us against for 60 years.

I have been an environmental campaigner for more than 40 years. I have no children to worry about, but I have nephews and nieces, great-nephews and great-nieces. They have no future unless we demolish the Palace of Westminster brick by brick, stone by stone. Every time Scotland tries to pass an environmentally friendly bill, the English government tries to overrule it.

Get rid of them and give us citizens’ assemblies.
Margaret Forbes
Blanefield

AS always, Kevin McKenna has an excellent take on the situation he examines. His report on the “Standing for Women” rally in George Square was both insightful and terribly sad (Judging from those I spoke to at rally, SNP will suffer as a result of gender bill, Feb 8).

The women – some just coming to the realisation about Scottish Government policies which ask us to believe and endorse that men can BE women just by saying so – were unwilling to give their names, fearing retribution from employers for believing that men cannot change sex. Being a woman is not a costume and pretending so is a terrible insult.

Of course, life for genuine trans people should be as easy as possible. They must be respected and supported as living the life they choose; as trans people.

The SNP manifesto promoted this and it was voted on – but we did not vote on the detail including self-ID at 16 without any medical intervention.

It’s a predator’s charter, opening the door more widely for “bad actors” and autogynephiles. It doesn’t matter if only a tiny number of potential misdemeanours is expected, the overall message promoted by our government matters!

I have worked unstintingly in the SNP since 2014 for Scottish independence and will continue to do so ... but with a heavy heart, as I cannot agree with this denial of biological science, which is dividing truth from unbelievable fairy tales! With 40 years of experience in the NHS, I am truly gobsmacked!
Patricia Farrington
Bowmore, Islay

THANKS to Jim Butchart (Letters, Feb 9). I agree that the Gender Recognition Reform Bill “should” not be the big issue into which it has been engineered by all using it as a diversionary tactic. This has worked unfortunately, as switherers have caused a drop in popularity for the SNP and the issue of independence.

I wrote in my article (which was truncated and I trust not censored) that we underestimate at our peril the reluctance, perhaps a euphemism, of Westminster to grant independence to the colonies. Many independence movements around the world bear witness to this, so withdrawing from colonial status isn’t easy. I am not intending to be alarmist ... but strap yourselves in.
Doug Drever
Dundee

I HAVE found the recent discourse on our languages entirely fascinating. I am fluent in English but am able to call on Scots, Anglo-Saxon, a little Gaelic and a native bit of the Glaswegian dialect.

I was tempted, as many of us must often be, to use the latter four in a recent confrontation, but fortunately, I adhered to English.

I remember my friend Catriona NicGumaraid, in discussion with my former brother-in-law, saying: “Ach, I am so angry I will have to speak in my mother tongue” and proceeded to do so in terms which, though not literally comprehensible to us non-Gaels, left no doubt as to the gist of her meaning.

Aonghas Dubh once said to me, “It is a terrible thing to be the last of your people,” but few have contributed more towards the re-establishment of his mother tongue in the mainstream of the Scottish psyche.

I wish Gaelic had not been driven from my family and that Scots had not been belted from me and that I was fluent in both. But ken whit? They’re baith alive in the mongrel tongues we speak and it would be a tragedy if we allowed them to slip into subliminal usage like Anglo-Saxon.
KM Campbell
Doune