I’M sure we’re all encouraged by the excellent turnout and spectacle of Edinburgh’s march for independence on Saturday. However, while such events are invaluable they alone cannot and will not deliver independence.

I just can’t envisage Westminster getting in a stooshie over these marches, because it is not directly affected and, as things stand, it knows it has, and always will have, the upper hand.

Scotland is playing by the rules imposed on us by the Scotland Act, which means we can only be “given” the right to hold a referendum. The British Parliament will never accede to the reality of our Claim of Right entitling us to a plebiscite as and whenever we decide the time is right.

The previous 60 colonies which left British control only achieved success because Westminster came to understand it was in its interest to “allow” secession. So must it be in Scotland’s case.

It is clear that the rUK has too much to lose of the considerable resources Scotland brings to the Union’s table, therefore we must stiffen our resolve and furnish it with adequate reason to deliver the democratic process it is denying us. And this will only transpire through direct action to force their hand.

We need to foment a constitutional crisis. In the full glare of international media publicity we could use PMQs to ask the pertinent question. Having warned that a negative answer or the usual fudging prevarication in response would be unacceptable, a referendum should be demanded from PM Sunak.

If his response is other than a commitment to agree to its organisation then those MPs supporting indy should withdraw from the Chamber and Parliament, not to return until the demand is met in full. A separate sub-parliament could be established in Edinburgh by this group which could be considered as representing Scotland for legal reasons in current Westminster reserved matters. This body could appropriately be convened in Scotland’s old parliament and be reconstituted to repeal the Act of Union 1707.

Whether these tactics should be employed before or after the forthcoming General Election is open to consideration but our imperative is for it to happen.

The UK Union is a shambles. Britain has been dragged through the mire by the worst, most incompetent Westminster government in history.

From the NHS to education to every facet of the economy, the last 13 years have seen Tory government mired in vested interest, sleaze and grotesque incompetence. The very fabric of our economy has been trashed by them and our public services’ infrastructure and morale destroyed by the ultra-right-wing mantra perpetrated on us by the Conservative and Unionist Party.

Sadly, with Starmer’s leadership of the red Tory Labour Party it is assured there will be little change when it is elected. Its offering is more of the same, with no new direction offered. Scotland can afford to wait no longer. Let’s take the fight for our fundamental democratic rights to Westminster and press our demands home.

It’s now or never.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

ENOUGH demos and the world will realise that Scotland really is determined to become independent. Some 25,000 people marched down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh on Saturday and as many visitors watched. Many encouraged us. World television covered it. Living in an independent country is normal for most of them and they clearly were on our side.

Let’s keep demos going in towns and villages throughout Scotland. Eventually the rest of the world will be with us. The United Nations will ask why the UK holds us against our will. Westminster will have to listen.
Elizabeth Scott
Edinburgh

SATURDAY’S march was timely. Some 25,000 souls of all ages, races, creeds, colours and genders came together to assert a unifying idea – the notion that this piece of the planet, abundantly gifted as it is, long fought for and crafted into a beautiful nation by millions of our forebears, should be permitted to express that unity and to govern itself according to its people’s wishes.

Not a very radical idea you’d think. It is to the British Government and establishment, which have administered Scotland’s affairs for the past 316 years.

Since 2014, and the dragging of Scotland out of European Union membership against its shouted wishes, they have repeatedly acted to prevent Scotland’s people from determining their own future via a democratic referendum.

For the past 20 years, living in Scotland has increasingly felt like we are a 45-year-old man with a good income but still living with his parents. Our pay goes to them and we are given pocket money. We are told how we have to keep our room tidy, and asked if we have changed our underpants today.

Lately, we have been permitted to pay for some of our own things but woe betide us if we suggest we might be old enough to move out and look after our own affairs like the other big boys. We are berated for our arrogance. Told we are too small, too poor, too weak. The acute embarrassment that this situation generates is dawning across the nation. Voltaire said invading armies can be resisted but not an idea whose time has come.

The realisation we are in this situation is growing faster and awakening to the justified shame and discomfort that accompany it seems the foremost “idea whose time has come”, in our nation, in our age.

So, what are we going to do about it? Will we join together through #BelieveInScotland, or some other pro-independence movement, knock on some doors, and work to help other people to take that responsibility for improving their own lives? Collectively Scotland can bravely face the world as the nation we are, and can take control of our lives. Time to stand up. Time to be a grown-up nation.
Donald Canavan
via email

ANENT Richard Walker’s column (Sep 1) drawing attention to the willingness of some alleged independence supporters to believe two impossible things before breakfast, I cannot but agree with him.

I would go further. The political landscape of Scotland is littered with pontificators whose sole purpose seems to be to denigrate the SNP and who appear able to hold two different opinions at once.

I have a message for them. If you don’t like the way things are being done, put your money where your mouth is and stand for election. There is a drawback in that suggestion as some of you already have, and failed.

That is not triumphalism on my part. You have every right to try again. You might even gain the support of those who are obviously insufficiently confident in their opinions to make the attempt in the first place.
Les Hunter
Carstairs Junction