Scotland Matters Letters

The SNP might be enjoying the tussle in the Tory ranks over who should be the next Prime Minister, but there is another side to this. Nicola Sturgeon did not face a challenge from anyone in her own party when Alex Salmond resigned. Whilst Ms Sturgeon would almost certainly have won any contest it is still significant that no one thought to stand against her. Currently, all is not rosy in SNP ranks. Ms Sturgeon has turned out to be a divisive character not only to the country but to the opposition and even to those in her own party not adhering to the party line. She is now making bizarre choices such as trying to force another referendum and ignoring the parallels in her own party concerning the Pincher affair. Scottish Labour under Anas Sarwar is also now a force to be reckoned with and the Tories are not as “toxic” as the SNP might desire. Perhaps it is time someone now challenged her leadership, but is there anyone? Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.

SCOTLAND MATTERS reached well over 1 million people at the Holyrood election, 1.4m at the Council Elections and in both elections the SNP’s vote and seats won were far below their own predictions.

Now they want another referendum in October 2023. We need to:

Hammer home their failures – trains, ferries, schools, NHS, jobs, deficit, housing, drugs – and Scotland’s decline since 2007.
Highlight the issues: the border, currency, NATO, pensions, the £180m debt, the COST and UPHEAVAL to all Scots.
Get the message to every one of Scotland’s 4.3m voters.
AND BOYCOTT any illegal IndyRef2!!

However, this costs a LOT of money. PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING TO OUR CROWDFUNDER AND LET’S DERAIL INDYREF2 TOGETHER!!

I can only assume that when BBC Scotland’s former lawyer Alistair Bonnington lodges an official complaint with regulator Ofcom over the broadcaster’s ‘slavishly biased’ coverage of the SNP Government. it is backed up by strong enough evidence and arguments to actually get something done about it. I for one am sick of turning on their teatime news programme and being greeted by a robot announcer parroting ‘the First Minister sez’ as if I were in some cold war Eastern European living room. Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Kincardineshire.

Last week Nicola Sturgeon was reported as having offered the UK Government a “compromise”. No, not that she would accept not having a referendum or continuing to agitate for secession. Her “compromise” is that HMG should agree to allowing her a Section 30 order, for a legal referendum, and then she would talk about the conduct of the referendum (“Sturgeon `willing to talk to new PM’ over referendum proposals”, The Herald, July 15). She claims that that was what happened in 2012, with the Edinburgh Agreement, in the process of rewriting history: “We didn’t get everything we wanted out of that negotiation, and in any negotiation, you have to be prepared to compromise.” I don’t remember any compromise about the question to be asked, the composition of the electorate, the threshold for a successful vote or the date of the vote. The SNP, in the person of Alex Salmond, unilaterally chose all of these – to the lasting shame of the then M, David Cameron. If Ms Sturgeon were to make an offer based on genuine compromise, it should include agreement on a Remain/Leave question, as directed by the Electoral Commission for the Brexit referendum, because of the inherent bias of the Yes/No answer. It should also recognise that breaking up a country requires a mandate of a lot more than a 50 per cent plus one vote majority. The SNP’s own constitution requires a two-thirds majority for change. Why shouldn’t the British constitution? I’m not saying that we should expect the threshold achieved in Norway in 1905 – of more than 99 per cent for secession from Swedish rule. But we do need an overwhelming majority for such an overwhelming cause. Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh.

I feel that Eric Melvin (Letters, July 18), in providing an opinionated history lesson on the events leading up to the political formation of the United Kingdom, reveals that contemporary separatist arguments are running out of steam. Even the First Minister has been seen to display her crafty skills as a trained lawyer by claiming that justification for Indyref2 (after Covid) is embedded in a section within the SNP manifesto. I doubt if one per cent of SNP voters have actually read the current manifesto. However, I expect that the SNP would say that this fact is irrelevant as it was published and that is enough. Lawyer talk. Page 8 of the latest SNP publication Building a New Scotland, under the column heading “If Scotland becomes independent” states: “Decisions about Scotland will be taken by the people who care most about Scotland – those who live here”. However, on the following page, it is stated: “With independence, Scotland would be able to apply to rejoin the EU as soon as possible.” I wish they would make their minds up: Holyrood, Westminster or Brussels? While in the 2016 Brexit referendum 1.66 million Scottish voters elected to remain in the EU, 1.01m voted to leave. London was a little more decisive with 2.2m wishing to remain in the EU and 1.5m wishing to leave, yet it is Scotland which continues to shout incessantly about a so-called “democracy deficit”. Bill Brown, Milngavie.

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