I AM reminded of the 1979 referendum. We actually won that one, but jukery pokery by the Labour Party, using a nonsense 40% rule, meant it failed. The SNP put down a motion of no confidence; Prime Minister James Callaghan lost it, and resigned, paving the way for the Tories.

Contrast that with today’s scenario: Mrs May’s government seems to be making a habit of losing votes in the House of Commons, and is frantically flying back and forward to Brussels to come up with something better, but no takers. We also had a rule of “no General Elections for five years”, conveniently dumped, and no Scots MPs able to vote on English issues, confusingly leaving Scottish Secretary David Mundell in the Westminster Cabinet! Nae resignations in the pipeline.

The simplest way ahead now is the one proposed by a group of Scottish politicians – she can simply revoke Article 50, and kill Brexit stone dead. However, she does not have the guts to do that; her only decisive comment to Scottish independence is “Now is not the time” ... a very limited vocabulary. The SNP supports a People’s Vote, but who voted for Brexit if not people? Sheep, perhaps, not wishing one but hoping to help the unfortunates, who are facing a rougher future by the day.

Our responsibility is not to the other parts of this disunited kingdom (ruled by a Queen), but to the Scots; we should sit on the sidelines of this vote ready to take different attitudes – after all, the so-called constitution is made up as they go along, so we can negotiate from a position of strength – block oil revenue perhaps, close down Faslane, stop the whisky flow?

We need to be positive for Scotland, all that is coming our way is negativity.
Jim Lynch
Edinburgh

WELL, after a couple of articles telling us about things which are fairly obvious, Andrew Wilson has finally got round to addressing the issue of currency at last (Next Scottish white paper will learn from 2014 – and from Brexit failures, February 14).

He opens the debate with the old political trick of setting up a straw man so that he can knock him down. He warns us against those who will “move us immediately and overnight to a Marxist revolutionary state”. Of course, he does not identify any such group or, more to the point, what their policy is on currency.

I will waste no more time on that red herring and get down to what his view on a Scottish currency appears to be. Well, he does not give us much detail on that. He says we will start from where we are – well, that is obvious. He says we will establish a Central Bank and then, in time, we will have our own currency after some tests had been conducted. He selects countries for comparison, without comment, but does not select other obvious ones.

He says we have responsibilities and obligations to the rest of the UK including debt interest and that we should make annual payments from our future independent Scottish economy to make such payments.

All of this, he presents to us in a matter of fact manner, as if it were self-evident that such obligations actually exist in any real sense. Perhaps Andrew was not listening when David Cameron, the then PM, broadcast to the country before the independence referendum in 2014 setting out the legal position of the UK’s national debt. Cameron made it clear then that this debt was the responsibility of the UK Government.

Andrew tells us this will give us strong foundations for the future.

He has not noticed that the fractional-reserve banking system is creating “money out of nothing”, which is at the heart of what Mervyn King calls “alchemy” and which was a central cause of the financial crisis and indeed the UK debt mountain which he wants the Scottish people to take responsibility for.

We certainly need a discussion in some depth about currency in the new Scotland and its implications for our economic future, which is vital. If Andrew wants to play a useful part in that discussion he could start by addressing the problems relating to the present fractional-reserve banking system and its instability. To act as if there was no problem there and quickly move on is not a good start to this currency debate.
Andy Anderson
Saltcoats

COUNT me into the R Mill Irving detail (Letters, February 14). I thought we might have learned from indyref 2014 that the most significant effect of the White Paper (immediately described as utter rubbish by all of the media) was that it gave our enemies all the targets they needed to lie about (with full media support) and tie us up in destructive detailed arguments which significantly halted our momentum.

There is only one argument we have to win. I will repeat that. There is only one argument we have to win. That is that we are economically self-sufficient, and when we convince our nervous, uniformed proportion of the electorate that that is so we can then provide the options that present themselves and the vision of the new country we can build.

Independence is a concept that will be realised as a result of confidence and self-respect.
David McEwan Hill
Sandbank, Argyll

AS Brexit negotiations have again deadlocked in issues of the Irish border and the backstop agreement, critical matters are ignored by parliament regarding Northern Irish devolution. While members from the DUP claim they are working to ensure Northern Ireland has equal standing to the rest of the UK, they are perfectly happy to allow double standards on issues of abortion and LGBT+ rights.

In January, Sarah Ewart brought her case to the British High Court, and the court heard on January 31 how she was denied a termination in Northern Ireland in 2013 despite doctors saying her baby would not survive outside the womb.

This case highlights the cruelty of the current laws and how they impact women, who in cases like this, simultaneously receive heart-breaking news and are denied adequate medical care at home. As stated by Dawn Purvis, director of the Marie Stopes pregnancy services in Belfast and former member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the current strict laws are leaving Northern Irish women traumatised. I believe these need reform to bring them in line with the same rights and protections offered to women in the rest of the UK.

For how long will the UK Government ignore this abuse of women and continue to support the DUP who refuse to reform?
Roisin Kelly
Brussels (formerly of Stirling)

IN all the bourach surrounding Brexit at Westminster, no particular alternative commanding majority support has yet come forward. Last year The National published a letter I had written suggesting that Holyrood organise a ratification referendum over May’s proposed Brexit deal. The Scottish people have already voted decisively to reject Brexit, so there is no need to re-run the original 2016 Leave/Remain referendum.

One of the most important things about a Holyrood-organised ratification referendum is that it could have included all those EU residents and 16-18-year-olds included in indyref1. An additional benefit of Holyrood running this referendum is that it would have given focus to the Scottish independence campaign at a time when May had put the shutters up on any indyref2.

Given the Tories’ continued resort to all the most anti-democratic powers given to the government under the Crown-in-Westminster set-up, it is unlikely that May would then have conceded some separate Scottish deal. Separate deals are only made for those who want to reinforce all the most reactionary aspects of the Union, like the DUP in Northern Ireland. However, it would have forced the smug Scottish Tories to defend their constant Brexit U-turns.

But more importantly, by organising a referendum that included those excluded in 2016, this would have shone a spotlight on the profoundly anti-democratic way by which the right’s Brexit vote victory was achieved. And given that the Cameron government was responsible for agreeing the franchise criteria in both the indyref1 and the EU membership referenda, it would also have shown up the Tories’ hypocrisy.

The time has now run out for any ratification referendum in Scotland, and the possibility of supporting a so-called People’s Vote at Westminster has attracted SNP MPs support. To allow a rerun of the original EU referendum is to invite trouble. However, the people most affected by any Brexit are EU residents and 16-18-year-olds. Their voice needs to be heard, as May and Corbyn manouevre to introduce a new gastarbeiter system of labour control in the new Immigration Bill. We have had to fight a series of defensive battles to stop the Home Office deporting people from Scotland. Our most recent success, supported by SNP MSPs, has been the case of Iranian born Rezvan Habibimarand and Mozaffar Saberi.

However, instead of mounting a series of rearguard actions to defend people the UK state deems not to be British subjects, we need to start by including EU residents (and 16-18-year-olds) as part of our people. Therefore, if a People’s Vote proposal is placed before Westminster, it should only be backed by SNP MPs following an amendment restoring the franchise arrangements made for indyref1.
Allan Armstrong
Edinburgh

IT is reported that another 100 new social security jobs are being created in Scotland, a great boost to our jobs market, especially when we consider this will take the job creation to approx. 500 for the newly established Social Security Scotland.

Scotland’s social security system is in its early years with 15% of all welfare spend in Scotland being devolved to Holyrood, affecting approximately one million claimants. In the establishment of Scotland’s social security system the Scottish Government have put “dignity and respect” at its heart, something the Westminster welfare system has sadly lost, especially with the introduction of Universal Credit. To gain the confidence of the Scottish public and ultimately the end user, the Scottish Government have much to do with only 15% being devolved. So, it was very satisfying and goes some way to promoting those values to learn that each local authority in Scotland will receive a Social Security Team Leader and this will be further enhanced by 68 support workers.
Catriona C Clark
Falkirk

SO it’s official. It’s OK to pull out of a side road on to a main road, even if you can’t see for the sun, and cause a serious road accident. Apparently it “won’t be in the public interest” to be prosecuted, but only if you’re a “Royal” of course. Why am I not surprised at this decision? Us poor peasants, of course, will continue to be hung, drawn and quartered for lesser crimes.
Ian Heggie
Glenrothes

FURTHER to Roger Emmerson’s letter (February 13), isn’t it time that the incorrectly named Bank of England was changed to the Bank of the United Kingdom?
Angus MacPhee
Hamilton

I WOULD like to thank Rolando d’ Alessandro for his letter about the Catalan prisoners and their case which has commenced in Madrid (Letters, February 12). I was enjoying reading his letter until I got to the part where he wrote, “...the rest, along with President Puigdemont, are in exile in Belgium, England and Switzerland...”. Does he not know that Scotland is not in England? Anyway, I wish those now on trial a fair hearing, and hope it results in their acquittal.
Keith Scammell
Inverness