THERE are those amongst your correspondents who write that Scotland’s economic interests will be so damaged if the UK leaves the EU that the only solution is to leave the UK (ignoring the fact that the UK is its far greater market) and then apply for membership itself of the EU. Is it not about time they started calling their particular spades, instead of dressing them up in misleading and emotive terms such as “independence" and “take back control"? Why can they not come clean and admit that by the former what they are seeking is separation from the UK, and by the latter they mean the substitution of control from Brussels to that at present from Westminster?

As easily-understood examples of some consequences if they ever achieve their aims, will not the laws in a separated Scotland then again be determined in Brussels and subject ultimately to the rule of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, and will our fishing and agriculture not again be subject to rules laid down by the EU? As for the oft-repeated complaint from them that in the UK Scotland doesn’t get the government that they themselves voted for, how is that going to change in the EU?

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Where is the independence in all that, and how can it be presented as taking back control? At least if Brexit comes to pass, the UK, including devolved Scotland, will no longer be subject to all the present controls and laws determined from Brussels in the march of the EU towards an ever-closer union.

Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.

ERIC Macdonald (Letters, July 11) asks the question: “If Scotland is such a basket case requiring generous financial handouts, why does The Westminster Government desperately want to hang on to us? Why?"

I think I can answer that as most non-Unionist forward-thinking Scots can.

Could it be that a recent ballot held on the Scottish situation by Westminster has been suppressed by them and they refuse to publish the results? I’m sure if the result was in their favour, it would be plastered all over the media.

It is evident that the gnomes of Westminster are a most devious bunch.

They have squandered our oil monies over 50 years of which we’ve had a pittance and lied to when the discovery was made by suppressing the McCrone Report.

Last year, even with the low oil price, this made £10 billion, we were allocated only £1 billion.

At this point in time, they are making millions by handing out more licences in the North Sea, which has vast reserves that they can’t hide from us any more so they’re getting as much out of our oilfields before independence comes.

Our oil is an extra bonus, we could function as a prosperous country without it. Just think where we could have been had we been independent all those years ago and followed the Norwegian example.

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We’re a nation with abundant natural resources and flourishing exports in food, fish, and whisky.

Our NHS is second to none with free prescriptions, free university education and our infrastructure in progressing (could have been much quicker had we controlled our own affairs) and our tourism is booming,

Our medical research is world-renowned; we have it all going for us. We really must not be held back any more by a Westminster Government which controls our finances and the new incumbent of 10 Downing Street, saying that they won’t allow the Scottish people to have another referendum to determine their future prosperity. It beggars belief that Scottish Unionists are so blind and want to hold us back from breaking away from a dysfunctional England.

Tom Webb, Callander.

I AM not sure if Jim Robertson was aware that he had just opened a beartrap in his letter of July 11.

He was fulminating about the Scottish Government underspending its budget, and claimed this was not prudent management. This was strange, as the Lib-Lab coalition underspent its budget, and as good little Unionists returned more than one and a half billion to the gaping maw of the Treasury, where it vanished.

Underspends by the SNP were not returned to the gaping maw, but were carried over as reserves; creation of reserves is fiscally prudent, as any competent accountant understands. Who knows what little twist Westminster will come up with – Bedroom Tax anyone?

Incidentally the Scottish Government is not allowed to borrow money – that privilege is restricted to Westminster, helped it give a bung of a billion, at least, to the DUP.

Jim Lynch, Edinburgh EH12.

NEIL Mackay is right, the SNP has indeed undermined its own citizens’ assembly idea before it has got off the ground (‘SNP has destroyed the ideal of the Citizens Assembly", The Herald, July 11). While some might hope that its legitimacy as a credible weather vane of Scottish public opinion on the major issues of the day can be restored, people are surely right to be very sceptical.

After all the SNP decided against establishing this idea on a cross-party basis, with buy-in from its opponents and others across civic Scotland for the process. Instead, it was launched in the context of the next big push for an independence referendum, and given prescribed questions to answer that steer it away from delivering the "wrong" answer, namely that people have had enough of constitutional discord for the time being and would like to see a genuine focus on the issues that really matter to them. All of this has left it badly tarnished. This initiative, even if well intentioned in the eyes of some, seems destined to go the way of previous SNP national conversations and consultations where a preference for pre-ordained outcomes have rendered them pretty meaningless.

Keith Howell, West Linton.

BILL Brown (Letters, July 10) calls on the Scottish Government to “contribute to the common good within the context of the whole of a thriving United Kingdom”. I have two items of news for him. First, the United Kingdom is not thriving. Socially and economically it is in a downward spiral and descending more rapidly by the day, politically it is totally bankrupt, and short of a complete and immediate reversal of its current trajectory its present state will certainly get no better but very much worse. And second, no part of the responsibility for the UK’s disastrous condition belongs to the Scottish Government: it has been brought on by the actions of Westminster politicians representing London-based parties and supported by English voters. On the contrary, the fact that Scotland is in a somewhat less decrepit state than the rest of the UK is due to the fact that we have a semi-autonomous government and a competent governing party which acts in the country’s (Scotland’s) best interests.

The United Kingdom has become an international laughing stock through the antics of its representative politicians. It almost passes belief that anybody can actually want Scotland to remain a part of this collapsing ruin. The sooner we reclaim our independence the better.

Derrick McClure, Aberdeen AB24.