YOUR correspondent John Milne (Letters, November 20) asks: “Are our elected representatives totally unaware of the damage being done to our society by their inability to resolve the Brexit issue?”

That is the nub of the matter. The effect on society has now become secondary to political dogma. We are in this current predicament because a weak Tory Government is in thrall to a right wing which wishes to turn us back into a lone, island nation in the Atlantic, yearning for the days of Empire. The Labour Opposition will vote against whatever deal is proposed regardless of whether it is the land of milk and honey promised by the leading Brexiters. Its sole aim is to discomfit the Government in an attempt to force an election and thereby gain power. The SNP see the shambles as a godsend in their pursuit of independence.

Oh, for politicians like Teddy Taylor, John Smith or Charles Kennedy whose aim (regardless of political persuasion) was the good of their constituents and our nation.

Jim Coley,

Calderwood Road, Rutherglen, Glasgow.

THE pages of history are littered with examples where the stubbornness and determination of a leader have simply served to worsen what was already a desperate situation. While Theresa May has to be commended for her survival skills, we surely have reached a point where her actions are compounding the serious errors of judgement that have characterised her troubled premiership.

Having campaigned, albeit somewhat half-heartedly, to Remain, she succeeded David Cameron and proceeded to give key Cabinet posts to arch-Brexiters whose febrile anti-EU rhetoric has come back to haunt her. She has consistently failed to take them on and to discipline them for their all-too obvious disloyalty to her premiership.

Presumably it was to appease them that she made the awful mistake of triggering Article 50 in March 2017. By doing this she set the exit clock ticking before any serious due diligence had been carried out as to the drastic consequences of Brexit for the UK. As a result, we are playing a desperate game of catch-up. Scarcely a week goes by without another sector of our community flagging up serious worries and concerns. Permanent damage has already been done, witness the number of companies and organisations choosing now to relocate elsewhere. They are highly unlikely to ever come back to the UK. Some of this harm could at least have been predicted and considered before that fateful triggering of Article 50.

Then in April 2017, Mrs May opportunistically called a General Election rather than wait for 2022 as laid down in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Here was yet another mistake as with her Parliamentary majority gone, she has had to rely on the dubious – and costly – support of the DUP.

To make matters worse, in September 2017 in her Florence speech, Mrs May laid down the "red lines" that would underpin the UK’s negotiating position. It was clear at once that her determination to leave the customs union and to end the free movement of EU nationals threatened a return of a hard Irish border. To believe that the EU would compromise on its founding principles to accommodate the departing UK was fatally flawed.

Eric Melvin,

6 Cluny Place, Edinburgh.

IN your coverage of the Brexit crisis, you carried a piece with the headline "Mundell may quit if UK tied to EU fishing" (The Herald, November 20) which I read in conjunction with Owen Kelly’s description of David Mundell (Letters, November 19) as ‘this most inconsequential of politicians". Why our Secretary of State’s apparent threat of resigning merits a headline is beyond me – frankly, who would notice, or care, if he did go? Mr Kelly’s description is quite accurate, and I hardly think Theresa May is going to lose any sleep over Mr Mundell’s eventual decision around his recently-acquired interest in the fishing industry.

At another level, it is of some consequence that we have a Secretary of State unable to make any political utterance that doesn’t include a Pavlovian request to the SNP to take a second independence referendum off the table. Constructive policies, as with Ruth Davidson, are nowhere to be seen. In this respect, Mr Mundell’s vacuity is emblematic, of course, of the Tories’ indifference to Scotland and its distinctive needs. So perhaps he has the useful function of reminding us of this, and holding it in mind come the next election. In the meantime, my advice to Mr Mundell is: just go now, and go back to your knitting.

Dr Angus Macmillan,

76 Georgetown Road, Dumfries.

AS a citizen of Scotland, the UK and Europe I would urge First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP not to get into bed – metaphorically speaking – with the ideological purists and the to-hell-with-the-consequences led by Jacob Rees-Mogg by voting down the agreed deal between the EU and the UK.

It would be absurd and sad to see the progressive SNP vote on the same side as a bunch of reactionary Tories. Surely that cannot and will not happen.

As independent-minded people I am sure that our Westminster SNP members can see the reckless folly of the path being pursued by Mr Rees-Mogg and his cohorts. If they cannot then Britain and particularly Scotland will pay a high price.

David McMillan,

24 Strathmore Avenue, Paisley.

NICOLA Sturgeon faces significant challenges ahead, if she attempts to demand an independence referendum be held in the short to medium term.

She was of course rejected in March 2017 by Theresa May because of Brexit uncertainty. Eighteen months on it's clear "now is [still] not the time". The UK Government is in a state of massive upheaval and seemingly no one has a clear view of what Brexit may mean, or indeed whether it'll definitely happen. Possibly Mrs May's compromise will be rejected by the Commons; we may have a new prime minister and/or there may be another General Election leading to either a Labour or a Tory government – they're close in opinion polls. Should or can another deal be negotiated with Brussels? Will there be another EU referendum – and what question would be asked? Again opinion polls predict another close result.

"Now is not the time" is an even more appropriate response to the SNP leader than last March.

Brexit may be the drama du jour but our relationship with the EU will feature heavily in British politics for many years. Ms Sturgeon will likely again demand indyref2 over the coming weeks – then convert the inevitable rejection into a grievance to nurture until the 2021 Holyrood election.

Martin Redfern,

Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh.