THE Brexit fiasco has started, with Michael Gove's announcement that we will need customs checks between ourselves and the EU ("EU goods will face import controls from 2021, Gove warns", The Herald, February 11). These checks will inevitably increase the costs, and delay, of our exports and imports to our biggest market. The next realisation will be the lie that is taking back control of our waters. Michel Barnier has made it clear he will act in the best interests of the EU members, so why would an individual EU country give up their fishing rights and allow our fish to be sold in their markets?
I attended an independence debate in Dunblane in 2014 during the referendum campaign. Professor Curtis outlined the hard economic considerations, the folk singer Karine Polwart the value arguments. Concerns about the economy in an independent Scotland won the referendum. A lot of water has passed under the bridge, and we now have a Prime Minister whose values are not fit for the position he holds, and a mainly English electorate whom I can only surmise believe in his promises.
His imagined Brexit is a house made of paper that will blow away in 2021, and many will suffer as a result. No doubt he is already dreaming up fantasies to distract from the hardships, of a glorious new future on the horizon, within our grasp. That is not the future for me or my children.
Paul Shaw, Dunblane.
IT is odd to note that according to Michael Gove, goods coming to the UK from the EU next year will face border checks.
I describe this as odd as during the election campaign Prime Minister Johnson had promised "there won't be checks" for goods crossing the Irish Sea and claimed a leaked Treasury document about checks on the Northern Ireland border was "wrong".
He commented that the deal allows the whole of the UK to come out of the EU including Northern Ireland and the only checks that there would be, would be if something was coming from GB via Northern Ireland and was going on to the Republic. In that situation there might be checks at the border into Northern Ireland.
However, in his speech Mr Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, has now confirmed that import controls on EU goods at the border will be imposed after the transition period ends on December 31 and said border checks would apply to "almost everybody".
The UK, he noted, will be outside the single market and outside the customs union, so we will have to be ready for the customs procedures and regulatory checks that will inevitably follow.
Yet another sad example where telling the truth, even by a Prime Minister, is totally irrelevant in a world of spin and fake news.
Alex Orr, Edinburgh EH9.
I CAN solve Ruth Marr’s puzzle (Letters, February 12) quite easily. The level of support for independence in 2016 was not sufficient for the SNP to demand Indyref2. But that had no meaning for the future. When support for independence rises to a level that cannot be ignored by the UK Government, there will be Indyref2. Ask the Unionists, who have kept an organisation alive to fight us when it comes.
With the EU removed from the triangle of Edinburgh-London-Brussels (one against tqo) it will make success more likely.
Jim Sillars, Edinburgh EH9.
WHAT an utter insult to "the people of Scotland" that Nicola Sturgeon wants total separation from Westminster and prefers to be ruled, controlled and dominated by Brussels. She stated that she would "mitigate" the effects of a Scotland/England border between us and our biggest trading partner ("Independent Scotland would need to ‘mitigate’ border with UK", The Herald, February 11) – what does that mean?
Ms Sturgeon knows that Scotland's financial position will preclude any simple admission to the EU but she strings her followers along, leading them up to the top of the hill and down again. Her grandstanding in Brussels is an affront to the people of Scotland who value the strength of the United Kingdom.
Douglas Cowe, Newmachar.
ANENT an independent Scotland trading with England, Mark Smith "The Mackay scandal won’t damage the SNP one little bit", The Herald, February 10) does not seem to get the obvious.
There should be very little problem, since Scotland, as a member of the EU, would be trading with England under the brilliant trade deal that Boris Johnson and Co are about to seal before the end of this year.
In any case, 75 per cent of Canada’s trade is across the border with the United States. Does that mean that Canada has to be governed by the US?
P Davidson, Falkirk.
Read more: EU goods will face import controls from Jan 1 2021
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