I NOTE with interest Tom Gordon’s article reporting Jim Sillars's views about the need for the formation of a new independence party free of all the SNP's political infighting and failings ("Sillars says SNP may have to be replaced by ‘untainted’ new party", The Herald, April 27). Every party suffers from this – I note, for example, that one of those quoted in the piece was Ian Murray, who has had well-publicised inner battles within the Labour Party.

The SNP is a political broad church full of different views and is to many the best vehicle to achieve independence.

Unfortunately, mud sticks, justified or not, and will be used by the Unionists to discredit the SNP and individuals who currently lead the party. However, there is no need for a new party, as we have the Yes movement which can accommodate all the political machinations to achieve independence and which needs to lead the campaign sooner rather than later.

Robert Buirds, Port Glasgow.

IN these lockdown days we are looking for entertainment, so it was beyond parody to see some of the things going on within the SNP. Ian Blackford, quite rightly attacking Boris Johnson’s failure to attend Cobra meetings, fails to notice Nicola Sturgeon’s doing exactly that too. Jim Sillars calls for the creation of a new nationalist party, bringing back memories to this former member of his “cleansing of the sword” in his Scottish Labour Party. No doubt Sturgeon supporters will be eagerly consulting Henry Drucker’s Breakaway, his account of the rise and fall of that party, for counter-attack material. And now we have the farce of the First Minister, no less, contemplating the possibility of closing our border with England. Seriously? With inland border posts, presumably, and checkpoints at every port?

Keep it up. At this rate enough material is being built up for a Scottish version of The Thick of It.

Maria Fyfe, former Labour MP for Glasgow Maryhill, Glasgow G12.

JIM Sillars has made yet another attack on the SNP leadership. I have been a member of the party for a good deal longer than Mr Sillars and I have seen the party survive and then flourish after all kinds of crises. Mr Sillars is the man who after he lost his Govan seat in 1992 attacked the Scottish electorate as "90-minute patriots". In the 1980s he was a leading advocate of "Independence in Europe". Now he has become a Brexiter.

It would also be good if journalists stopped referring to Mr Sillars as a "former deputy leader of the SNP" as he walked out of this position in 1992.

The only consistent thing about Mr Sillars is his ego.

George MacDougall, Edinburgh EH3.

IAN Thomson (Letters, April 28) stated that interest in independence waned post 1918 and 1945 as a result of war-induced Britishness and suggests that the common cause against the pandemic might have a similar outcome.

There was a failed Home Rule bill in 1924, after which all UK parties ignored the topic. An independence party was formed in 1934, which is experienced in conducting elections and has the largest party membership in Scotland. There is a Scottish Parliament, able to assume extended responsibility. The First Minister is widely respected. The majority of Scottish MPs and MSPs support independence.

I beg to disagree with Mr Thomson.

Colin Campbell, Kilbarchan.

DR Gerald Edwards’s line “It is patently obvious that Scotland needs the support of England through these difficult days” (Letters, April 28) beggars belief. When, in all the centuries since the two kingdoms came into being, has Scotland ever received “support” from England? And precisely what has happened since the coronavirus outbreak began that he interprets as England giving support to Scotland?

The citizens of the two countries wish each other well in their efforts to defeat the virus: that goes without saying. It also goes without saying that the Holyrood and the Westminster governments are working to manage the crisis to the limits of their powers and their abilities: that the Scottish Government has been somewhat, but not vastly, more successful in containing the disease than the UK one is due to the fact that the former has much more ability but much less power. But to suggest that anything identifiable as “support from England” is actually helping Scotland in the current crisis is plain nonsense.

Derrick McClure, Aberdeen AB2.

NICOLA Sturgeon deserves credit for publicly recognising that dealing with the Covif-19 situation involves complexities and uncertainties, and she intends to treat us as adults in the decision-making process. We’ll be looking for the same candour and humility when it comes to the matter of separating Scotland from the UK.

Tim Bell, Edinburgh EH6.

NICOLA Sturgeon called for a 60-second silence to honour health care workers and carers.

Leaving aside the motives, am I the only one espying the irony of Nicola Sturgeon asking the rest of the country to shut up for a minute?

Mark Boyle, Johnstone.

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