UNUSUALLY, I found myself in complete agreement with Mark Smith’s article today ("For Yes supporters the SNP ‘civil war’ is just a sideshow", The Herald, August 17) before he spoiled it at the end with a hackneyed unionist trope – the SNP’s “struggle to break up the United Kingdom”, a comment I have never come across in any SNP literature as a goal or objective. This would be exactly the same as saying the goal of Brexit was to break up the EU, complete nonsense of course. What I have come across in many different guises within the independence movement is the prospect of an extended hand of friendship to our old neighbours with whom we will continue to work but from a position of equals once independence is achieved.

Like many unionists, Mr Smith conflates independence supporters who do not vote for the SNP with those who do, another common unionist ploy in the hope that denigrating the SNP will damage the independence cause overall. The independence movement is bigger than any politician, bigger than any split and certainly bigger than the SNP and should the SNP ship ever become holed below the waterline, there is an ample supply of lifeboats in the waiting.

Alan M Morris, Blanefield.

YOUR Saturday columnist Struan Stevenson this week holds forth on economics and politics (“SNP suffers from grudge and grievance syndrome”, The Herald, August 15). If, like me, your readers were hoping for cogent analysis and logical thinking they would have been disappointed.

His theme is SNP grievance, but Mr Stevenson’s article is redolent with his own grievance that by some inexplicable paradox, support for both the SNP and independence is steadily rising while all around, all he sees is failure and despair.

He berates SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford for taunting him with the mantra of “too wee, too poor, too stupid”. However, he then attempts, with the aid of some dubious back of an envelope calculations, to demonstrate that Scotland is essentially bankrupt, unable to support a currency or public services and unable to achieve equivalence with countries such as Ireland or Denmark. He opines we are so economically toxic that Scotland would be shunned by the EU.

Does Mr Stevenson really believe that? And, if he does, is it a good reason for persisting with a 313-year-old Union which has left us in such penury?

He then recycles the tired arguments of Better Together circa 2012. Discovering oil was an economic disaster, Scotland’s deficit is the largest in Europe, we are totally dependent on the largesse of London and so on. For Mr Stevenson and those of his ilk, any thought of constitutional change can only be measured against the yardstick of his version of economics. It’s all about bawbees and siller in your pocket, especially if you’re a higher rate taxpayer.

The answer to his paradox, of course, is not to be found in balance sheets or economic statistics. It’s staring him in the face. Since 2014 Scotland has voted decisively against Brexit and three Tory governments, yet all have been imposed by the Union. That’s where the grievance lies and that’s the reason for the increasing support for the SNP and Independence.

Iain Gunn, Elgin.

STRUAN Stevenson states that it would “cost around £60 billion” to establish our own currency. He has, however, got it this the wrong way round.

To put 60 billion Scots Pounds into circulation, you take in £60 billion Sterling in exchange. This forms the reserve as backing for the Scots currency, although I would suggest that some of the Sterling be sold in exchange for gold and/or dollars, since Sterling is a very weak currency, and the Scots pound would be stronger. The reason for this is that the UK has, for a good number of years, been running a trade deficit, usually at least £30 billion annually, whereas Scotland has, since records began, always shown a balance of trade surplus, currently around £5 billion a year.

Older readers like me will remember the post-war mantra “export or die”, the IMF bail-out when James Callaghan was Chancellor and the conditions imposed (including a wage freeze); and the fall of Sterling from the post-war $4 to the pound to $1.30 to the pound now.

Since the last world war, about 150 countries have become independent. Nearly all established their own currency very quickly with no fuss, little expense, and a lot of advantages.

But maybe Mr Stevenson would have preferred to stay with the Titanic rather than risk a lifeboat.

Ian Macdonald, Bearsden.

STRUAN Stevenson repeats the mantra about Scotland’s “deficit”, ignoring as usual that, whatever this figure is supposed to actually represent, it is mostly generated as a result of mismanaged fiscal powers reserved by the UK Government. The Scottish Government, allowed very limited fiscal freedoms, balances its budget every year. When was the last time the UK managed to do this? Elsewhere he refers to Scotland’s Covid-19 death rate being higher than Norway’s, a unionist deceit since, again, it was the delayed, incompetent deployment of powers reserved to the UK Government that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of our fellow Scots.

These are but two typical examples of the flimsiness of the unionist cause. Bereft of any vision for Scotland (beyond perpetuating and compounding even more misery and poverty upon our citizens), Mr Stevenson and his diminishing parcel of rogues can do nothing to resist the inevitable demise of this corrupt, decaying facade of a Union and the prospect of an liberated, independent Scotland being welcomed warmly back among its friends in the EU.

Charles Shaw, Glasgow G73.

RUTH Marr (Letters, August 17) attempts to take Dr Gerald Edwards to task for his letter of August 14 implying that democracy had been denied when the Greens voted with the Government to defeat the no confidence motion raised against the Education Secretary. She is disingenuous with her take on the point being made by Dr Edwards, who raised the quite reasonable complaint that the vote was defeated only because the Greens, who at the last election gained 0.6 per cent of the vote, sided with the Government's 45.6% of the vote, thus the majority represented in parliament was denied and Mr Swinney survived in situ. This undoubtedly is bad for our young people and bad for our education system going forward and may well have unintended consequences for the First Minister, who asked the public some time ago to judge her on her record in education.

If the system as it currently stands allows this quite indefensible denial of democracy then the system needs fixed, and quickly.

James Martin, Bearsden.

PRIME Minister Boris Johnson is keen on saying he would rather die than allow certain things to happen.

In September 2019 he would “rather be dead in a ditch” than agree to extend Brexit beyond October 31, before then having to go cap in hand to Brussels to request a delay until January 31, 2020.

Most recently he noted that there would be a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK “over his dead body”.

Bizarrely, that was after Cabinet Officer Minister Michael Gove announced funding of £355 million to ease trade over what was, according to the PM, a border that doesn’t and won’t exist.

It appears that Mr Johnson has surpassed Lazarus, not just rising once, but twice from the dead.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh EH9.

Read more: Letters: Unionists’ witch hunt is opposition just for the sake of it