Letters: Finally, we can see that there is no substance to the SNP

If I were younger, despite being a former supporter of the idea of independence, I would be seriously looking at the option of moving to the north of England.

James Watson, Dunbar.

SARWAR OR ROSS? NO THANKS

A RECURRING leitmotif in your Letters Pages is the lament of certain correspondents that Scotland “deserves better” than the present dispensation. Indubitably we do; but your correspondents are singularly reticent about specifying precisely how they expect this “better” to be achieved.

By replacing the SNP in government with some representatives of the Scottish branch offices of the Labour or Tory parties, and installing Anas Sarwar or Douglas Ross as First Minister? Don’t make me laugh. By abandoning all pretence to autonomous action and meekly submitting to rule by the most incompetent, corrupt government in two centuries? Don’t make me doubt whether I have heard you correctly.

What Scotland deserves is independence: the status, which other countries take as a matter of course, of being able to run our own affairs in the interests of our own citizens. Until this is achieved, there will be no “better” than the present state of affairs: a fairly capable governing party doing what it can to limit the damage caused by Westminster policies, while handicapped not only by those but by the carping and sniping of MSPs who think the sole purpose of an opposition is to carp and snipe. Haste the day.

Derrick McClure, Aberdeen.

EMERGENCY POWERS ARE NEEDED

EVERY drug death is a tragedy and everyone agrees more needs to be done, but middle-class outrage forgets that more people die every year in Scotland from alcohol and nicotine addiction. Also, prior to Covid more than 95 per cent of people started their first drug or alcohol treatment within three weeks of referral.

All political parties have contributed to the current situation ("10,000 drug deaths in Scotland", The Herald, July 31), as most of the drug-related deaths are long-term users who became addicts up to 40 years ago when Margaret Thatcher’s austerity policies created high unemployment which drove thousands into poverty; plus Labour’s policy of building bleak housing estates with few amenities and even fewer local jobs added to the sense of despair for those with no prospects of a better life.

Drugs policy is reserved to Westminster and the UK Government must help the Scottish Government’s attempt to apply a health approach by allowing supervised drug consumption rooms and the successful Portuguese decriminalisation of drugs. As proposed in a Lancet article two years ago, this could be done by declaring a health emergency in Scotland and granting Holyrood emergency powers to pilot these measures first. If successful, this modern approach could be introduced in England, where drug deaths among young users is rising at a faster rate than in Scotland.

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh.

* IF anyone ever wondered how the SNP could finance "free" handouts and Gaelic signs, then the cuts in funding and latest shocking statistics of the deaths of the most vulnerable groups in our society show in stark contrast exactly how they are paid for – by the deaths of those most vulnerable.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.Nicola Sturgeon's turbo-charged waffling that "each death is a tragedy" reminds us of the Joseph Stalin quote "one death is a tragedy; 10,000 deaths are a statistic".

Waffling for Scotland would be an appropriate SNP motto.

Allan Thompson, Bearsden.

TAXATION KEY TO INDY DEBATE

STRUAN Stevenson (“The Brexit divorce has been an acrimonious process. Scotland should take note”, The Herald, July 29) highlights many of the problems which Scotland would have faced had independence been achieved in 2014, and which will be faced in the future upon achieving independence. However, there are two matters which Mr Stevenson has not considered.

The first problem is that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss (amongst others) are arguing that Brexit has been a glorious success and has opened up great opportunities for our nation. Even if one does not believe Mr Johnson, it is quite clear that life has continued following Brexit. Many individuals have not yet been seriously disadvantaged by our departure from the European Union and might well be quite willing to accept the inconveniences caused by Brexit. Consequently many will be prepared to back the divorce between Scotland and the other constituent parts of the United Kingdom, despite the costs and inconvenience.

The second point not addressed is that a majority of the population in Scotland want independence. In 2014 almost 45 per cent of those voting in the referendum voted in favour of independence on the basis of Alex Salmond’s ludicrous White Paper. One year later in the 2015 General Election almost 50% of those voting supported the Scottish National Party, a clear indication that there was support for independence, especially when there was no risk of a costly divorce being pursued at that time.

The task for those who want to achieve independence is to address the points raised by Mr Stevenson and make sensible preparations for the divorce, rather than attempt to secure a smash and grab victory in a referendum. One area in which we need to prepare is in taxation. The White Paper in 2014 made bold aspirational promises, but gave no clear indication as to how these aspirations would be realised and how tax would actually be collected. We must make clear what we want from taxation and how the system would operate.

Sandy Gemmill, Edinburgh.

OIL REVENUES WERE SQUANDERED

I NOTE Allan Sutherland’s assertion (Letters, July 29) that the UK would not have “given away its rights to 90 per cent of the oil”. If Scotland had been independent, this would have been quite incorrect, as the UK would have had no rights over the oil in Scottish waters. The position in international law is based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which makes clear that the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of a sovereign state runs for up to 200 miles from its coastline. The dividing line of the two countries’ EEZs, in Gavin McCrone’s opinion, would lie just north of Berwick on Tweed, but even projecting the border (which would take the line further north) “could have the effect of transferring the small oilfields in the south, Auk and Argyll, to the English sector, but would not affect the main finds”.

Mr Sutherland considers that oil tax was used to “plug holes in the rapidly declining industries, especially in Scotland”. I think he should try saying that to the former shipyard workers on the Clyde, or those once employed by Singers in Clydebank (to take only two examples). Rather the revenue was used to pay unemployment benefit to the many thousands made redundant, many of whom were never employed again. Nor was this only in Scotland, as there were just as many scars in the North of England as well as in Wales. It is, in any case, a strange view of a benefit to be made redundant and paid unemployment benefit, wherever you live.

Moreover, the most purposeless use of the oil revenue was to fund the tax reductions that the Thatcher Government implemented with relish.

Lastly, Mr Sutherland's unenthusiastic views of the ability of a Scottish government to manage the Scottish economy, are totally undermined by McCrone’s judgment that Scotland would be in “chronic surplus” , and its currency “would become the hardest in Europe, with the exception perhaps of the Norwegian kroner” (both page 8 of the report).

An oil fund based on the Norwegian model required a degree of state participation that Tony Benn made clear Harold Wilson would not countenance. However, had Scotland gone in the same direction, even as recently as 1990 when the Norwegian fund was set up, it could be worth today US$1.3 trillion in assets.

Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton.

Read more: Parties need to work together to tackle this dreadful scourge