I FEEL like grinding my teeth every time I hear Priti Patel coming out with her pet remark "I am speaking on behalf of the British people".

Certainly none of the people I meet voice the opinion she does in relation to her Rwandan project. Perhaps she is speaking for a narrow right-wing group who would claim that this is a populist view, reminiscent as it is of the Nigel Farage playbook.

Has Ms Patel taken wide soundings on her so-called effort to discourage the people smugglers from sending migrants across the Channel on unseaworthy vessels?

Do the protests of decent people about the inhumanity of punishing the migrants for being so desperate to reach our shores that they are willing to pay the boat providers extortionate amounts to get here on dangerous vessels mean nothing to her?

Then we have the mounting outcry against lawyers who undertake the cases of migrants who wish to protect their human rights – as we would all do in similar circumstances. Lies will be spread about the amounts of money being used up from the public purse to defend those penniless migrants when instead the Government should have set up easily-accessible physical platforms across the Channel where the requests for asylum could be quickly processed and adjudicated upon to end the folly of those flotillas.

Why is it not possible to identify through Interpol co-operation those who take the money, put the migrants on those leaky crafts and then enjoy their profits? Surely it should be possible also for beach patrols to disable such craft to prevent any possibility of those caught in the act of trying to set sail from France from using them?

Instead of penalising the desperate, the aim should be to catch the desperados to put them out of business.

It is a pity that Ms Patel is pointlessly pursuing this path of penalising the poor in the hope of dissuading the criminally rich from amassing more ill gotten gains.

Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.

STOP LEGAL AID FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS

PRITI Patel will bid to quash the decision by European judges which led to the first Rwanda asylum flight being cancelled at the last moment.

The Channel migrants all claim to be asylum seekers so they can get legal aid, but they are predominantly economic migrants. If they were genuine asylum seekers they would have claimed safe haven in one of the 27 EU countries, not travel through Europe to France and then pay thousands of pounds to be taken on a dinghy across the Channel to the UK. The 28,526 who landed in 2021, and the 11,643 so far this year should be deported.

A simple solution would be to change the law and stop legal aid for asylum seekers. The thousands of asylum-chasing lawyers would then have to look elsewhere for the taxpayer-funded fees which support their very comfortable lifestyles.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow.

SEATS TALLY IS TELLING

GERALD Edwards (Letters, June 18) points out that the Scottish Greens didn't win a constituency seat at last year's Holyrood elections, although he doesn't mention that they did have their best-ever result of list seats. However, Dr Edwards must also be aware that Labour won only two constituency seats, the LibDems four, and the Conservatives five, while the SNP won 62 constituency seats. That seems a pretty good argument for the SNP to do what it promised to do in its manifesto and hold an independence referendum.

Dr Edwards contends that it can be "reasonably surmised" that many of last year's non-voters are pro-Union supporters, which rather begs the question; if so, why didn't they turn out and vote for the pro-Union parties?

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

INDY NOT JUST ABOUT THE SNP

IN your article "FM Sturgeon claims opponents 'running scared' of Inyref2" (June 19), you quote a Sunday Times article that states "she [the FM] is prepared to hold a consultative referendum to bypass the stalemate [of no 'approval' from Westminster] and that the SNP leadership consider such a move as a win, win situation" – but also that unionists would be likely to boycott such a vote, making the outcome questionable "if the only participants were SNP supporters".

A wee heads-up, folks – independence is not only desired by SNP supporters, and not even by only SNP and Scottish Green Party supporters. A not-insignificant number of Labour Party supporters, as well as some LibDems and even Tory voters, support independence from Westminster as the best way forward for Scotland.

The article further quotes a UK Government spokesman as saying "now is not the time" and that the [domestic] priorities should be "tackling the cost of living, protecting our long-term energy security, and growing our economy".

And that's precisely why so many of us in Scotland – not only SNP supporters – have come to realise that it isn't a question of independence OR recovery. We'll be voting independence FOR Scotland's recovery, and for the benefit of future generations who can reap the rewards available from Scotland's abundance of natural resources – when we put a stop to Westminster plundering our assets.

Ian Waugh, Dumfries.

WHERE DID THE CLADDING CASH GO?

I FIND it hard to believe that as of the end of May 2022, just £241,000 of a £97.1 million cladding fund provided to the Scottish Government has been spent on remedial work in Scotland in the wake of the tragic and horrendous blaze which engulfed Grenfell Tower and resulted in the loss of 72 lives in June, 2017 ("Only £241,000 of a £97 million cladding fund provided to Scot Gov after Grenfell has been spent", June 19).

The spin-off from the Barnett formula placed the Scottish Government in a good position to improve cladding on high-rise flats, thus safeguarding residents from a similar fate to those who perished in London. With the cash readily available, why has the uptake been so slow and where is the money now? Has it been put towards the independence agenda or thrown into black holes like the Ferguson Marine fiasco to hide the Scottish Government's failures? The UK Government is also at fault for trusting the devolved power to use the money for which it was intended and not demanding an accounting of the public funds.

Bob MacDougall, Kippen.

WASTING BILLIONS ON TRIDENT

VALERIE Stewart (Letters, June 19) writes: “Just think what the train workers and teachers and police and council workers and anyone you could think of could do with £20 million.” I would say just think what train workers and teachers and police and council workers and NHS staff and anyone you could think of could do with the countless billions spent on Trident, and all useless nuclear weapons.

Margaret Forbes, Blanefield.

CHEESE BEFORE FM'S BREAD AND BUTTER

SURPRISINGLY, Nicola Sturgeon has posted on social media that next year she wants Glasgow to host, on the UK's behalf, the Eurovision Song Contest, the very year she intends Scotland to leave the UK. Less surprising is that her Facebook post announcing this has attracted around double the number of likes chalked up by her previous post that gushed on about the supposed benefits of independence. Cheesy song contests are clearly more likeable than leaving the UK.

Martin Redfern, Melrose.

A SONG FOR SCOTLAND

IF the SNP and Greens want the Eurovision Song Contest to come to Scotland they must insist on a separate Scottish entry.

Can I suggest the following selection of songs reflecting modern Scotland from which to choose our entry?

How about: The Glower of Scotland (tribute to the First Minister), Just A Wee Deoch an' Boris, The Simple Crofter's Jig, NOT Over the Sea to Skye, The Bonnie, Bonnie Non-investment Banks o' Loch Lomond, A man's a wummin fur a' that, The NHS Patient's Reel – Literally, and Humza Yousaf's Lament(able)?

Any one of these candidates would produce a memorable impression of our socially-just, sustainable, open and inclusive nation for our erstwhile and hoped-for European partners. And hopefully more than null points.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.

POLITICIANS IGNORE REAL DRUGS PROBLEM

CAROLINE Wilson ("Can Scotland learn from liberal Lisbon’s approach to addiction?", June 19) quotes Ricardo Fuertes saying drugs policy is influenced by morals rather than expert knowledge and rational thought. Sadly, even this is not true. Drugs policy is decided by the fact that reform of the drug laws is not a vote-winner, certainly nor as far as ministers in a Conservative government are concerned.

We have seen after years of spiralling Scottish drug death statistics that UK politicians simply do not care how many are thrown to die under the bus of prohibition. There does seem to be some de facto decriminalisation going on, thankfully, but don't expect anything different to politicians ignoring the problem any time soon.

Bruce Ferguson, Glasgow.