Letters: It would be folly for Scots to submit to EU control

The argument that Scotland has little or no influence on Westminster is only acutely relevant under the Boris Johnson regime which can be, and surely will be, ousted. Labour governments have been in power as a consequence of Scottish Labour, and two recent Labour prime ministers and a sizeable number of their Cabinet ministers were Scots. Theresa May won a General Election on the back of an unexpected good performance by her party in Scotland.

Shamefully, the SNP had a golden opportunity to achieve a soft Brexit with its influence had it voted on the customs union option (which it had previously said was the minimum it would accept) but chose to wreck anything Westminster tried rather than do what was best for the UK and more importantly, Scotland.

I cannot see how an independent Scotland within the EU will benefit the average Scot. However, I can see that the huge egos of the SNP leadership will enjoy swanning around pretending to be representatives of a country while acting like a great big county council, or as Billy Connolly said, as a pretendy parliament.

Duncan Sooman, Milngavie.

OUR PROBLEMS LIE WITH BREXIT

THE hospitality industry is suffering because of staff shortages – 40,000 vacancies in Scotland, according to Leon Thompson, executive director of UKHospitality Scotland ("Trade bodies say staff shortages could cost hospitality £21 billion", The Herald, June 24).

When you ask why, up pops Brexit.

The UK's immigration policy should be another.

Refugees and asylum seekers we have "welcomed" to this country are not allowed to work until their status has been granted. But that can take many years. Thank you, Home Secretary Priti Patel, who wants to send them to Rwanda anyway.

I recently took a friend from New Zealand on a mini-tour of Scotland.

On a day trip to Edinburgh we called into the Rose Street Brewery pub for lunch. But the chef was on his lunch break. We took the empty glasses and full ashtray from our street table into the bar and settled instead just for a drink.

On a drive up north we stopped at the Ardlui Hotel on the banks of Loch Lomond. Unfortunately, it was closed. A sign on the door explained that because of Brexit it didn't have the staff to open at lunchtime.

And yet there are refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland who would love to work.

You'd have to be pretty vacant in the head not to understand where the problem lies.

Andy Stenton, Glasgow.

GREEN BETRAYAL ON THE WAY

LAST week Boris Johnson indicated that his Government will support a new coal mine in Cumbria. He said during Prime Minister's Questions that "plainly it makes no sense to be importing coal, particularly for metallurgical purposes, when we have our own domestic resources". His excuse is that the steel industry needs this type of coal and the UK should not be importing foreign supplies.

In this way, he and his Government are adding to the cynical false undertakings they made at COP26. Like their Brexit lies, those shady promises are being broken undercover: using Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine as diversions from the economic disaster their imperial delusions, their xenophobia, sleaze and incompetence have created.

The Cumbrian situation is made worse by the fact that Europe and the rest of world are already developing technologies for the manufacture of steel with green hydrogen. Opening a new coal mine therefore takes England's economy backwards while other nations, including China race ahead. Such desperate decisions are just another marker of Westminster's political and economic bankruptcy.

Since the disastrous Brexit vote in 2016, Scotland has demonstrated repeatedly that we vote for environmental, economic, energy, social and international policies which are totally at odds with the continuing mess at Westminster. Our Holyrood Government, in particular, is backing the development of green hydrogen while Westminster, ignoring all the evidence, resorts to environmentally and economically destructive dependence on coal and nuclear.

Margaret Thatcher destroyed our Scottish steel industry in the 1980s. Her political offspring are in the process of leading what's left of the English steel industry to obsolescence. They are also confirming their international disgrace and deceit.

In all these things, with our votes, Scotland's people have already plotted a very different course for our future. The coming Cumbrian betrayal is one more warning of how vital our independence has become.

Frances McKie, Evanton.

• UNION-SUPPORTING correspondents often tell us of the risks of Scottish independence. The letter from Malcolm Parkin (June 24), who tells us that our oil belongs to “those who bought the seabed from Westminster way back in 1969 and found and then extracted the stuff”, made me consider the risks the other way around – the risks of remaining in the UK, although I'm tolerably certain that the writer did not mean it this way.

The oil and gas in the North Sea was very quickly given over to multinationals, with very little thought of long-time benefits for the people of the UK. Of course, lots of reasonably well-paid jobs were created and there were some benefits, but these are transient and will end. There is no sovereign oil wealth fund.

If Scotland stays in the UK then I think that in about 25 years, we'll all be wondering how multinationals got control of Scotland's huge natural resources, especially those in connection with renewables. This time there won't even be the compensation of the jobs, as it seems to me that the renewables field is a lot less labour-intensive than the oil and gas industry.

Of course we may go independent and do it that way anyway, but we do know for sure how the UK will do it.

Iain Cope, Glasgow.

OUR POLICE HAVE BEEN BROKEN

THE SNP Government has already destroyed what were once reasonably effective local police forces. It decided in its wisdom that it had to fix something that wasn’t broken so reshaped it into Police Scotland, and that now is broken.

Lack of funding and constant interference from a cabal of "experts" and various justice secretaries have taken our police force up a blind alley. The public has been and still is losing confidence in law enforcement. Report a burglary and you might get a visit sometime. Catch the burglar and administer a physical reprimand and you’ll be locked up within hours. Now our top policeman tells us it’s only going to get worse ("Cuts could mean fewer officers on beat, warns police chief", The Herald, 24). Oh for another Wyatt Earp.

Ian Balloch, Grangemouth.

PUT PM OUT OF HIS MISERY

CLEARLY Boris Johnson's refusal to read the runes suggests that he does not wish to see the writing on the wall for his career as PM, enveloped as he is in his cloak of narcissism.

His hubris has rendered him as blind as Oedipus, who could not grasp in his mind's eye that he was the source of the malaise gripping his kingdom. Not until it was spelled out to him did he come to the realisation of what he had done to bring about his own downfall.

It looks as though Mr Johnson too will come too late to understanding that his performance as PM has severely damaged his party. But who is going to play Tiresias to Boris's Oedipus to open his eyes to the truth staring him starkly in the face?

He is now surrounded by enemies he once thought of as allies and it does not look as though there is any way back for him.

It would indeed be a kindness if the men in suits came along soon to deliver the coup de grace to spare him the pain, and his party the misery, of the humiliating backlash of an abject defeat at the next General Election.

Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.