LISTENING and reading about the appointment of the former Chief Whip as the new Defence Secretary and the comments being made on the Westminster back benches shows just how complete factionalised the Parliamentary Conservative party has become ("Backbenchers brand May 'weak' over choice of Defence Secretary", The Herald, November 3).

A referendum that was supposed to lay the EU ghost and unite the party turned into a nightmare for David Cameron and the recent General Election debacle has seriously weakened Prime Minister Theresa May. Her judgement is being seriously questioned inside her own party and the country.

Here we are in the middle of the most important set of negotiations in an entire generation being led by a party that is weakened and split by its own divisions. It would give the electorate some confidence to have faith in the Government to be able to deliver a result that would support our future economy and promote the living standards of the UK population, but that outcome is diminishing on a daily basis.

You reported that one of the major Brexit leaders, the Foreign Secretary, proposes to take on an additional 50 more diplomats to "beef up the country's bilateral influence in the EU after Brexit" at a cost of £8m a year ("UK to take on 50 diplomats", The Herald, November 2). A mere £160,000 each. These high-cost civil servants will be able to undo all the damage that is being done by Boris' Johnson's Cabinet colleague David Davis, who is leading us down a hard Brexit path to placate the hard-line members of the Tory back benches. Well, we can all make up our own minds about that proposition.

Never in the recent history of Westminster government has a country been so ill-used and abused by the needs of a single political party. This is the party in government, which is publicly tearing itself apart, and we will all reap the whirlwind.

Dave Biggart,

Southcroft, Knockbuckle Road, Kilmacolm.

IT is now obvious that Brexit is a fiasco in the hands of Westminster politicians.

Except for those whose insular antipathy towards Europe led the country into its current parlous state and who, with the support of a biased media, continue to peddle their nonsense that all will be well outside the EU, surely few can now believe that our politicians have the necessary competence to make a success of Brexit.

Having very reluctantly accepted the democratic decision, we must all have anticipated, or at least hoped for, thorough analysis, in-depth understanding, and skilled planning and execution of the process by those responsible. But there is no evidence in the public domain which would show this to be the case.

At Westminster the same tired, unsubstantiated rhetoric, rehearsed ad nauseam during the referendum process, is still employed and has become the daily currency of media exchanges, while the situation deteriorates.

What started as a myopic, political, ideological venture has in the hands of inept politicians become a nightmare, an endless daily struggle between blind optimism, and antagonism on all sides.

The Prime Minister's desperate plea for an extended period of this torture is surely testimony to the fact that this flawed project is deeply and possibly irrevocably in trouble. Her foray into Europe was no more than a smokescreen, while she looked for someone else to blame for her party's recklessness.

Unfortunately, by now too many have allowed themselves to be convinced that Brexit will be good for us, despite almost daily evidence that Brexit Ministers are out of their depths in dealing with the complexities of Brexit itself, and with the EU negotiators, who are running rings round them.

Instead of treating Brexit as the immense economic challenge it represents, and gathering expertise from across the political spectrum to address that challenge, it has been allowed to degenerate into a political mess, and a potential economic disaster.

There is simply no evidence to support the existing Government contention that the economy can survive the unplanned and entirely avoidable economic turmoil which lies ahead. It is surely time to draw back and take stock of the reality that those currently in charge are simply not up to the task; to assess whether there is any foundation for believing that supposed plans for future trade outside the EU will even sustain, never mind grow, the economy in the short or medium term; and to consider whether we can develop an alternative strategy that can be demonstrated will work.

Do our politicians have the backbone, the competence and the leadership to halt the pretence and take us in a new direction?

Gerry Seenan,

Eglinton Terrace, Skelmorlie.

BREXIT, I am regularly reminded, is the will of the people and questioning the wisdom of the decision merely demonstrates that I am an elite, anti-democratic, globalist. Yet the sheer complexity of the issue and the fact that no nation had tried to leave the EU before meant it was always going an truly perilous shot in the dark.

To plan ahead and mitigate the damage after the unexpected referendum result the Government commissioned around 60 studies into the economic impact of leaving. Brexiters don’t want the public to have access to this information, presumably because the results are so alarming there might be a clamour for another vote.

Yet it's a funny kind of democracy that insists public involvement in such a huge event that will affect not only our future but that of our children – who, let us not forget, voted overwhelmingly against Brexit – is over and one binary vote poisoned by propaganda is all we are to be allowed. No wonder Hitler liked referendums.

Rev Dr John Cameron,

10 Howard Place, St Andrews.

THERE has been much recent deliberation by political commentators on what was meant by the phrase declared 50 years ago by the newly-elected Member of Parliament Winnie Ewing: “Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on” (“Sturgeon hails pioneer Ewing”, The Herald, November 2).

At the funeral of my father - Hugh MacDonald - in Islay in December 2013 the SNP veteran George Leslie attributed the source of the phrase to him. My father, John McAteer and George were a key part of the Hamilton election team. As one of his three sons I had the great pleasure and honour of discussing the Hamilton By-Election and its consequences with my father towards the end of his life. The statement quite simply was about self-determination and the call to Scotland to have the belief and the confidence to take its rightful place in the world as a nation state.

Roddy MacDonald,

1 Glenmount Place, Ayr.