Sorry, SNP, but we cannot be independent if we're in the EU

A definition of sovereignty should help, that is the authority of a state to govern itself and determine its own laws. Countries in the EU can pass any law they want but EU law on the same issue takes precedence.

One concern is that if Scotland does become independent it appears that the SNP thinks that it can just rejoin the EU without asking voters for permission in a referendum about whether they want to be in the EU or not.

The SNP, and other members of the EU Supporters Club, should pay more attention to what is actually happening in the EU. Utopia it is not.

The voters in the EU are revolting. Farming protests have been taking place all over the EU this year. This is because of the EU Green Deal, which, remarkably, is aiming to make the production of food and meat, at best, awkward. The Farmers Party in the Netherlands has won seats in Senate and in EU elections due to public unease over the implications of the Green Deal.

The unelected head of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen , has suggested the need for an EU-wide digital ID, "that any citizen can use anywhere in Europe, to do anything from paying your taxes to renting a bicycle"; oh, and handy for keeping track of what citizens are up to as well.

Scotland is not independent in the UK. An independent Scotland cannot be independent in the EU. Scotland can be independent, or it can be in either union.

Brian Nugent, Burra, Shetland.

Excusing failures

UNTIL Gordon Bannatyne (Letters, June 19) "came out" I hadn't come across a Scottish Brexiter who admitted his actions.

How can anyone excuse his own party's failures and mistakes by listing everybody else's?

In recent history we have a PM who is richer than the King, whilst proportionally taxing the lower-paid than the rich - resulting in a significant increase in the number of millionaires during supposed austerity. Before that a short-term MP almost crashed the economy.

However the worst mistake, in an unhealthy enthusiasm to ditch the EU, was to elect an immoral slob who lied (sorry, misspoke) to the Queen, the Parliament and the populace and whose friends profited from selling PPE or moving company assets to Ireland to avoid Brexit effects.

Going back a little further, John Major gave way too much at Maastricht. Not long before that Thatcher sold the family silver by privatisation of utilities and the selling of local authority housing.

As we celebrate D-Day we should also remember that many Tories and the rich wanted to make peace with Hitler. Churchill needed the support of the other parties to form a fighting government.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, it appears to me that too many Tories seem to be liars or support support liars, unless they just have short memories.

JB Drummond, Kilmarnock.

READ MORE: For me, the choice is simple: it has be Tory. Here's why

READ MORE: Wake up, Scotland: Swinney is playing you for fools

How could indy promises hold?

NOW that the outrage has died down regarding my comments about the SNP leadership looking stupid for claiming there would be a second independence referendum in five years (Letters, June 14), perhaps it is possible to look at the issue a bit more rationally.

The background is that in 2014, Scotland decided that it would remain part of the joint enterprise that is the UK. It therefore seems self-evident that any decision about the future of that joint enterprise should involve all of the parties concerned, ie, by agreement between the parliaments of the UK and Scotland. This position has been set out in statute and confirmed in law, so it is not in doubt: there can be no referendum on independence without the agreement of Scotland's Westminster government. So it was on this very rock that the Good Ship Sturgeon foundered when she realised that like so many of her promises (from abolishing the council tax to a public energy company), her pledge of Indyref2 could not and would not be kept. Her successor, the hapless Humza Yousaf, of course tried to keep up the pretence, but it was sign of his dim-witted ineptitude (which surely no-one will now contest) that he did so.

Which brings us to Messrs Flynn and Swinney. The current Prime Minister and his most likely successor have both made it plain that they will not change the current arrangement and that neither will agree to a further independence referendum. So how should we describe the promises of Mr Flynn and Mr Swinney to the contrary? Misguided? Mistaken? Confused? Misleading? Duplicitous? Unrealistic? Fantastical? Daft? Barmy? (Stupid is good enough for me.)

Peter A Russell, Glasgow.

Swinney is clutching at straw

 JOHN Swinney is clutching at straws. His latest election foray includes pushing an expected incoming Labour administration to show respect to the mandate for independence currently held at Holyrood ("Swinney insists Holyrood result a mandate for indyref", heraldscotland, June 19). Times have changed but Mr Swinney cannot accept this for one very good reason: independence is the only SNP policy that still stands, albeit just.

After July 4, however, the position of the SNP could well be too weak to continue with the fantasy of demanding another independence referendum. This comes despite Mr Swinney's rather bold assertion that a loss at the polls will not matter.

Holyrood is not sovereign, the people are. A drubbing for the SNP comes with consequences, something that Mr Swinney and his party like to avoid. Burying your head in the sand never works.

Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.

Scotland's votes will not matter

AS this boring election campaign drags on, with the outcome already settled beyond all reasonable doubt, the news that billionaire John Caudwell has switched his allegiance from Conservative to Labour is confirmation that Keir Starmer has successfully transformed his party into a resurrected version of the old Tory party which Boris Johnson dismantled to "get Brexit done" ("Billionaire who donated £500,000 to Tories in 2019 announces he is voting Labour", heraldscotland, June 18).

As the parties continue to debate taxation, NHS, economic growth and more one fact remains beyond dispute. The party to govern the UK will have been decided by the votes cast south of the Border before a single vote is counted in Scotland. This may not be of concern to some but if, like me, you identify your nationality as Scottish, the question of which brand of unionism will prevail south of the Border is of little concern.

Labour's proposal to lower the voting age to 16 in England was debated last evening on TV. A Conservative spokesman described this as a threat to established convention in the UK; when it was pointed out that the voting age in Scottish elections is already 16 he replied that Scotland was not a nation but merely a region of the UK. I hope the Scottish fans over in Germany will mean it when they sing "we can still rise and be a nation again."

Willie Maclean, Milngavie.

John Swinney at the launch yesterday of the SNP's General Election manifesto (Image: PA)

An unappealing choice

WHILE the Conservatives hardly deserve re-election, there are many reasons to be concerned about any Labour government whether with a small or large majority.

Labour supports votes for children of 16, an increase in trade union officialdom's powers, a tax on private education which will favour the very rich and the best-known and mainstream schools, more supposedly "independent" quangos, and a ban on trail hunting with hounds, among other follies; but it does not accept our continuing need to support our oil industry as we develop more sustainable energy sources, and which will still be needed well after 2050 for non-fuel applications.

Many of its MPs would support increased wokery (in gender zealotry, cancel culture, no platforming, so-called diversity and "decolonisation") and maintaining the unfair imbalance between public and private sector pensions. Will its new MPs have a track record of non-political "real world" experience?

Sir Keir Starmer scorned Rishi Sunak's (admittedly poorly presented) proposal for a new form of national service, as merely a "teenage army", which would seem to negate any rationale for his votes at 16 obsession.

Our choice almost equals that facing Americans in November.

John Birkett, St Andrews.

Definition, please

I WONDER if one of your better-educated readers could help me: is manifesto the Latin for “a load of mince"?

Michael Watson, Glasgow.