Independence alone will not create a better Scotland

An example of the former would be the annual percentage wage rise, the outcome of a negotiation between an employer and employees (often trade unions). The latter concerns the process put in place to negotiate and make that decision.

Thus, substantive issues would include the conditions employees would have at work, but procedural issues concern the process through which those conditions are agreed. How the NHS is run, the level of employment, price level and so on are decisions of government, and thus substantive, but independence is procedural – the process by which government takes (or not) decisions that attempt to influence the level of employment, for instance.

So, independence of and by itself does nothing directly – its significance is its influence on the quality and effectiveness of the substantive decisions that shape, for example, the safety net that is welfare, or the level of redistribution from taxation. But procedurally, the issue we face is whether decision-making continues to be shared between governments, increasingly of different minds, at Holyrood and Westminster? Or would it better if full power over decision-making were restored to Scotland as an independent nation, with no direct authority for any other nation?

However, it needs to be understood that how decisions are taken is a procedural matter, and thus different from the substantive issues taken within this process, of how best to run or support the NHS, education, or housing. Independence itself will not create a better, fairer Scotland, but it can be a positive environment for it to happen.

Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton

Future of the Yes campaign

I WELCOME Edinburgh University's Professor Lindsay Paterson’s research on independence, going back to 1979, the year the first referendum for devolution occurred. His firm conclusion, like that of Sir John Curtis, is that support for independence "is not going away” and a majority of "above 60%" will happen in the very near future.

The research, now published in the journal The Political Quarterly, also concluded that “the level of support for independence, and of opposition to it, are unlikely to be affected by the transient fortunes of the SNP”.

It’s now abundantly clear that young Scots and indeed people born since the late 1960s are pushing the Yes campaign for independence, irrespective of any political agenda.

Grant Frazer, Newtonmore

All the ingredients to prosper

IAN Lakin (Letters, October 16) is obviously unaware that based on GDP per capita, Scotland is roughly the 25th richest nation on the planet and above the average for EU countries.

Given that as much oil and gas has been extracted from Scotland’s territorial waters as in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, the crucial question is why under Westminster control of our economy our GDP, as part of the UK, is much less than Norway, Denmark, Finland or Ireland.

Cyprus, Malta and Singapore were all told that they couldn’t possibly survive without London’s subsidies yet none have asked to return to their colonial status.

All the above countries have different economic models and political outlooks. An independent Scotland with our massive surplus of energy resources, a highly educated population, a sound financial sector and a very democratic parliament, has all the ingredients to prosper as a normal self-governing country.

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh

No lasting benefit on oil and gas

I WOULD like to thank Ian Lakin (Letters, October 16) for trying to address the points in my letter. The normal union supporters’ tactics is to ignore these points, then repeat attacks that have all been said before on the SNP.

In response I would point out that he makes his point in respect of the fiscal situation right now, whereas my point was about the fiscal situation since the 70s.

Secondly, I have not claimed that there was no benefit to the Scottish or British people from oil and gas, just nowhere near what it could and probably should have been. There is certainly not any lasting benefit that will continue after the oil and gas is finished. Unlike Norway.

He has not addressed the main point at all. What will the UK do in the future to develop Scotland and eliminate the current revenue spending deficit? I certainly am open to looking forward and working together to address that problem.

Iain Cope, Glasgow

A toxic relationship and who’s to blame

IT takes a rather slanted perspective for Peter Wright (Letters, October 16) to claim that “the then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP Government had set up a very toxic attitude to, and relationship with, Westminster”.

When the Scottish Government constructively published the paper Scotland’s Place In Europe (in 2018), along the lines of what has proven acceptable for Northern Ireland, the Scottish Government was not even given the courtesy by Westminster of facilitating the document’s formal presentation, never mind its serious discussion. The introduction of the UK Internal Market Act and direct UK Government funding of projects in Scotland blatantly undermine Scottish devolution (which was supported by nearly 75% of the voting electorate).

The attempts by the Secretary of State for Scotland Alister Jack to manipulate the Scotland Act to thwart the will of the Scottish Parliament along with his repeated refusal of invitations by the Scottish Parliament to speak to Holyrood committees to explain his decisions show his utter contempt not only for the Scottish Parliament but the proportionately represented people of Scotland (of course only a small minority of whom have voted for the Tory party in Scotland in recent times).

On the subject of the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out performance, should Mr Wright wish to make an objective comparison between the UK and Europe he should not simply consider the initial roll-out speed but which countries produced the most effective vaccines, which countries had the most extensive vaccine roll-outs and which countries had the lowest death rates.

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry

Is this really the new strategy?

SO Humza Yousaf now says that if the SNP wins a majority of Scottish seats at the next General Election, he has a clear mandate to begin negotiations with Westminster for another separation referendum. What? While the SNP these days loses seats on a regular basis, let's run with a current total of 43 SNP MPs. So Yousaf believes a loss of 14 seats (33% of today's tally) places him in a position of strength to demand a referendum. Really?

And, if he secures fewer than 29 seats, does his party abandon its UK break-up objective? Or root around for some new trigger? The SNP constitution states unequivocally that its party's number one raison d'être is independence; a dramatic loss of support indicates a significant reduction in Scexit enthusiasm. Mr Yousaf is setting up himself and his party as a tragic joke.

Martin Redfern, Melrose

A necessary end to occupation

AN opinion-piece in an Israeli newspaper states “the State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in”. It is not alone in this view, but a new ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population would surely be unconscionable, and where would they go?

For 60 years the West has largely ignored the Palestinian problem, while burnishing the credentials of its supposed moral superiority. Here’s an idea. Yes, decant the 2.3 million of the Gaza strip, but move them to the West bank and expel the 750,000 illegal “settlers” living there, back to Israel. Use the present demarcation “Green Line” as the border between Israel and a putative Palestinian State; Jerusalem/land swaps also part of the whole.

Palestinians would have to recognise the right of Israel to exist, and Zionists (some in the present Israeli government) would have to give up the notion of a “Greater Israel”. It would probably require serious threats of sanctions (mainly from the USA) to impose, and years of United Nations supervision. None of this would be easy and it certainly wouldn’t be cheap, but at some point the “occupation” has to end. If not this, then what?

GR Weir, Ochiltree