IN her article ‘SNP’s reasoned responses are no longer sufficient’ (November 15), Lesley Riddoch had a bit of a rant, which was under the circumstances pretty understandable.

Politically, in respect of the UK/EU draft Brexit agreement, Scotland and its leader had been disgracefully sidelined. However, presumably after Lesley penned her article, Nicola Surgeon was centre stage on TV on Wednesday evening explaining her personal anger at Scotland’s exclusion and outlining firstly her strong desire that at the very least the UK Parliament and people should have the choice of fully remaining in the EU single market, and secondly, If it came to the likelihood that we would crash out of the EU without a deal, then she would back a people’s vote on fully remaining in the EU.

She was given considerable air time on STV’s 10pm news and again on Robert Peston’s hastily arranged programme immediately after. I don’t watch the state broadcaster’s news, so I don’t know how much time she got on the BBC. I suspect it was less!

British media and hence the UK public are getting a lot more than a mere glimpse, really for the first time since the 2014 indyref1, of the Scottish Government’s political perspective. It may well be that they like what they see and hear. Compared to May, Corbyn, Foster, Cable and even Wales’s Jones, there is much to like after all, especially if you incline towards stopping Brexit.

READ MORE: The SNP's reasoned responses to Tory disrespect are no longer sufficient

At this most tumultuous moment in UK politics in many, many years, Nicola Sturgeon cannot just yet fire the starting gun on Indyref2 as Lesley Riddoch wants. A UK election within months is not just a strong possibility – some would say it is likely. Further Brexit chaos will assuredly continue in parallel. An independence referendum called under that backdrop would simply be postponed anyway.

Sturgeon’s fingers were already burned when she fired the gun in 2015 only to humiliatingly backtrack a year later when Scotland”s fickle electorate swung back towards the Union. She is wise to wait to see how the dice roll over the next few months. Scotland could well be clamouring at some point soon for full control of our destiny, but we’re just not at that point yet.

Nicola Sturgeon has been in politics since her teens. She has made a few mistakes but her judgment has refined over the years. Lesley Riddoch quoted from Twitter the views of a couple of activists desperate to get started on a definite indyref2 timetable. We’re actually all feeling the same, but timing is all.

Get it right and we’ll have a happy procession towards freedom. Get it wrong, and we’ll be licking wounds again, dreaming, heaven forbid, of indyref3. Nicola Sturgeon has more savvy than two Alex Salmonds. She’ll select the right moment, get the arguments aligned properly over currency and other major issues and she’ll destroy in debate whomsoever the desperate Unionists can bribe with a peerage to stand up against her.

She is doing a pretty good job so she has earned our trust. Indyref2 is coming, and possibly a bit sooner than the less patient campaigners for Scottish independence fear. I feel it in the old bones.

The resignations are making my letter and other contributions outdated as we type. I think the government is about to fall and we’ll get an election in January or February. But only a referendum is going to sort the Brexit chaos now as the General Election won’t do it, such are the parliamentary and national divisions over Brexit.

The world watches in bemusement.

David Crines
Hamilton