GRADUALISM or action? I write in support of the George Kerevan view that with the current meltdown in the Palace of Westminster, the opportunity for our cause is now (Delay indyref2 and risk another lost generation, January 21).
Like him I have always had the highest regard for Joyce McMillan’s contributions, be it on politics or the arts, however her current proposition being lauded by Andrew Wilson is a false prospectus. The fact that the need for a Section 30 is enshrined in the Scotland Act is testament to the fact that it will never again be granted.
READ MORE: Delay indyref2 and risk another lost generation of Scots
David Cameron agreed in 2013 as an act of bravado. The Growth Commission chaired by Wilson and its notion that an independent Scottish currency might come about after 10 years or more Sterlingisation, with the London money markets continuing to hold Scottish economic development hostage, is not a convincing sell on the doorstep when the real message is about taking control of our own affairs and being grown up about making decisions for ourselves.
Whatever the standing of his lauded credentials as an economist, Wilson’s arrogant dismissal of indyref2 sooner rather than later as “patently risible” corrodes his polemic. The timeframe of the wait-and-see argument means that many EU nationals whom we would want to vote with us will, not unreasonably, have made alternative arrangements for their futures and moved home or to other more welcoming parts of the EU.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond says now is the time for independence fight
After March 29 our fledgling democracy will also be without the umbrella of the European Court of Human Rights.
Reasonableness has not served us well to date. If nothing else, last week’s parody of a pantomime (if that’s not the ultimate oxymoron) illustrates better than anything else that we need to pursue our self-interest and be biased in the pursuit of our independence. We need to be belligerent in our challenge to the Britnats and their naked self-interest in pursuit of Home County values (even if they live in Perthshire or Morayshire).
Westminster ignores 62% of the Scottish electorate who voted to remain. It ignores the alternative Brexit propositions tabled by the Scottish Government to suit our circumstances. It ignores the 50 amendments tabled by the SNP to the Article 50 legislation.
Westminster has neutered the Holyrood Continuity Bill with its manipulation of the Supreme Court process. Never before has the cause of independence been closer to its goal yet it begs the question, has the SNP’s gradualism and getting on with the day job induced Stockholm syndrome when it comes to our country’s independence? Why should we be hostage to opinion polls so readily manipulated by Unionist corporate interests?
Now is not the time for “optimum conditions for success”. We’ll never get to 60% without a campaign. If the new Great Britain is to fulfil its promise on the world stage having shaken off the shackles of the EU, it needs to retain its illusion of a nuclear power with its weapons of mass destruction and its seat in the security council of the UN.
A new Scotland doesn’t want nuclear weapons parked in its waters. And as for the new swashbuckling Englanders on the high seas of international commerce, they will have to plunder our natural resources to pay for it in the inimitable style of Thatcher.
The gradualist approach to Scottish independence will no longer serve our country well.
Iain Bruce
Nairn
THE journalist Joyce McMillan states her case for a long-term view over the timing of a second Scottish independence referendum, but retains some pragmatism and flexibility by admitting that it should not be put on the back burner (Salmond: now is the best time for indy fight, January 21).
Her logic in arguing for a long-term approach (she refers to the 15 years our nation waited for devolution during the Thatcher years) is to wait for a “peaceful confederation of countries living in a mutually respectful economic and trading union”.
I, for one, would put much more weight on the pragmatic and flexible approach, as the realism of recent times shouts out loudly to us that Westminster and its force of media lackeys will never be “mutually respectful”. And let’s not forget that it took the EU to force Westminster to bring about devolution in the first place – Blair and Dewar agreed to it with gritted teeth – and that is why Scotland must gain independence before Westminster unravels it, as they appear to be preparing to do.
Alex Salmond is right about the current “battle status” of the two sides, and Nicola is right to wait that little bit longer till the mist over the battlefield clears away.
Dennis White
Blackwood
THE flood of letters in Friday’s edition of The National, with all correspondents united in emphasising the urgency of pressing ahead with indyref2 as an immediate priority, is most welcome in the desperate circumstances in which we now find ourselves.
Arguably the SNP should have been doing much more in terms of active campaigning over the past three years to prepare the wider Scottish electorate for the looming catastrophe that we now face if we do not immediately seize this unique opportunity. But we are where we are, and we now need cross-party unity in the face of chaos, and Ross Greer’s quite excellent article (For Scotland, the only solution is independence, January 18), written from the perspective of youth, makes the case perfectly.
Alan Johnson
Largs
READ MORE: This is why the only solution for Scotland is independence
BORIS Johnson vows, to allay fears of a disaster, that after Brexit Mars Bars will still be made in the UK! That earth-shattering announcement must surely rank as the most absurd in his rant at JCB.
If one looks at products defining Britain or more precisely England, then surely in these times of chaos the symbolic HP sauce with its Houses of Parliament logo on the bottle is the defining benchmark?
Production shifted many years ago abroad. It is now made in the Netherlands.
John Edgar
Kilmaurs
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