I suppose I should no longer be amazed by the vagaries of our political system, whereby a political party that attracted fewer constituency votes than one in four of the electorate can claim not only that it represents the Scottish people but that the Scottish people have mandated it to conduct a referendum of any kind, let alone one of any constitutional gravity.
I am still amazed at the apparent gullibility of some pro-independence correspondents (Letters, November 12). Are Scots -- defined by residence, as the only defensible criterion -- as a whole really so gullible that they do not see this is rampant personal political power-seeking, that is dragging them down a path towards much greater social, political and economic uncertainties than most of them have ever had to cope with?
Is there not evidence that all too soon power corrupts, the national interest is defiled and chaos rules? Are Scots really so gullible that they cling to the worn-out claim, with its implicit bribe, that a state can guarantee the welfare of its citizens?
Is there not evidence that, in a global economy, individual states are swept along by the unintended consequences of their collective actions and the poor are still with us? Are Scots really so gullible as to believe that the state can generate employment (other than of tax-funded civil servants), when it is the responsibility of independent, risk-averse, tax-avoiding, footloose employers?
Is there not evidence that capital is unpredictably mobile, and not just in an inward direction? Are Scots really so gullible as to imagine that independence would not involve a greater burden of government on everyone, given the loss of administrative economies of scale and the rich tax-base of the south-east? Are Scots -- or rather patriots (conceivably a minority of the resident population?) -- so gullible as to allow their entirely justifiable pride in Scottishness and the worldwide achievements of Scots-born scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, educationists, sportsmen and all the rest, to be hi-jacked by the notion that, even if we’ll be worse-off independent, at least “we shall be free”?
Is the evidence from other small states around the world wholly unambiguous in terms of the freedoms their citizens enjoy? And doesn’t freedom really have something to do with respecting the majority? Let’s hope the gullibility is just limited to some of your correspondents.
FG Hay,
61 Curlinghall,
Largs.
Professor Adam Tomkins is either breathtakingly ignorant of the constitution of the United Kingom or he is being singularly disingenuous in suggesting that “Do you wish Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom?” is the question that should be posed in the independence referendum (“Warning Holyrood poll could be illegal”, The Herald, November 11).
The SNP Government is not campaigning for Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom. It is seeking the dissolution of the Union of 1707 which created the United Kingdom. The reality is that there can be no continuing UK without Scotland. The international treaty obligations of the former UK will be inherited by the two successor states, namely England with Wales and Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Those who argue that the two successor states will not be treated equally in terms of international law are simply revealing their anti-Scottish agenda.
Rev Archie Black,
16 Elm Park,
Inverness.
Thom Cross and Alex Orr display the devil lies in the detail of articulating Professor Sir Neil MacCormick’s declaration regarding ‘’the sovereign right of the Scottish people to choose a form of government suited to their own circ*mstances’’ (Letters, November 12).
The Treaty of Union of 1707 “for all time” abolished Scotland and England as separate states, and transferred the popular sovereignty and allegiance of both to Great Britain, as expressed through Westminster. Thus, after the 1997 consultative referendum, the Scottish people exercised their sovereign right through Westminster, with the support of many MPs embodying the sovereign right of people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Devolution was chosen: a parliament in Edinburgh that is legitimate but not sovereign.
This explains the confusion in the mind of Iain AD Mann (Letters, 12 November). The Westminster Government is sovereign and legitimate in all parts of the UK, whether minority Conservative or coalition in Scotland and Wales, minority Labour in England, or, indeed, usually non-existent in the representation of Northern Ireland. The so-called “democratic deficit” was, and remains, a figment of the florid imaginations of socialist and nationalist chatterers.
Westminster will gladly exercise Scottish and Union popular sovereignty and hold a referendum on separating Scotland from the UK. After the endless griping, moaning and whingeing from the usual suspects north of the Tweed, I am sure that the rest of the UK would love to vote too, and ensure that the SNP gets what it wants.
Richard Mowbray,
14 Ancaster Drive,
Glasgow.
Could some of your historically erudite correspondents clarify precisely what constitutes Scotland and whether it is some form of union of previously independent parts bound together by one or more treaties, rather like a smaller version of the United Kingdom?
My interest is that if Scotland votes for independence in a referendum, does this open the door for any of its previously independent parts to claim for itself the right to have a referendum, amongst only its population, for independence from Scotland?
Alan Fitzpatrick,
10 Solomon’s View,
Dunlop.
