Herald letter: Give Us Some Sound Answers

ONE wonders what Maggie Chetty (Letters, January 10) thinks will happen if her proposed national convention of elected representatives ever took place. In particular, what would happen if a proposal for Ian Smith-like UDI were to carry? There would certainly be a substantial number who vote to keep the current devolved settlement: would they be condemned as “Free Staters”? Or demonised as Menshaviks and UK (that is, foreign) agents? To be serious, the precedents are not exactly propitious, are they?

A far better solution to the current impasse would be for the SNP and their fellow travellers like Ms Chetty to take the recent advice of Iain Macwhirter and to step back before their next attempt at independence. My own optimistic outlook for the New Year is that we can have answers to the legitimate questions that independence poses about the economy, currency, public expenditure, the costs of EU membership and a hard border for goods and people. And then only if these questions are answered to the satisfaction of a large majority of Scottish voters (I suggest 66 per cent) should independence be considered.

Moreover. if Ms Chetty and other optimistic nationalists were really confident of their case, they would agree with me rather than seeking a political device to enforce the will of the minority on the majority who wish to stay part of the UK.

Peter A Russell, Glasgow.

Herald letter: Independence Would Be Much worse.

IT is time to draw a line under the ongoing argument between the respective virtues of social democracy and nationalism. However, before doing so I would like to advise your readers to test Alasdair Galloway’s assertion that “indy Scotland could not possibly fare any worse” (Letters, December 29).

The simplest way to do this is to take a realistic look at Scotland and its undoubted problems and challenges – and then ask if these would be cured or exacerbated by the application of public expenditure cuts of the order that would be necessary without fiscal transfers from England. These are roughly equal to the entire cost of the Scottish NHS. Likewise, they could examine the outcomes of Brexit and ask themselves how and why Scotland leaving the Union would be any better – there is no evidence whatsoever to inform us that it would or could be.

In both cases, there is no nationalist solution, and my interlocuters are betting on fantasies rather than believing the best available information. Personally, I will stick with the social democratic ideal, which as Lesjek Kolakowski tells us, “requires, in addition to commitment to a number of basic values, hard knowledge and rational calculation”. These are precisely what is lacking from the nationalist agenda.

And in the meantime, there is much that is wrong with Scotland and the rest of the UK, but no-one should believe for a second that it could not be much worse to be independent: I am sure that if Scotland’s literary community were not so deeply in thrall to the SNP, someone could imagine a very realistic dystopian vision of that bitter future.

Peter A Russell, Glasgow.