Independence is not a lifeboat back to EU - your views

Intro

Progress Scotland director Angus Robertson

Independence is not a lifeboat back to EU

In his column (News, January 19), Angus Robertson jumped on remarks from the leader of the UK Liberal Democrats and twisted them to suggest my party had abandoned its pro-EU stance.

It’s a bit like asking people to believe that theSNP have abandoned support for Scottish independence and represents a new low for the nationalists’ brand of fake news.

The UK Lib Dem conference passed a resolution in the autumn steadfastly committing our party to make the continued case for closer co-operation with the EU over time, until we get the UK public back to a space where they are in no doubt that our best path lies in re-joining the EU following a referendum.

We accept that this won’t happen until that reality becomes clear and that may be some way off, but we will always be European to our fingertips.

To Mr Robertson I say this: Remainers will find you out. There is no route back to EU membership through independence that wouldn’t take an age or cause our people hardship.

Accession criteria demand that applicant states have their own established currency (not using that of another, non-member state as the SNP plan to do) and that they have a structural deficit of less than three per cent, when ours is nearly three times that.

Independence is not a lifeboat back to the EU and the SNP know that.

Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP, Edinburgh Western

Direct Scottish finance spends cash properly

It is very good news that HM government is to finance projects in Scotland directly, through its new UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

There are, of course, howls from nationalists about the Holyrood regime being bypassed, yet in this Covid crisis the SNP administration has failed to pass on to businesses anything like all the money from the Chancellor that was intended for them.

This follows a pattern where, even pre-Covid, Barnett consequentials for education and health were not spent in full on areas.

Eighteen months ago, the EU itself halted payments from its social fund to the SNP administration of about £22 million because of ‘deficiencies’ in its management and control systems. Money is tight enough without a devolved administration either mismanaging it or siphoning it off for other purposes. It is to be hoped that there will be more initiatives of this kind from the UK government.

Jill Stephenson, Glenlockhart Valley, Edinburgh.

Care home staff must be vaccinated

I have always believed that care homes should be a safe sanctuary for the vulnerable and elderly sheltering them from the dangers of the outside world.

Unfortunately these people have suffered dreadfully from the coronavirus and it's against this background that care home provider Barchester has decided not to employ new care home workers who have not had the vaccine and are considering the position of existing staff who refuse the vaccine.

Care home owners and staff have a duty to the vulnerable people they look after and to allow unvaccinated staff to operate within these environments would be a breach of that duty.

Unvaccinated care home staff may be hard-working and have the best interests of their charges to heart, but must decide on what basis they can justify not having the jab. With care home deaths from Covid-19 continuing, the wellbeing of the elderly and vulnerable is paramount.

Bob MacDougall, Kippen, Stirlingshire.