10 hours ago
Will a group form to take forward constitutional convention plans?
READ MORE: John Swinney to host independence debate at SNP National Council in Perth
However, with the petition for decolonisation now with the United Nations, it is up to every person who has the interests of an independent Scotland at heart to meet the challenges that face us. We need to prove beyond all reasonable doubt to the UN that we want independence and above all, that we are able and willing to form a new Scotland and its institutions in our own image. To do so, we need to call for and form a Scottish constitutional convention now and not at some distant time when it is suitable to some faceless civil servants who are doing it because they have been pushed into it by their English masters.
We need answers to a great number of questions before independence and not after it, and above all we need to know what sort of country are we going to be setting up so that everybody is singing from the same sheet. With such a convention we can answer fully the question about currency, fiscal needs, the institutions et al of our country. Then the English Unionists won't be able to trip us up when it comes to a referendum, which is bound to happen when the UN agrees that we are a colony of England.
READ MORE: SNP now seem content to manage Scotland's decline within the Union
When the convention has been called we will be one more step along the way towards independence and it will make it harder for a prime minister of England to stand in our way.
It is important to have representatives from all walks of life involved with the convention. Until then we are at the mercy of Downing Street and the English establishment.
As there have been a reasonable number of letters here on the topic of calling for a convention, I say it is time we put that rhetoric into action. Effectively, I would say that we need to form a group of competent people who have the acumen to take the notion of a convention to the next step and get things up and running. Until then, nothing is going to happen and we are liable to remain just another colony of England. Who amongst the readers are capable of writing reports, asking important questions and knowing how to arrange meetings with groups and associations?
Alexander Potts
Kilmarnock
GOD knows how much 'zooming' and 'teaming' has been done in the name of the independence struggle in recent years in lieu of face-to-face, cheek-by-jowl forums. If you add to that emails, texting, twittering and blogging then is not difficult to discern the principal reason that both esprit de corps, cohesion and solidarity remain sub-optimal in the movement and in society in general, much to the satisfaction of those who are rightly frightened of 'gatherings' of enthusiasts.
I had the privilege to attend the summer conference of the Independence Forum Scotland (IFS) in Perth on Saturday and the way it was convened and conducted greatly advanced my grasp of several topics, from the cultural to nuances of energy policy, mainly rendered to me by folks sitting in close proximity to me. I could ask them about matters that have perplexed me and vice-versa.
READ MORE: 'Scottish cringe' persists despite evidence of our distinctive culture
I received tuition augmented by a three-dimensional 'model' involving non-verbal gesturing and the vast array of the facial expressions that evolution has come up with to facilitate both communication but also bonding among homo sapiens. The whole day was 'value for time t hat the vast majority of Zoom and Teams encounters fail to provide.
The promised but not-now-to-be-delivered independence convention is yet another strategic failure by the SNP leadership to engage with the wider body of the kirk despite entreaties by their own rank-and-file and nearly everyone else and their auntie.
It was suggested that two brief, cheap residential independence 'academy' weekend events for activists and prospective candidates could define the core curriculum and perhaps advance the principle reconciliation between friends who collaborated for several decades. This initiative received an enthusiastic response among among many quarters but a very tepid response from the celebrated, but as yet ineffective, party 'strategists'.
In short, what we need is the microcosm of the IFS transformed to the macrocosm of a convention embedded in a cultural nationwide movement open to the man in the street, young and old.
I fear it is too late for that now, so blundering on will be the tactics. A patriotic SNP leadership could have made such a big difference. There may be yet time!
Dr Andrew Docherty
Selkirk
MICHAEL Shanks thinks that Scotland will lose out on jobs if we do not support nuclear reactors (Shanks 'won't apologise' for GB Energy funding raid, Jun 16).
We are better served with renewables, as nuclear requires small numbers of engineers at a single site whereas renewables can be very small and spread out, along with maintenance staff all over the place. Thus enabling rural and island communities have well-paid jobs and not having the young people of these places leaving.
In the same edition of the paper, North Yell screams out at what small island and rural folk can do if the impetus is nurtured and admired (Islanders borrowed £8.3m to build own wind farm – and it's paying off big time).
M Ross
Aviemore
