European theatre

Published on 24/10/2012 00:00

The SNP, or, perhaps we should say, Alex Salmond’s, proposal for Scotland, which he outlined at Perth last weekend, is to join the EU as a separate nation.

In other words, “Let’s leave a Union of the countries of the British Isles and join a European Union.”

Why, when other countries, suffering under the yoke of the single currency, are contemplating leaving?

I became a member of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in 2001, when
distrust of the EU was a minority opinion.

Now that opinion has become popular. Why is there now so much cynicism of the EU?

Our nation’s long-held commitments are to maintain the freedom of the individual in a society under law.

The current version of the EU has quite a different agenda. That agenda is for a bureaucracy to impose and enforce certain standards of behaviour, by means of “legislation” [directives and regulations] with the bossiness justified by arrogant paternalism that “the man in Brussels” knows best.

In other words, the EU is authoritarian and anti-democratic.

UKIP’s policy is that Britain, not just Scotland, should recover its full sovereignty [independence] by withdrawing from the EU, for both economic and political reasons.

Mr Salmond can not deliver “independence” – only separation, by becoming a member of the EU, a process which will be both unwise and costly.

George Cormack

UKIP parliamentary 
candidate

McLauchlan Rise

Aberdour

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Monday, David Cameron refused a simple “In/Out” referendum on Europe on the grounds that neither option was the one the voters preferred.

How, then, can the Scottish independence referendum be acceptable since we also clearly prefer something else, perhaps devo-max or other variation of the federal GB option?

Tim Flinn

Garvald

East Lothian