This is all rather awkward for Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and colleagues. Brown’s report acknowledges their input on page 148. Have they privately been in discussions about the constitution while publicly damning the elected Scottish Government for the slightest mention of it? Most likely, they have been peripheral just as they will be in the discussions to come as to what, if anything, actually ends up in Labour’s manifesto.

That won’t stop Brown already declaring, as he did on Monday, that a serious constitutional alternative to independence was now on offer to the Scottish electorate. It is not; and not only because of the internal Labour wrangling still to play out and the small matter of a general election still to win. There is no UK written constitution to be amended and the Brown report does not propose one. Apparently, Scotland’s new, more powerful devolved settlement would be set down in a “constitutional statute guiding how political power should be shared”. The defence of this will be in the hands of the new assembly which replaces the House of Lords “subject to an agreed procedure that sustains the primacy of the House of Commons.”

If Labour are elected whatever is actually implemented will still be subject to Westminster sovereignty. It continues that power devolved is power retained – so just another Big Brown Vow.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has been left in awkward position by Brown report, says reader (Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty)

Robert Farquharson, Edinburgh

Shameful

Every political party at Holyrood should hang their heads in shame with the comments made over the Paper issued by Gordon Brown over proposed changes to the UK constitution. These are the very parties that made a pledge to the people of Scotland, prior to the last Holyrood election, that they would all join forces to implement the draft bill put forward by Andy Wightman, the former Green MSP, to give local councils European-style protection to a raft of new powers and financial devolution and all to be incorporated into Scots Law after the 2021 election.

The outcome has been the loss of Andy Wightman from Holyrood and every party ditching his draft bill into the nearest bin! A weakness in the Gordon Brown paper is one that Anas Sarwar should address immediately, which is the lack of any mention of the devolution of powers from Edinburgh to local councils.

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway

Facts, please

We know nationalists have no economic/financial plans for a successful independent Scotland. Writing in a Scottish daily this week it seems one separatist case for independence is based on: “abundant natural resources, renewable energy sectors, legendary engineering, scientific skills and an enterprising workforce”. The writer states, “a fully independent Scotland would prosper and flourish”. These are abstract, idealistic, vague emotional notions and will not give Scots the confidence to vote for separation.

Why is it that those who wish to destroy the UK are frightened to provide “the people of Scotland” with real facts and figures, the economic and financial details to show that Scots for generations will be better off in an independent country? They simply can’t, or rather refuse to because deep down they know the truth.

Douglas Cowe, KIngseat, Aberdeenshire

No more powers

You might have thought that with the Labour Party 30 points ahead in the polls and with the cost of living crisis and pay demands all playing to a traditional Labour agenda that Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar would be determined that there would be no distractions from this whatsoever.

But no. True to form, Labour want to talk about the agenda of another political party. The political reality in Scotland in particular is that if you give political commentators the choice between talking on everyday issues and talking about the Constitution, they will talk about the Constitution. Labour almost threw the referendum away in 2014, and it looks as though they will try their hardest to throw their chance away now as well.

The SNP is a nationalist party whose members want independence. They will take whatever powers you give them and say, “Thanks very much, but we still want independence”. The old saying is as true as ever, “If you know something can bite you, don’t let it lick you.”

We should not be talking about more powers, but proper implementation and transparency around the powers we already have and which the SNP abuse at every turn.

Victor Clements, Aberfeldy, Perthshire

Emerald envy

When Gordon Brown’s latest plan offers less than his last ditch “near federal” Vow to save the Union in 2014 and fails to give Scotland the powers to deal with immigration and address health care staff shortages, full fiscal powers to boost our economy or a way back to the EU, it is instructive to compare Scotland’s position in the Union with Ireland that this week celebrates 100 years of independence.

The North Sea around Scotland has generated hundreds of billions in tax revenues for London governments that have allowed Denmark and Norway to become world leaders in renewable energy manufacturing. Energy-rich Scotland with its massive green renewable potential fares badly when compared to Ireland, which has no oil production. In the last 50 years, the Celtic Tiger has seen rapid growth and GDP per capita now surpasses the UK. Citizens enjoy a much higher standard of living than in the UK with better state pensions, lower income inequality, the highest life expectancy at birth in Europe and a younger population with one in five born elsewhere, as Labour and Tories outbid each other on curbing immigration. Exports to the UK are worth £21 billion a year, 13 per cent of Ireland’s total.

Ireland has proportional representation and an elected head of state unlike Westminster’s antiquated first past the post system of government. Since Brexit, 1,200 financial sector jobs have moved from London to Dublin and over 40 direct sailings each week to Europe transport Ireland’s flourishing exports. Why not Scotland?

Mary Thomas, Edinburgh

Crass talk

EC President Ursula von der Leyen made a crass speech and decision in January 2021 to erect a vaccine border on the island of Ireland (which was quickly reversed). In the Dublin Parliament she has now made an equally crass speech comparing Britain’s alleged actions in Ireland with Vladimir Putin’s rape, murder and destruction in Ukraine – without even realising that Putin can now use her words to enforce his invalid case.

Leaders like her, particularly of her nationality, should acknowledge that as well as waging aggression to start two world wars which dominated the 20th century, Germany destroyed Russia’s fledgling democracy in 1914-16 and then finished the job in 1917 by facilitating Lenin’s sealed train journey home from Zurich.

Thus did Germany effectively forge the USSR – whose malign regime lasted six times longer than Hitler’s, has now returned in many aspects, and spawned Mao’s China and Kim’s Korea, thereby creating our modern world. And it was two recent chancellors, Gerhard Schroder and Angela Merkel, whose rash policy decisions for over 20 years led directly to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

Ms von der Leyen also blames Brexit for the current Northern Ireland border problems.

To a large extent the Brexit vote was caused by Merkel’s overnight unilateral invitation in 2015 to a million Middle Easterners into the open-border EU, along with the peanuts she and French president François Hollande offered David Cameron in his EU “negotiations” – despite the clear wishes throughout the EU itself that genuine EU reform was needed, as Dutch premier Mark Rutte argued, albeit too late, in early June 2016.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Police failure

The actions of 11 police officers in Southwark on Tuesday – laughing and joking as 20 Just Stop Oil people brought chaos to rush hour traffic – are a complete disgrace. Never mind that these eco-warriors even blocked up the bus lane so even the eco-friendly public transport suffered, or that their antics meant even more fossil fuels were burnt unnecessarily that morning than would otherwise have been the case, this was an open dereliction of duty by the police, whose sole aim appeared to be stopping the lawbreakers from being lynched by irate commuters.When you have a police force aiding and abetting criminal activity (breach of the peace, wilful obstruction of free passage of the highway, public protest without prior notification to the police six days in advance, etc), you fast forward the day when the silent majority returns to taking the law into their own hands – something that's never ended well in these islands.

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Hero needed

What an encouraging column from Christine Jardine, with news of how the burgeoning campaign for research into MND empowered MPs like herself to alter the stance of Government and bring hope to victims of other well-known neurological afflictions (Perspective, 5 December)!

Sadly, the prevalence of encephalitis – inflammation of the brain – seems still not to be recognised, though the Encephalitis Society’s Christmas card tells us that one person is now diagnosed with encephalitis every minute.

We need another Doddie Weir!

(Rev) Jack Kellet, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders

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Readers' Letters: Brown report has nothing tangible to offer Scots

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