Sir, – Forget all the scaremongering, we should keep our focus on the fact that this coming referendum is of the utmost of importance to each and every one of us.
If we vote to stay in the European Union then we will simply continue to amble along in exactly the same way as now, with of course, all the greater impositions that this organisation may decide to impose.
David Cameron’s sorties to the heart of the EU and the failures of these missions only proves his, and our, inability to alter the course of the EU in its drive towards imposing greater controls upon us, impinging upon our rights to self determination.
In essence, we are on the road to a loss of our sovereignty.
We should be aware that the EU is headed by a cabal of unelected politicians, who for the past 20 years or so has been unable to have its books audited, with, on the last count, £4.5 billion “lost.”
If we remain in this set-up we will open the doors to uncontrollable mass immigration, legal impositions and burdensome red tape.
Britain, in my view, is seen merely as a cash cow for the EU and it is time to use our
£16 billion levy for our own needs.
We should also remember the doomsters stating it would be to our cost if we didn’t join the Euro. Think what it would have been like if we had done so.
David L Thomson.
24 Laurence Park,
Kinglassie.
Echoes of Nazi book burning
Sir, – History will note that the policy of banning certain speakers from their campuses became a universally shared feature of western universities in the second decade of the 21st Century.
Those who might cause offence to minorities beloved of the bourgeois left such as transgenders or Muslims but not, of course, Jews were banished.
It seems an odd way for those who have decided to expand their minds to act but we should recall it was undergraduates who burned Jewish books in Nazi Germany.
Rev Dr John Cameron.
10 Howard Place,
St Andrews.
Flawed choice of school site
Sir, – Mr Birkett (April 19) homes in on some vital issues concerning the location of schools.
He cites the example of Fife Council’s proposed replacement Madras College, St Andrews, at a green belt site on the most inaccessible location in the catchment that could be imagined.
The leader of the council, David Ross, has repeatedly claimed this is the only site suitable and available.
This is like a man deciding what car to buy who argues: “I looked through the car magazines to check out the dozen or so cars that my budget could afford, and I’ve gone for the Reliant Robin because it’s available in my pal’s lock-up, and it’s suitable because it has three wheels.”
Dr John Amson.
5 Shore,
Anstruther.
No easy answers to retail problem
Sir, – I write with reference to your correspondent Xander McDade’s proposal for a referendum on the future of the City Halls in Perth.
I trust that he has the necessary wherewithal to fund the public’s preferred choice, which he thinks could be an indoor market.
If funding is a problem, which it always is, he might consider the empty building on St Johns Street, McEwens of Perth, which as a modern retail facility would make an ideal venue for a market.
I am sure that the administrator would be only too pleased to rent it to him for a reasonable monthly rate which he could recover from his stallholders.
Councillor Mac Roberts.
Perth and Kinross Council,
Ward One,
Carse of Gowrie.
Listen to will of Scottish people
Sir, – While reading Monday’s issue of The Courier, there was an interesting quote from the leader of the SNP Nicola Sturgeon, which read as follows: “No politician has the right to stand in the way of the people of Scotland to choose their own future.”
During the Scottish referendum, two million people voted to remain in the United Kingdom or put another way, 28 out of 32 regions voted to remain in the United Kingdom.
Perhaps it’s time Ms Sturgeon listened to her own advice.
The people of Scotland got the opportunity to speak, and the answer was very clear.
We wish to remain part of the union.
Ruth Fairlie.
Kirkton of Monikie,
Monikie.
Politicisation of our children?
Sir, – We know that politicians open bazaars and kiss babies.
They also visit schools. But which politician visits a nursery class, joins in painting with the kids and paints on a plate… an SNP logo?
Does Nicola Sturgeon have such narrow vision that she could not think of anything else to paint?
Or is this another attempt by the SNP leader to politicise children?
Charles Wilson.
King’s Road,
Rosyth.
Missed chance for faith unity
Sir, – Faith Groups from across Scotland have helped launch a campaign promoting peace, love and unity in the wake of the murder of shopkeeper Asad Shah.
Different faiths, including Christian, Jewish and Sikh and politicians and police attended the launch.
Mr Shah was an Ahmadi, a member of a minority sect of Islam that faces persecution and violence in countries such as Pakistan and is treated with open hostility by many orthodox Muslims in the UK because it differs from their belief that Muhammad is the final prophet sent to guide humankind.
Representatives of the Glasgow Central Mosque and the Muslim Council of Scotland were invited to attend but it is understood that their apologies were received at the last minute.
This is a great pity and might be misconstrued and seen as their condemnation of the Ahmadi faith.
An opportunity missed?
Clark Cross.
138 Springfield Road,
Linlithgow.
A political calculation?
Sir, – Over the years the SNP has been a staunch supporter of the Scottish Muslim community, with Humza Yousaf, Minister for External Affairs and International Development, being especially prominent.
But the SNP and Mr Yousaf have been strangely silent since the killing of Mr Shah, the Ahmadi shopkeeper, and, in marked contrast to Nicola Sturgeon’s visit to the Glasgow Central Mosque after the Paris attacks, there was no SNP presence at the meeting of Scottish Muslim leaders.
No one from the Central Mosque was there either.
Could it be that the SNP has calculated that the votes of the 73,000 Muslims in Scotland are more important than giving public support to the 500 members of the Ahmadi community?
Allan Sutherland.
1 Willow Row,
Stonehaven.
Dangers of nationalism
Sir, – No nation is more qualified than Germany as an example of how nationalism always mutates into fascism.
The only defence a people have against such a calamity is to recognise that there are areas of people’s private lives that are absolutely no business of government.
One such is interference in family life.
Modern Germany has a horror of the surveillance society. Bitter memories of the Hitler Youth persist of a government snooping into family privacy through their children.
While Germans have learnt this bitter lesson, the Scottish Government with its named person legislation apparently has not.
The Holyrood cabal has interfered with local government, centralised the police, is tightening control of our universities, and has muzzled its own MSPs and MPs and is now on course to have spies check on the private affairs of every family regardless of whether they are loving parents or not.
The SNP is throttling the freedom out of the Scottish people.
The Scots, unlike the Germans, have yet to learn what egotistical nationalism brings.
Robert Veitch.
17 Paisley Drive,
Edinburgh.
