PM Theresa May says “we are going to take back control of our borders”. Mrs May, you can’t keep control of your own Cabinet never mind your backbenchers, so how can the country take any confidence from your statement “take back control of our borders”?

Two Brexit ministers have now resigned along with a raft of other ministers, effectively doing away with the need for effective opposition – the main opposition is all happening on the government’s own benches as right-wing and hardline Brexiteers hold their own government to ransom.

Shame on those Conservatives who have merrily taken the country into even further chaos, thanks to their arrogance. Mrs May’s proposed Brexit deal doesn’t even give Scotland a mention, reiterating Scotland’s place in the UK negotiations, totally excluded and effectively hung out to dry.

But those proposals for the UK will take Scotland out of the single market and customs union, putting so many jobs and our economy in catastrophic danger. We all know that Mrs May’s proposals will not get through the House of Commons, so where does that leave Scotland’s future? Can Scotland afford to continue as part of a Union that has sidelined any input from Scotland’s First Minister during Brexit negotiations, a Union that has totally ignored the fact that Scotland voted to remain? The decision on whether Scotland should hold a second independence referendum may be being made for Scotland outwith and not from within!

Catriona C Clark
Falkirk

THE extraordinary sequence of events, with May briefing parliament while haemorrhaging ministers, culminated in the hastily called press conference at Downing Street. She had already explained without explaining, using all manner of Brexitise terminology such as “doing the best for the whole of the United Kingdom” etc, and here she was at the press briefing saying exactly the same things she had already said in the House of Commons.

The statement lasted only a few minutes and then she took questions from the assembled media, carefully avoiding answers to any of them, so what was going on? I believe that she intended to resign and she was talked out of it. The pointlessness of the briefing must have left a lot of journos scratching their heads.

Mike Herd
Highland

WHILE I am as keen as anyone else to see Scotland go its own way, and get just as angry as anybody when I see the way we are treated by Westminster, I cannot see the point of triggering a new referendum on independence until there is a very high probability of winning.

By winning, I don’t mean 51/49, 52/48 or even 55/45. There needs to be majority of the same scale as the Scottish vote on Brexit delivered. Without a very, very clear mandate, any discussion on the terms of the divorce will turn into the same sort of pantomime as we’re currently witnessing, with more argument about what the voters actually wanted than about the real issues.

It’s incredible to me that so many of our countrymen and women seem oblivious to the condescending way we are treated, but until there is substantial movement in this state of affairs we will not win. Too many people still believe in the fantasy of a great Britain that doesn’t actually exist.

Every time I hear a Brexiteer use the expression “vassal state” it makes my blood boil, but I fear that calling for another indyref at this point would be counter-productive.

Cameron Crawford
Rothesay

AMID all the political turmoil of Thursdays, one thing stood out: the view from the EU side that the negotiated deal was the best possible outcome, given the constraints of the Good Friday Agreement. A Belgian MEP put it bluntly – either remain in the EU, or accept the deal, or have the total chaos of no deal (food and medical shortages, flights grounded, etc).

Against this heady background, Scotland’s voice and distinctive needs are of course totally brushed aside. May might be relying on the Tories and the DUP to have some common sense and vote for the deal and Labour are prevaricating as usual, but the SNP should be ready to exploit Westminster’s weakness to get what we want: support the deal in return for Scotland staying in the single market.

This could be done by joining the EEA or paralleling any special arrangements for Northern Ireland. The Tories’ argument that this would undermine the UK common market is spurious and ill-thought-out. In fact there could be many advantages for Scotland and rUK. Scotland would gain much more

self-government and lose the constraints of devolution.

Robert Fraser
Edinburgh

THE question is not why Dominic Raab resigned. Bearing in mind the short-lived Brexit Secretary was in on the negotiating, and that a few days prior to his amazement at the outcome he had announced that he never realised that so many essential UK imports came from Calais to Dover, the question is – WHY WAS HE APPOINTED?

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

ONE notes the ongoing “antics roadshow” emanating from No 10 and the Cabinet. Dominic Raab, the very Brexit Secretary no less, who was the gofer negotiating the withdrawal deal with the EU, has resigned because he cannot support the deal the day after the Cabinet of which he was a minister agreed the text.

Antics indeed! All it will take is a friendly tap on the shoulder of Theresa May with the comment that the game is a bogey! The PM is in political terms, within her own Cabinet and all wings of the party, a broken reed.

John Edgar
Kilmaurs