ALYN Smith is as entitled to his view as the next person (This is not Scotland’s last Christmas in the EU, says Smith, December 22). Perhaps th. But surely that will be a matter for the Scottish people to decide once independence has been achieved?

We will be out of the EU in little over a month and only independence would allow us to apply to rejoin – under very different circumstances than those which appertained at the time of the UK EU referendum of 2016.

READ MORE: This is not our last Christmas in the EU, Smith insists

With support for indy currently averaging at 48% – up less than 4% since 2014 – the SNP’s “Stop Brexit”/”Independence in the EU” strategy has hardly been a roaring success in terms of building the Yes vote. That increase can be accounted for in terms of demographic changes alone. The SNP strategy has won over some middle-class No converts who have come over in order to remain in the EU, agreed, but according to estimates by psephologists and commentators from polling data quoted in the media in the last couple of weeks, between 10% and 25% of Yes voters who voted Leave in 2016 have drifted from the cause.

You will never inflate a lilo, never mind a life raft, no matter how hard you blow at one end, if it is leaking air at the other.

Any No voters won over on the basis of the SNP pro-EU strategy are being counterbalanced by voters that self-same strategy is losing through the conflation of the independence question with the EU question.

It would not only be the right and democratic thing to do for an independent Scotland to have its own referendum on the EU after independence is achieved, it would start bringing back some of those lost Yes Leave voters, get us over the 50% mark in the polls on a regular basis, and help us win that Indyref 2 when it comes.

Yes Remain and Yes Leave voters could unite around the broad, general case for independence we all agree on – and those No/Remain voters who have come across would stay with indy because it would still be the case that getting indy would be the only possible route back into the EU.

We need a pledge of a post-indy EU referendum – in the first parliament of an independent Scotland – that offers Scots three choices: rejoining on the basis of full membership, sticking with the new status quo and being out of the EU, or a Norway/EEA-style compromise. This could easily be done using the single transferable vote system.

The SNP could maintain its own party political EU position, but promise such a referendum on the basis of offering choice – which is what independence is supposed to be about – and maximising Yes unity.

Some SNP staff have said that there will be a huge swing from No/Remain voters to Yes once we have Brexited, but that’s a false analysis and will be shown to be so within a few months. Why? Because that layer of voters are comfortable middle-class risk-averse voters who are more likely to conclude that staying with one Union when they’ve just exited another is the safest option (rightly or wrongly). We have had peak No/Remain voter conversion.

The way to build the indy vote is twofold: a) start bringing back those Yes/Leave voters who have drifted by ceasing to conflate independence with independence in the EU, and offering a post-indy referendum on the EU question; and b) start concentrating on the great broad, general and democratic case for independence which both Yes/Leave and Yes/Remain voters agree on and wholeheartedly support.

Steve Arnott

Inverness

I AM writing regarding the full-page article in Friday’s National “Our land can’t just be a bonnie visitor attraction” by John Finnie MSP. Mr Finnie mentions the Coul Links golf course application in the article and states “but councillors voted to approve it”.

I would politely like to point out that it was not a unanimous approval of the golf course application by the councillors that make up the Highland Council North Planning Applications committee (NPAC). It is a matter of record that I was the only member of the NPAC that agreed with the senior planning officer that the application be refused on environmental grounds as outlined in the comprehensive planning report. In fact nothing I have read since then leads me to change my position in objecting to the Coul Links application.

READ MORE: John Finnie: Our land can’t just be a bonnie attraction

Incidentally, Mr Finnie MSP is not the only MSP or person to have suggested in print that all the NPAC committee agreed for this ludicrous application to be approved. If it is approved by the Scottish Government it will be a very sad day for the Scottish environment.

Councillor Craig Fraser

Highland Council

CAN I just correct one comment in Andrew Learmonth’s article (FM demands PM gives Scotland indyref2 powers, December 20), the Tories, even combined with their partners in crime the Brexit Party, did not win in Wales. As this election was meant to substitute for a second referendum on Brexit may I humbly suggest that the result was endorsed solely by the electorate in England. In all other parts/countries of the Union it was roundly defeated in preference for a true confirmatory referendum.

Ernest Wastell

via email

GORDON Macfarlane from Glasgow wrote a letter published in The Times on Friday in which he claimed that Scotland benefits from a fiscal transfer (whatever that means) from Westminster of £10 billion every year ie approximately £1,800 per person. He uses this to imply that Scotland’s public spending would be very different after independence, which I take to mean no more help for the elderly, free prescriptions, free education etc. It is time for the Scottish Government to use social media to correct this sort of false information which is rife amongst Unionists.

Mike Underwood

Linlithgow