Potential closure of the Border is a matter of safety, not politics

The coronavirus situation was behind the FM’s declaration, nothing else. And I’m sure English people are thinking of cancelling their holidays in Scotland out of consideration and respect, and intend to book again once the situation allows it. Many if not most of our hotels, B&Bs etc are English-owned anyway, so if the vacationers were as the Unionist rags were trying to portray them, they’d know they’d only be hurting their own.

The savagery of the headlines only advertised how much their writers would love to stick the Union Jackboot through Scotland’s past, present, and future, and convince us our weakness gives them the power to. Not with the strength of the EU around us, it doesn’t.

Ian McQueen
Dumfries

READ MORE: Operation to stop virus cluster taking hold in Scotland​

THE furore surrounding the possible shutting down the Border between Scotland and England if Covid-19 rise in England and causes potential rise in cases in Scotland is being driven by a wee bunch of Tory MPs from Scotland.

Six Tory MPs from Scotland! An insignificant number within Scottish MPs and an even more insignificant number among Tory MPs at Westminster. The six are not even vital lobby fodder for their party in the Commons. Perhaps, that is why 50% of English Tory voters want to leave the Union and, by extension, ditch their Tory party branch in Scotland. It seems, as in Scotland, most Tory voters do not even know that this hapless little bunch from Scotland exist!

As they jump up and down to find something to latch on to, they forget that to instigate quarantine and to “close” borders is quite normal in this pandemic worldwide. Yet somehow the handful of Scots Tory MPs seem to think that when it has to be applied between Scotland and England, two of the nations which form the UK at present, it is driving a wedge between them.

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One has the impression that, as always, the Scots Tories have an inflated sense of their unimportance and insignificance both here in Scotland and at Westminster.

As always, they get caught out! The quarantine in Leicester and surrounding areas is just one such quarantine for health reasons. Local boundaries, national boundaries, same difference!

As the UK media take up the issue with their usual squeak, the majority of people here would see a need for such an action, just as clear-headed citizens would see the need for it if it was to protect the population south of the Border.

It really sticks in the craw of these few Tory MPs, and their Tory number at Holyrood, that Holyrood exists at all, that the SNP have been voted into government there and are the largest group of Scottish MPs at Westminster. In fact, all individual Unionist parties from Scotland at Westminster are in single figures, with Labour in the unique position of having just one MP! Such a cataclysmic drop!

So, let us welcome the fact that there is a Holyrood! If we had been left in the position pre-devolution at the moment, and total control came through the UK Government office in Edinburgh, we would be in a sorry state in this pandemic! So far, the UK Government has been not up to the mark at all, being forced into U-turns constantly!!

Perhaps Alister Jack and the Tory coterie need to look at their insignificant position here in Scotland and ask why! That goes for the other Unionist parties as well! A reality check is necessary as they bumble along, drifting away from real contact with a changing Scotland.

John Edgar
Kilmaurs

BORIS Johnson might be amazed and assert that there isn’t a Border between Scotland and England, but he’s wrong. We all know that anyway, but even under his own governance (I use that term loosely) there is undoubtedly a demarcation line at which NHS Scotland takes over responsibility for the UK citizens within a given area, and NHS England has responsibility for those south of that line.

Given that Johnson’s early Covid-19 mantra was razor focused on “Save the NHS”’, he can hardly object if Nicola Sturgeon does exactly that. In fact he should be delighted she is doing what she is “telt” for once!

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It is the duty of Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government, who are responsible for the allocation of valuable, limited resources, to Save the Scottish NHS. It is their duty to attempt to protect it from unnecessary stress and costs incurred by migrating infection and unnecessary reinfection.

So if these infection are coming from the south? Hard luck, Johnson! You can’t have it both ways, mate!

I Easton
Glasgow

THE UKPM blasts and blusters that there is no such thing as a Border between England and Scotland. While it may not, yet, be an international one it is without doubt a border between two previously independent nations that formed a Union. This nation retains different law, health and education systems and has it its own parliament and government. However for those who prefer to see Scotland as a “region” I wonder how the English regions who are neighbours to Leicester and indeed those who live outside the city feel about attempts to lock that down. Relieved, I would imagine...

Noirin Blackie
Haddington

TO clear up some confusion, I think we should ask for a statement from Alister Jack, the leading expert in interpreting Mr Johnson’s euphemisms. Is “an air bridge” a euphemism for “an air tunnel, for escaping fussy life-saving rules”? Is “there is no Scottish Border” a euphemism for “Scotland’s not a country, accept your regional status”? And is “build, build, build” a euphemism for “as much recovery money as possible into billionaires’ pockets”?

Derek Ball
Bearsden