NEITHER Covid-19 nor reopening of schools is the real priority for Boris Johnson and his coterie of conspirators who, don’t forget, are where they are because of their tedious “let’s get it done” Brexit chant. This is, as that better-known and more tuneful song goes, “always on my mind”, or in this case, their minds.
Surfacing more by the day – in spite of all the intervening news topics of toppling statues and lockdown easing, opening of zoos and theme parks, and on the other side of the Atlantic Boris’s bosom pal, Donald, at his usual publicity-seeking tricks – is the news that trade talks between the US and the UK are in process.
READ MORE: European Movement in Scotland slams Johnson over Brexit date
No surprise there, as behind all the Brexit business from the very beginning has been the opening up of more markets for American agriculture, with its more than questionable farming methods, and because of EU food standards obstructing such trade deals, UK compliance is seen as a step forward for the US.
The political menu is, therefore, as promised. Britain’s farmers face bankruptcy because, as many are saying, they will be unable to compete with the scale of cheap imports from the US, and, as we know, the markets of Europe will be thick with tariffs, as we will no longer be in the EU.
Somebody will likely gain on these islands of Britain but it won’t be those who now work the land. And many are the suspicions as to precisely who the beneficiaries will be. The British public will hardly be the better for having food on the table, however cheap, if their health is ruined, not to mention all the “extras” attached to trade arrangements with the US. These already include a direct threat to the NHS because America isn’t into free healthcare and its government has been reported as resentful of us having cheap pill provision from our GP surgeries because there are a number of Americans making an awful lot of money out of producing and selling pills. Hence another interest in these trade talks that isn’t in our best interests.
READ MORE: Michael Gove tweet proved we can’t set independence campaign aside
There are also voices of concern in the fishing industry and reports of continental European fish-processing interests who are allying themselves with their fish-catching communities and saying that they won’t process fish from British fishers if there is no access for their fishers to British waters.
It seems the case that if those who voted for Brexit want to swap trading partners and arrangements that is up to them, but there are many who either never wanted to or who thought they wanted to but had neglected to read the small print.
Scotland as a whole didn’t vote for Brexit. I think we did read the small print, and the Boris Johnson-Dominic Cummings bluster about Brexit washed over us like a passing shower. Maybe we can better distinguish a weather shower from a political one?
Ian Johnstone
Peterhead
ONLY a populist English government could abandon the world’s best trade deal and go naked into the world believing they can get the best trade deals ever with any country in the world. Recent leaks regarding food safety have shown clearly that the English negotiators have no leverage whatsoever over the USA, and the previous Tory declarations about raising food standards and protecting employment standards were just another catalogue of lies added to the many told about how the UK would thrive after leaving the EU.
It is possible that whole carcasses of meat can be imported from other countries and if processed in the UK can be labelled British.
I predict also that in future the USA will use trade to force the UK to back them in any warlike adventure they might initiate.
This past week a Trump-supporting US senator, being interviewed on TV, referred continually to the United Kingdom as England as though the other three nations didn’t exist, which of course they don’t in the minds of the Tory government.
Scotland becoming a sovereign country able to make its own decisions is long overdue.
Mike Underwood
Linlithgow
OF course Michael Gove has declared December 31 as EU leaving date, as that is the date on which his hedge funder chums pick up their billions. This will help them recover from the huge losses of March. Does anyone think that this is something to do with “taking back control”? They cannot even control the heid advisor from going “how’s my eyesight” drive-about.
M Ross
Aviemore
I KNOW it’s happening in Scotland – we are not immune from racism – but I do feel the right-wing regime south of the Border don’t help.
The Tories were all too happy to accept the votes of those amongst us who are susceptible to the racist anti-immigrant rhetoric the Brexit movement encouraged. The likes of the ignorant mob who were responsible for the dismal scenes in George Square that Nicola quite rightly condemned.
Boris too condemned the racist thuggery that occurred in London, where more than 100 arrests were made. I’m not saying he’s not genuine in his indignation, but can he not see that to achieve his Brexit ambitions he and his colleagues were quite content to fuel the mob’s racist prejudices to gain their votes?
Now these “citizens” are out the box, can’t be controlled and he’s impotent to change anything! The Westminster ministers suggesting that Britain is not racist when we have witnessed the Windrush and Grenfell scenarios is clearly ridiculous. Grenfell still hasn’t been resolved three years on. Thousands of people are still living in buildings with the same cladding! What a disgrace!
We’ve got Nicola, who must be exhausted in her daily briefings! They’ve got Boris who does an occasional tweet! Let’s get shot of them – once and for all – and try and put our own house in order instead of being dragged down to their level!
Robin MacLean
Fort Augustus
CHRIS Duffy’s letter in yesterday’s paper is surely the most unpersuasive yet from the “do nothing, be patient” brigade. Is he angling for a top job in the SNP?
I suggest he read Ruth Wishart’s article and some of the comments which follow it to see why doing nothing and being patient is no longer good enough.
Andrew M Fraser
Inverness
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