What a bonus if Starmer is forced to ape Corbyn and not Farage
But with the current Labour Party under the disastrous Keir Starmer (two-child benefit cap, no caps for bankers' bonuses, the pensioner winter payment fiasco, turning on the Waspi women, the whole free suit/glasses nonsense and to cap it all, complicity in Gaza genocide), there is one thing Mr Corbyn's new venture could do.
Instead of spending a huge amount of time, political energy and wasting precious political capital trying to out-Farage Farage, maybe Keir Starmer will even things out and attempt to out-Corbyn Corbyn.
Amanda Baker, Edinburgh.
Reform will be the winner
The chaotic launch of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana's new left-wing party may seem farcical on the surface, but it poses a very real and immediate threat to Labour and its allies. Polling shows this group could draw around 10% of the national vote – an amount that, while not enough to win, could be catastrophic for Labour's electoral prospects. The greatest beneficiary? Not the Tories, but Reform.
Keir Starmer's grip on power is already under strain amid public disillusionment with his leadership style, spiralling public spending, the highest taxes in 70 years and an utterly nonsensical approach to illegal immigration which has not addressed the 'pull factor' one jot. The addition of a new hard-left alternative risks fracturing the left-wing vote beyond repair.
More dangerously still, murmurs of discontent among sitting Labour MPs – especially those with slim majorities – raise the spectre of defections. If even a handful break ranks and shift to this new movement, the optics for the PM will be devastating. He will no longer be seen as the unifying force that won power, but the man who presided over the disintegration of Labour as we know it today.
Clearly, a Labour-Green split in the face of this insurgent leftist bloc could be the difference between a fragile minority government and a total collapse by 2029. Keir Starmer may believe the hard left has been banished, but their return – however muddled – is a warning. Ignore it, and he may not last another four years, let alone win a second term. Small wonder support for Reform is surging.
Ian Lakin, Aberdeen.
Read more letters
A broad church for indy needed
I note Neil Mackay's thoughtful piece ("Corbyn's new party does not just threaten Labour, it will wound SNP too", [[The Herald]], July 26) on the potential of Jeremy Corbyn's new party to disrupt not only the Scottish Labour Party but the [[SNP]] vote too. My first thought was, is there a "wheesht for Labour" thing going? Perhaps not by Neil but there is by some.
Secondly, I'm a socialist-leaning SNP supporter. Would this potential opportunity affect my vote? On reflection no. My red line is independence, I strongly believe that Scotland would thrive, economically, politically and socially as an independent nation state. A good neighbour to England but not ruled by her.
My ongoing "fight" will be for independence just as it is for over 50% of the population. However after Independence Day I will then fight for a constitution that best frames my political vision, as of course will other Scots.
The SNP needs to run a centre course, to be a broad church, to lead us to that independent future. Although a bit more "leading" would certainly help.
Dr Jacqui Jensen, Perth.
Mhairi Black was no trailblazer
You describe former SNP MP Mairi Black as a 'trailblazer' ("Trailblazing former SNP MP Mhairi Black quits the party", The Herald, July 15), but what exactly did she achieve in nine years picking up her wages at the taxpayers' expense?
She got elected age 20, with no work experience. Her party's propaganda/spin machine got behind her to give her a profile, and apparently, she made a speech which did well on the internet and made her in to a minor celebrity in the political bubble. It is difficult to believe that 10 million people viewed that video. Maybe Nicola Sturgeon had her finger on the 'Watch Again' button for several weeks, or some bots helped her with the numbers. If 10 million people really watched it, then they need to give themselves a good shake.
But what did she actually do? There are no achievements that are apparent at all. She did not front up any piece of legislation, initiate any high-level campaigns or leave any legacy projects in her own constituency. She did jump on various bandwagons, but anyone can do that, and none of those bandwagons really went anywhere. Apparently, she did not like her job, which is not surprising in someone so young. She defended her seat when the SNP had the political wind at the backs, but then jumped ship in 2024 before her constituents had the opportunity to oust her.
Ms Black has been the poster girl of the very shallow and superficial politics we have seen in Scotland over the last 10-15 years. What she does or does not believe in is neither here nor there. She had an opportunity to do things to help people in their everyday lives, but did not do anything of note in the time she had. Now, it is apparently the fault of everyone else. We need politicians who can do things in Scotland, not these minor wannabe celebrities.
'Trailblazing' is completely the wrong word for Ms Black. It is certainly not the kind of trail we want anyone else to follow.
Victor Clements, Aberfeldy.
SNP ranks will be thinner
I have championed Mhairi Black from her early university days and believe she is a strong voice for Scotland, an impressive orator and I wish she had not left the SNP.
What I do think will happen to the SNP now will be a thinning of the ranks from those who are members who joined for the referendum with their own agendas and saw independence as an avenue to secure their personal aims; when their aims were not met what was left was their own agenda, showing that their commitment to the SNP and independence was never their main goal. Those who remain in the SNP are in the majority around the centre ground, committed to independence, who recognise it as a long game and continue to be a voice for an Independent Scotland from within the SNP.
The opportunity arose in 2014 to secure an independent Scotland and over half of Scotland said no, the people spoke and democracy means we respect the vote and continue to work towards independence. The SNP is and always has been the means to secure Independence, when the people of Scotland unite, decide they have enough then we will be an Independent country.
Christine Smith, Troon.
Mhairi Black has left the SNP (Image: Newsquest)
Immigration conundrum
The UK Government is planning an end to housing immigrants in hotels. The main political parties all have plans to end illegal immigration by stopping the rubber boat crossings from France. The Prime Minister says he will wage war on the people-smuggling gangs. He also has some kind of botched-together deal with President Macron of France. Up until September of last year there were 810,400 economically inactive people in Scotland.
Crime has risen among immigrants in Britain and Scotland has a housing shortage. John Swinney wants more immigrants in Scotland which if organised properly could benefit the country. If a person arrives with qualifications and is willing to contribute that shouldn't be a problem. Immigrants who come here to sponge off the taxpayer and become involved in crime should get nowhere near our border. But who's going to decide who comes in and who doesn't?
Ian Balloch, Grangemouth.
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The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Mhairi Black: 'I underestimated how horrible my own side could be'
'That's been a strange thing, to learn how to relax after nearly 10 years,' she says as we sit together in the offices of The Herald. And has she? 'About two weeks ago I cracked it. I'm definitely getting there.' She certainly looks relaxed. It is late morning, July 24, and Black has come into the office to have her picture taken and to talk about her new Fringe show. Read more She is fresh-faced, accommodating (she's not in the slightest put out when The Herald's editor chases us from the room we're in because she has a meeting booked), chatty and honest. But then she's always been chatty and honest. Over the next hour she will pose uncomplainingly for photographs and talk to me about life and politics and her new Fringe show. The Fringe is the future. Politics the past. It's in our time together that she will tell me she has left the SNP (you may have read as much in [[The Herald]] the other week). How has she been spending her time since she closed the door on her career in Westminster, I ask when we sit down to talk? 'I've been enjoying the bliss of domestic life,' Black admits. 'My wife's raging because I've got more time to go on social media and see all these videos. And the algorithm clearly knows that I'm spending a lot of time in the house these days. It keeps sending me: 'Here's how to make your own bleach.' Turns out, vinegar is the basis of all cleaning products. So now my house just smells like a chippie. 'So, yeah, driving my family demented has been a massive part of trying to relax.' Black hasn't just been waiting home for her wife Katie McGarvey to come home of an evening. Last summer she spent August at the Fringe with her debut hour Politics Isn't For Me, which she then toured around Scotland and even performed for five nights in London. And then there's a new show to prepare for this year too. Maybe things have not been totally languid after all. Mhairi Black during her Fringe show (Image: STEVE ULLATHORNE) Last year's show, Politics Isn't For Me, wasn't quite stand-up. It was more of a very funny Tedtalk, or 'Nedtalk' as she put it herself. It was an exasperated, amused discourse on why, in her experience, Westminster wasn't fit for purpose. This year's show will see her range more freely over life and politics. What that means in practice is not totally nailed down, she admits. This is, as the title suggests, a work in progress after all. 'I'd never heard of a work in progress until stepping into this world,' Black admits. 'Everybody kept talking about WIPs. I thought, 'I'd just left that world.'' (The ghost of Westminster still clearly haunts her.) 'The work in progress is basically, 'I've got a half-baked idea. Come along and help me figure out the rest of it,'' she continues. 'And that's really scary. I'm looking forward to trying something new, as in there's a bit where I don't know what's going to happen and that's half the excitement, I suppose. 'This is more talking about things I've experienced since leaving politics,' she adds. 'There will definitely still be stories I didn't tell the last time. But a lot more of me telling stories about how I'm figuring life out.' Figuring life out is what she has been doing for the last 12 months. Well, that and processing everything she's gone through over the last 10 years. Come election day last summer, I say, wasn't there even a tiny frisson of regret that she wasn't still in the fight? 'Oh, Christ, no. The minute he called that election I was dancing around the living room,' she says. (He being Rishi Sunak. Remember him?) 'Because I had already made my mind up in 2019 - I just hadnae told anybody that - so it wasn't fresh news to me. If anything, I'd been waiting for this day. Mhairi Black announced this week she had left the SNP (Image: Jeff J Mitchell) 'So, when he called the election before last year's Fringe I was like, 'Oh you dancer. Right, freedom.'' That's the word you'd use? Freedom? 'Oh, aye, definitely freedom. Freedom to be more myself.' Last year's show Politics Isn't For Me was really a show about institutional failure. She was part of that institution, of course. I wonder, does she feel she wasted those 10 years in parliament? 'No, I don't. I don't. 'It was an experience,' she adds. 'But I don't miss it. I still think I was right to leave when I did.' For all her criticisms of Westminster Black made a huge impact there. Her maiden speech was watched 10 million times on YouTube and she would go on to become the deputy leader of the SNP in Westminster. Mhairi Black at Westminster (Image: unknown) What does she think she achieved in her time in politics? 'When I think of the individuals that we helped, our little constituency team, that's what I'm proudest of, definitely; being able to put faces to these cases we had and going, 'I really did change their lives for the better, or I played a part in that,' which is great. 'In terms of actually changing laws, no. Didn't get anywhere close to it. The closest I ever got was a private members bill that was shot down in its first read.' It would presumably have been different if you had been in power? Maybe a little, she says. 'But even if in some magical world we had been in the UK government, I still think we'd have been, 'Rip this up, start again, try again.' 'The hours that are wasted doing nothing in that building is criminal. If it was any company it would be the first thing somebody would point out. 'What the hell are you doing this for?' So, the fact that parliament operates like that 'just because' was never a good enough reason for me. 'It suits the people in power. I imagine that's why it's not going to change anytime soon.' What would you now tell that 20-year-old Mhairi Black who got elected in 2015? 'Oh, that's difficult. I'd probably say don't doubt yourself as much and maybe be ready for how lonely it can be at times. I think that would probably be my two pieces of advice.' Lonely? Was that the case even within your own party? 'Oh aye, aye, because it's a very cut-throat world where there's people just always out to get each other. And that's just alien to me. I thought if you were part of a team you all work together. Mhairi Black and Nicola Sturgeon (Image: PA Archive/PA Images) 'But, of course, politics doesn't always attract team players. So, yeah, it took me a wee bit of time to get my head around that. I expected other opposition to be horrible or backstabby or whatever, but I underestimated how much of an issue it would be with your own side, definitely.' It's also worth remembering that Black was subject to death threats during her time in parliament. Perhaps it's no wonder that at the end of 2017 she had to take time off because she had effectively burnt out. 'From 2014 'til, say, 2020 even, it was just election after election after referendum. It was just constant, non-stop, and you can't maintain that level of energy and that level of responsibility at that intensity without having a proper break at some point. And that's what I got the hard way eventually. It got to the point where my body was like, 'We're making you take a break whether you like it or not.'' In the BBC documentary made about her around last year's election Black's dad Alan admitted that he feared she was drinking too much. When I bring it up she agrees. 'The way that parliament is, you can't leave the building because votes could be called at any point. So you're like, 'I'm stuck in here until 10 o'clock at night, but it's six o' clock and I've finished all my work. Do you want to go and get a pint?' 'And you'd sit and have one or two. I wasn't getting steaming every night … But you start to recognise, 'Oh, wait a minute I've been for one or two pints four days this week.' 'And I could see it even in my own colleagues or folk from other parties. This is how you end up in a state, or this is how you end up with a real problem. You can see it happening around you. 'I suddenly realised if I'm seeing you in here all the time it means I'm in here all the time.' 'That definitely got nipped in the bud pretty quickly.' And then of course she was given her ADHD diagnosis in the midst of all this. At the time she said it was a real positive for her. She still feels that way today. 'I see it as a real strength. I feel like someone's given me the map to the maze in my own head. 'I'm learning more about myself as it goes on. And this is the longest stretch of time I've been home for a good few years. I'm in the process of making new habits. It's quite fun and exciting, I have to say.' In the documentary you mentioned you were also being tested for autism? 'I've not had anything back officially yet, but … Given that my family is riddled with it everybody seems to be like, 'Yeah, you probably do have it.'' As for the world today, well, she's not hopeful. 'The speech that I'm proudest of giving is the one where I talk about facism. As time rumbles on I desperately want to be proved wrong.' But she's not seeing any evidence. 'We're still in this horrible, right-wing, creeping, authoritarian style of governance. 'Even when you're seeing just how much tech companies are being allowed to run wild and how inept our governments are at understanding the problem, never mind having a grasp on 'here's what we need to do about it,' it's terrifying. It's really terrifying.' We are speaking the day before President Trump arrives in Scotland for his private visit. Why, she asks, is the Scottish Secretary going to give him a warm welcome? 'This guy is a fascist. He is literally locking up children and people are dying on his watch and we're warmly welcoming him.' 'Why are we all pretending that we're in this cosy almost 1960s comic book world where we can rely on America to look after us? The world is changing and nobody's keeping up with it.' As for the SNP, she is largely circumspect today, but in last year's Fringe show she was, if anything, harder on her own colleagues than anyone else. 'Funny that,' she says, laughing. You're still a member of the SNP though? 'No, I'm not anymore.' Ah. 'Basically for a long time I've not agreed with quite a few decisions that have been made,' she explains. 'There have just been too many times when I've thought, 'I don't agree with what you've done there,' or the decision or strategy that has been arrived at. 'To be honest, I'm looking around thinking, 'There are better organisations that I could be giving a membership to than this one that I don't feel has been making the right decisions for quite some time.' 'The capitulation on LGBT rights, trans rights in particular.' She says, instead, she is going to back organisations such as the Good Law Project who are willing to fight on these issues in court. 'That's what I want to throw my money behind. She is still, she says, fervently pro-independence, though. There's another former big beast of the Scottish National Party in Edinburgh this month. Nicola Sturgeon will be appearing at the book festival. What does Black think the party's former leader's legacy will be? 'Time will tell. Undoubtedly no one can take away that she reached levels of influence and popularity and fear that I don't think anyone else has in recent memory … I can't think of anybody who has had that kind of impact, certainly on UK politics.' When you say fear …? 'Having been in Westminster at the height of Nicola's leadership, they were terrified of her, absolutely terrified. When she was in the building it spread like wildfire. You could see they're actually quite shaken at the very fact that she's here in person. 'So, there's no taking away from that. I've always said I think she is possibly the best politician I can think of UK-wide as to competency and being able to answer a question. I've never seen her shaken. She was always unflappable and I know from experience how difficult that is to do. 'So, as a politician I thought she was shit hot. 'As the leader of a political party, I thought she could have done so much better. The same is true of Alex Salmond when he was in charge and even John Swinney now. The actual structure of the party has never grown or adapted to that influx of membership, which I think has actually played a role in why a lot of folk have turned away from the party. It's because the structure just wasn't there to give people the kind of membership they were craving. 'So, there's definite failings and as time goes on I'm sure those failings will become much clearer. But I think for all the negatives that might be associated with Nicola Sturgeon I do think there are a hell of a lot of positives and there are a lot of folk who are now gunning for Nicola Sturgeon who at the time were clinging onto her coat tails for dear life. I'm not without cynically noticing, 'Oh, you've changed your tune all of a sudden.' 'Whereas there were people who had legitimate concerns and queries that were ignored for years, but they don't take it to the front pages of newspapers.' As for Black, does she have any idea of what she's going to do with the rest of her life? 'Genuinely I don't and for me that's half the excitement at the minute. I'm in a lucky enough position where for a year now I've been able to make a living out of just having a laugh. And I'll do that for as long as it suits me and as long as I feel that I can. 'But it's not like I've decided to do stand-up all my life. It's just trying on different hats and seeing what fits.' Next year she will be writing a book. Beyond that, who knows? 'I could see myself ending up in college lecturing, so maybe that's something that will one day come along. But for the time being I'm just enjoying sleeping in my own bed and being able to have a laugh because so much of that was missing for a good chunk of time there.' Mhairi, you've been in politics for a decade and now you're at the Fringe. It does suggest you might quite like a bit of attention. 'I know,' she says, smiling. 'That's what my wife says to me all the time. 'Do you not get enough attention? Was the theatre of people applauding you not enough? You need my praise?' 'Yes, I do.' Mhairi Black: Work in Progress, Gilded Balloon at the Appleton Tower, August 10-24, Midday Mhairi Black on Nigel Farage: 'He's the British Trump. Poisonous. I have absolutely nothing nice to say about him. How far have we fallen as a society when all it takes is a millionaire in a cravat holding a pint and suddenly we're like, 'Oh, yes, you must have my interests at heart?'' Mhairi Black on Keir Starmer: 'The guy believes in nothing. I've no doubt that he goes home and convinces himself that he's a very practical, reasonable set of hands who is guiding us through a very turbulent time. I just think it's rubbish. Naw, you don't believe anything. In order to guide people you've got to have an end goal and end destination. Keir Starmer cannae even make up his mind what that end destination is, so the idea that this guy is the saviour is nonsense.'
The National
an hour ago
- The National
History will judge monsters who enabled a genocide
Keir Starmer's announcement that Britain will recognise the State of Palestine in September if Israel doesn't agree to a ceasefire and a two-state solution sums up his political project. Starmer himself is an empty vessel, a mere frontman for Labour's most reactionary and self-serving political faction: his own advisers briefed that he thinks he's driving a train, but they had placed him in front of London's driverless District Light Railway. This faction is defined by its cynicism, lacking not just a vision for our disunited kingdom, but a moral core. They saw that growing numbers of MPs were demanding Palestinian recognition, including some of the drones they parachuted into the parliamentary party, whose blind loyalty has been frayed by the realisation they're heading towards electoral apocalypse. READ MORE: Gaza detainees 'tortured and raped' by Israeli forces, United Nations hears The SNP were preparing to force a parliamentary vote on statehood, which would leave Labour exposed. And indeed other European states, like Spain, have already taken this step, with the likes of France making clear they will too. But all Starmer's aides care about is political game playing, rather than what happens to be the right thing to do. And here's the thing – they're not even good at it. They scrapped the universal Winter Fuel Payment because they thought it would win respect as a 'tough decision'. Alas, they project their lack of a heart on to the electorate, who shocked Labour goons by being averse to freezing their grans. They decided to wage war on disabled people with cuts which would drive hundreds of thousands into hardship, and were again shocked at being stopped in their tracks by the consequent revulsion, including from the malfunctioning androids who benefited from their rigged parliamentary selections. In this case, their ruse is as cackhanded as it is morally bankrupt. Any move which recognises the humanity of Palestinians is going to provoke the pro-Israel lobby, who long sank into a sewer of genocidal depravity, and so it proved. What about everyone else – that is, popular opinion, given the polling shows overwhelming public support for recognition of a Palestinian state, an arms embargo on Israel, as well as the arrest of its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes and crimes against humanity? Starmer's team are essentially arguing that if Israel tones down its genocide, then it will withdraw support for Palestinian statehood. The inalienable right of a people to be free is reduced to a crude bargaining chip, a chess piece on a board to be discarded for a greater strategic cause. So who is this supposed to please, exactly? Here's the gruesome truth. Obviously, Britain should have supported Palestinian national self-determination many moons ago. But there won't be any Palestine left to recognise at this rate. Here is the most symbolic gesture on offer, and even that is reduced to a cynical ploy. There is growing pressure on the Government, because they are facilitating what the former UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, calls the 'worst crime of the 21st century'. Here is an attempt to deflect from action they could be taking, like ending all arms sales to Israel, including crucial components for F-35 jets that are exterminating Palestinians, or imposing sweeping sanctions on Israel. Indeed, earlier this year, Britain joined other Western states in imposing sanctions on two particularly extreme Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. They are both genocidal maniacs who belong in jail, sure, but it is easy to make them the bogeymen in order to absolve the wider guilt of the Israeli state. Notably, the sanctions were justified on the grounds of their incendiary comments, rather than their actions, because the latter implicates the British government. Nothing our government has done remotely meets the scale of the crime. A consensus of genocide scholars – including Israeli scholars – long ago concluded this is genocide. B'Tselem was one of two Israeli human rights organisations to reach the same conclusion this week, alongside Israeli author David Grossman, who won Israel's top literary prize in 2018. Gaza has been plunged into deliberate famine by an Israeli state which repeatedly broadcast to the world that it was intentionally starving the strip. More hungry Palestinians have been massacred at aid points alone since late May than the total number of Israeli civilians and soldiers killed on October 7. And even the BBC is now having to report that Palestinian children are being systematically shot in the head or chest – evidence which points in only one direction: that the Israeli army is deliberately shooting kids. The depravity is so extreme, documented and confessed to, that it is difficult to know either where to begin or end. The British government had a choice when confronted with an incontrovertible criminal reality: to make itself complicit in this historic abomination, or to abide by the most rudimentary building blocks of international law. It chose the former, and now it seeks to wash away its guilt by publicly agonising over Israel's crimes while making tokenistic gestures about a Palestinian nation it has literally helped to massacre. You would have to be either terminally gullible, or a dupe, to be beguiled by this. Throughout history, monsters didn't realise that that is what they are, but they were still monsters. The same applies to Westminster's rulers – and that will be the definitive conclusion of history and, we can hope, the courts, too.
South Wales Argus
an hour ago
- South Wales Argus
Cardiff Capital Region wants action on Severn Bridge limit
Vehicles weighing 7.5 tonnes and more have been barred from crossing the bridge, that spans the Severn from Aust to Chepstow, since Tuesday, May 27 and Monmouthshire County Council has warned it fears firms could relocate from Chepstow without continued easy access to the motorway network. Now members of the Cardiff Capital Region, which is the joint committee for the 10 unitary authorities in South East Wales, say they will look to support Monmouthshire's calls for a solution. Councillor Robert Bevan, who chairs its overview and scrutiny committee, promised to 'take the issue up' after it was raised at its meeting this week. The Labour member of Rhondda Cynon Taf Council said: 'Time is of the essence, we can't wait. I can certainly say I will take this up further and see what we can do.' He said the M48 bridge, at Chepstow, as well as the M4 and the Prince of Wales Bridge is a vital connection for the region's economy and key industries: 'We must emphasise it's not just Monmouthshire that will feel the impact but the rest of South Wales will feel it as well. 'We have deliveries come from the Midlands area, there's lots of companies in the automotive sector and aerospace which is built around Severnside and Filton.' Simon Griffiths, Labour councillor for Bridgend, noted the long term solution to strengthen the 1960s built suspension bridge's cables is estimated to cost between £300 million to £600m. He said it needed to be the 'top regional transport priority' for the body whose main functions are planning transport across the region and how land is used as well as growing the economy, including the Western Gateway project that involves councils across South Wales and the south west of England. Cllr Griffiths said: 'This really could damage any growth we see in South Wales.' Monmouthshire council's Labour representative on the body, Chepstow member Armand Watts who raised the bridge restriction at the meeting, said it's estimated up to 2,500 jobs in the town could be impacted. He also said the weight limit has scuppered plans for the Severnside area in Wales to rival the economic growth seen on the English bank. 'We had the opportunity to replicate what they've done in South Gloucestershire and Bristol where there are 9,000 jobs. I would say that's an economic hotspot.' Cllr Watts also complained the South East Wales Trunk Road Agency has 'not said anything publicly' about the weight limit and said it has been down to Monmouthshire to argue its case with the UK Government, which is responsible for both bridges over the Severn via National Highways. 'Our cabinet member was given 15 minutes with the junior minister, the minister for future highways, and that's it,' said Cllr Watts who also complained a working group has been set up 'without any elected members to decide our future.' Cllr Watts, who represents Bulwark and Thornwell, said his ward is only nine miles from the M4/M5 interchange, north of Bristol, which he said should allow it to benefit from the city's economic growth and said: 'I really hope you can show some solidarity with poor old Monmouthshire on this.' National Highways has previously said it is anticipated the weight restriction is expected to be in place for 12 to 18 months as a short term measure while it considers how it could allow vehicles over 7.5 tonnes to cross the bridge in a managed system as a medium-term solution.
