Trump has just shown that the EU is nothing without the UK

The Herald Scotland

4 days ago

This moment exposes the myth of Brussels as a global trade superpower. When push came to shove, it couldn't defend its own economic interests. Key sectors, from German autos to French luxury goods, will suffer. But Ireland is especially exposed. Its economy relies heavily on US-focused pharma exports and EU protections. With both now undermined, Dublin's carefully-built model looks dangerously unstable.
For years, anti-Brexiters claimed the EU was essential to Britain's success. In truth, it was the EU without Britain that was always doomed. The UK was its diplomatic spine, along with its special relationship with America, and strategic balance. Without it, the EU became over-regulated, politically paralysed, and incapable of standing up to global powers.
The fallout also goes beyond the headlines. For the SNP it's a hammer blow. Leaving the UK to join a weakened EU now looks absurd. The UK is by far Scotland's largest market, accounting for over 60% of its trade. Why walk away from that to join a bloc that just accepted worse terms than Britain with the world's largest economy?
This isn't just a one-off deal. It's a strategic shift. Britain has regained control of its trade policy and reaped the benefits. The EU meanwhile, has been exposed as vulnerable and reactive, no longer setting the rules, just absorbing the fallout.
Ian Lakin, Aberdeen.
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A dearth of political talent
Sarah Vine, Michael Gove's ex-wife, was a Brexiter of the first order and makes no apologies for it ('How not to be a politician's wife, from someone who knows to her own high cost', The Herald, July 28).
She describes Margaret Thatcher as a memorable and talented politician who could not understand the human collateral damage of her policies.
Surely that is true of most Tory policies, which usually put profit before people – or at least us lower-than-elite classes. Obviously she and Michael have no regrets about Brexit or the home nations which were against it.
There are a significant number of politicians who were elevated well beyond their capabilities, Boris Johnson being the worst, but Michael Gove and several of his colleagues had a similar lack of ability. Unfortunately the same can be said for many of the present leading MPs of all parties, hence the advance of the carpetbaggers of Reform (which bears a similar attitude to that of the late Margaret Thatcher).
JB Drummond, Kilmarnock.
• Apologies for my delayed reaction, but Denis Bruce's anti-Thatcher rant (Letters, July 23) merits a few words in her defence.
Your correspondent goes on about public utilities, the right to buy, the miners' dispute. We are now suffering the consequences of Thatcher's vultures coming home to roost, he declares, and he is entitled to his opinion.
Divisive she may have been; but as Prime Minister – and first woman in that office – she was the victor of three General Elections, and left a prouder and more stable nation in her wake than she had inherited.
The Iron Lady she proved to be; "not for turning" her mantle eternal, and one which our present government might care to adopt. She remains, in my view, at the top as a peacetime leader.
Brian D Henderson, Glasgow.
Emotion and xenophobia
John Swinney has proclaimed his new strategy for achieving independence ("Indy ref 'only secured through majority at Holyrood election'", [[The Herald]], July 29) but it has a glaring omission. Since the 1930s, the [[SNP]] has been chasing a dream to drag Scotland out of the United Kingdom. The big guns of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon failed despite the latter foolishly and embarrassingly offering a referendum in October 2023.
Now Mr Swinney is back to rally the troops offering 'opportunities' to make it this time. The glaring omission: facts. Does he really expect sensible Scots to support his nationalist dream without the economic, the financial and increasingly important, defence facts, to make Scotland a successful independent country where Scots will be better off?
Economic, financial and defence facts are of no importance to nationalist leaders. They would lead their followers to the promised land based on the politics of emotion and xenophobia because there is nothing else. They will of course be depending on the support of 16-year-olds and nationalist emotion will be right up the street of most of them.
The once-vocal Andrew Wilson, author of a discredited White Paper, had a much-repeated saying (every time on television): 'independence will be hard but will be worth it'. The problem: neither he nor anyone else in the nationalist hierarchy could tell the people of Scotland how 'hard' it will be and how 'worth it' it will be. Nothing has changed.
Douglas Cowe, Newmachar.
We need a vote on borrowing
June's figures for public sector borrowing came in at £20.7 billion, well above the OBR's forecast and City expectations. What's more, £16.4bn of this was accounted for by debt interest payments.
Yes, that's right: £16.4bn in one month. We are borrowing vast sums to pay the interest on past borrowings of vast sums. The time has come for a national referendum on government borrowing.
Doug Clark, Currie.
Demographic myopia
Seldom have I read a more incoherent piece than Roz Foyer's article on the need for more immigrant workers in Scotland ("Scotland needs more workers – not forcing existing ones to work longer", The Herald, July 28). I hardly know where to start.
She echoes (despite being head of the STUC) the corporate employers' line regarding a Scottish visa. She must surely know it's a non-starter; the UK Government would never allow it given that those invited here could move down south and work in the black economy.
She dishes up the hoary old "demographic crisis" argument, despite Scotland's population having surged of late and now being in overshoot relative to our biocapacity (Greens, please note). This is straight out of the globalists' population-transfer prescription for all states with fertility below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman (as the UK's has been since the Pill arrived many decades ago, hence our ever-increasing immigration at the behest of corporate employers and landlords).
It is ultimately the demographic myopia of Ms Foyer and others which is water on the mills of Reform UK, doing very well in Scotland thank you, despite the unpopularity of the polarising Nigel Farage.
George Morton, Rosyth.
Former Conservative minister Michael Gove (Image: PA)
Expensive halt of wind farms
When Alan Simpson described planning applications from energy developers as a 'David and Goliath' experience, I wondered which one Highland Council, covering an area almost as large as Belgium, was supposed to be ("Rural Scots are right, it is time to pause onshore wind farms.There are more than enough already", [[The Herald]], July 28).
But the simple fact is that onshore wind farms are much cheaper than offshore wind farms or new nuclear reactors. Pylons are much cheaper than buried cables. If we continue to build onshore wind, we can discuss how the difference in price is split between the land owners, the local community, and the consumers of the generated electricity. If we pause onshore building, will the land owners and local communities saved from having wind turbines near them make any contribution towards the higher bills faced by consumers? Presumably there is some value in it for a golf course, grouse moor or holiday cottage to have an unspoilt view, which would be reflected in its business rates valuation?
Alan Ritchie, Glasgow.
Which warnings are fallacious?
It is very clear that Malcom Parkin (Letters, July 28) is no admirer of Ed Miliband. Many others may share Mr Parkin's concern about "targets conveniently in decades ahead", though from different perspectives. But he is also exercised about "warnings that have not come true".
Presumably this refers to climatic matters, and presumably your correspondent is putting himself forward as one who has a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of such things than the majority of climatologists. Perhaps he could be indulged with an opportunity to explain exactly what such fallacious warnings consisted of, and in what ways they have not come true: specifically in relation to changes in temperature; changes in the frequency of extreme weather events; and changes in global sea level.
William Patterson, East Linton.