Westminster seems to have run itself aground and Scotland is disgruntled - Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Gareth Robson, Beckenham.

In their letters which you published in The Yorkshire Post today (September 28) Paul Morley and Iain Brocklebank make interesting points about the UK and its member nations.

Paul also refers to an earlier letter in which James Bovington reminds us that England voted for Brexit where the other nations voted remain. Picking up points made by all three letter writers: Westminster (ie the UK) really does seem to have run itself aground - yes it's outdated but it can't seem to reform itself, cannot renew itself, cannot go back to any former steady state, it really is stuck, log-jammed.

We do indeed need ‘big bang reforms’ but it's hard to see how these can be, England is indeed disadvantaged in not having a parliament whilst the other nations have theirs.

Scotland is locked in an unhappy marriage - on the eve of the independence referendum it was given a vow, a vow that it would be given extra cash and that by staying in the UK it would be able to stay in the EU. Look what happened to that. No wonder they're disgruntled.

But they cannot leave now because without the EU's protection they would be totally at the mercy of England regarding trading terms and financial support. Its only hope would be to appeal to Trump to accept it as the 51st state. He'd probably do it. That would serve Westminster right.

Instead, back in the Blair-Brown era, we could have got this right. We could have joined the Euro, helped Scotland and England to split amicably with both of them remaining in the EU and therefore with trade protected, we could have voted for electoral reform (and for a better system than the AV we were offered).

Both countries would have been far more content with that settlement and therefore we wouldn't have had Brexit and there wouldn't be the anger and desperation which have helped Reform rise.

Each country could have reformed itself and moved forward, freed from the moribund Westminster cesspool. Instead, just look at us now - we are unhappily locked together but we can't split up now that we are outside the EU; what a state we're in.