April 9: Beware Scots nationalists who seek only to break up UK

Voters in England should be very afraid of the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon put up a robust performance at the TV Leaders’ Debate – there’s little doubt she’s a conviction politician. And her only conviction is the destruction of the UK (The Yorkshire Post, April 4).

I was an under-graduate at the University of York and I have lived in Scotland for many years. I have therefore witnessed first-hand the concerted growth of the SNP as it divides and rules Scotland. The nationalist party’s slick PR machine consistently outsmarts Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems.

Ms Sturgeon’s current tactic is to pretend she wants is to wrap us all up in a cosy cloak of Scottish social justice. We in Scotland know this to be far from the truth. Her sole plan is to blackmail whichever party she hops into bed with so she can achieve creeping independence for Scotland, in exchange for SNP support in Westminster. Hers is a single issue party – the SNP cares about nothing but independence.

Ms Sturgeon and the SNP ruthlessly focus on the politics of division. At last year’s referendum the Scottish people stopped the SNP breaking up the UK. So, undeterred by democracy, this year the SNP intends to ensure that Westminster does it for them.

From: Prof. Paul Salveson, Yorkshire First candidate for Colne Valley, Golcar.

ED Miliband’s offer of a “Minister for Yorkshire” (The Yorkshire Post, April 2) is nothing more than a sop to growing demands for democratic devolution to Yorkshire. Labour is supporting the unaccountable and undemocratic “combined authority” for West Yorkshire which is nothing more than a cosy club for Labour council leaders. Yet this “combined authority” is taking more and more powers from local authorities, covering transport, skills and economic development. A “Minister for Yorkshire” will not be accountable to the people of Yorkshire, he or she would be answerable only to Westminster.

The case for democratic devolution is proving increasingly popular. Yorkshire needs a strong directly-elected assembly with re-structured local government which reflects people’s real identities, not artificial impositions like “Kirklees”.

That’s why Yorkshire First want to see a new council for Huddersfield and the Valleys, with a separate council for Dewsbury, Batley and Spen.