Author Louis de Bernières says many in England would be ‘glad to see the back’ of Scots

Louis de Bernières has said the “constant complaining and smug grandstanding” of the SNP, and the “barely concealed Anglophobia of too many Scots” is leading many people down south to turn their backs on the union with Scotland.

In a letter to The Times, the London-born author of the bestselling Captain Corelli’s Mandolin said the English attachment to Scotland was only “sentimental”, adding that many of his countrymen would be “glad to see the back” of Scotland.

De Bernières, 66, wrote: “Given the threat of a new ‘illegal’ referendum, it seems clear to me that it’s about time that the populations of Wales and England should have the opportunity to have a say in what we want our relationship with Scotland and Northern Ireland to be. We have no vested interest in clinging on to either of them.

“The attachment to Scotland is mostly a sentimental one, a kind of familial love, but it seems to me the constant complaining and smug grandstanding of the Nationalists, and the barely concealed Anglophobia of too many Scots, have so alienated us that we would be glad to see the back of them.

“It is impossible to continue to love those who no longer love us,” he added.

De Bernières added that scrapping the Barnett formula – a mechanism used by the Treasury to work out the level of public spending for each of the devolved administrations – would benefit England and Wales.

He said: “Scotland is not well run by comparison with England, if the statistics are to be believed, and the rest of us would stand to benefit from a brain drain further down the line.”

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Bestselling novelist Louis de Bernières.

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