Anti-Farage mob

Police in attendance said that an equal number of English and Scottish demonstrators were apprehended for rather minor offences where nothing as bad as an egg was broken. For anybody wrongly to label Nationalists for any offence is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Like many Labour Party supporters who I believe were also present at the Edinburgh rally, I also support independence by dialogue and debate. Tarnishing First Minister Alex Salmond, who wasn’t even there, is opportunist criticism. What Mr Salmond said was: “I am a believer in demonstrations, provided that they are held within the law of the land.”

It’s not just nationalists who support independence.

Donald J Morrison

Haig Street

Buckie

I was amused by Douglas Turner (Letters, 20 May) trying to demonise me by claiming that my recent letter was a “quantum leap to where the demonstrators are part of the independence campaign”. The group which organised the mob who disgraced Scottish standards of democratic tolerance were from a group called the Radical Independence Campaign, which is a supporter of the “Yes” campaign.

In case Mr Turner is in any doubt as to this group’s credentials as a part of the pro-independence campaign, he should check out the many videos of the bullying, howling, finger-wagging socialist gang that attempted to brow-beat one man and accuse him of policies that his party does not condone.

Those of us who are old enough remember “socialist truth” from the days of the unlamented Soviet Empire acknowledge that the Radical Independence Campaign is only one of the more distasteful groups on the left which support the SNP’s separatist agenda.

There is plenty of footage of these student thugs and their chums holding a very long banner urging people to “Vote Yes for Scotland”. Is Turner suggesting that they were Unionists?

Andrew H N Gray

Craiglea Drive

Edinburgh