Ex-pats deserve to have their say

DAVID McKirdy writing from Nottinghamshire (Letters, 16 June) rightly complains that he and tens of thousands of ex-pat Scots have been deliberately disenfranchised by the SNP for the separation referendum – maybe the most important vote any of us will cast in our lives.

It is clear that the SNP is afraid of the ex-pat vote although they are wrong to be so; the ex-pats I know are far more likely to vote emotionally, and in favour of independence.

As a Yorkshireman who has lived in Scotland for 35 years, I still believe Mr McKirdy has more at stake than I, and consequently the greater right to a referendum vote.

Sometimes it is necessary to defy government to make it see sense, and for that reason, if Mr McKirdy would care to contact me I will give him my vote – cast it as he directs. If even half the English entitled to vote next year gave their vote to a native Scot ex-pat, the pollsters would throw their calculators across the room.

David Fiddimore, Edinburgh