‘Foreign’ UK?

John Slee (Letters, 22 November) makes several claims that do not stand up to scrutiny. He claims that using the words 
“foreign country” to describe an independent Scotland is “unfair word twisting to make any
vision of independence less attractive” and that an independent Scotland would still be part of the United Kingdom.

The Oxford English Mini 
Dictionary defines “foreign” as being “of a country or language other than your own”.

The goal of the pro-independence campaign is to separate Scotland from the United Kingdom, producing two separate countries, rendering Scots and the people of the UK foreign to each other in the process.

If these facts are too much for a Yes vote supporter to bear, then maybe they’re supporting the wrong side.

Mr Slee also described the UK naval shipping being built in England rather than an independent Scotland as “hardly pragmatic”.

It would hardly be pragmatic for a government in London to send warship orders to people they would no longer represent when their constituents in 
Portsmouth and Barrow-In-
Furness could do the job.

Andrew Dade

Shrewsbury

Shropshire

The independence debate rages on across the letters pages of The Scotsman, with claim and counter-claim, accusation and denial, all creating more heat than light and generating nothing but confusion. If it is impossible to know who or what to believe, why not simply trust your own common sense?

Consider this. The currency union proposed by the SNP leaves the Bank of England as the lender of last resort and requires the Governor of the Bank, the Monetary Policy Committee and the Westminster Treasury to act in the best interests of a newly independent Scotland.

At the same time, the SNP expects Westminster to accept its proposed cut in corporation tax in Scotland in order to attract business investment away from the rest of the UK.

Ask yourself: do you think that’s likely?

Graham M McLeod

Muirs

Kinross