Ironies of SNP campaign shown up

It is a funny sort of “positive” campaign the SNP is running, I must say.

It wants to be green, but bases its prosperity upon oil, one of the biggest pollutants on the planet. It (used to) claim it wanted “independence”, but it has to be in the EU, which means that there would be no independence.

It wants to run Scotland’s economy, but that means either using sterling, with interest rates decided in London, without its involvement, or in Europe, where the euro is geared to benefit Germany and, again, it would have no say in its interest rates either.

Am I alone in wondering where the positive aspect of the “Yes Scotland” campaign lies?

Is it not rather ironic that The Scotsman announces:, “Don’t mention the scary ‘I’ word, SNP members are told” on the 197th anniversary of Waterloo?

Andrew HN Gray

Craiglea Drive

Edinburgh

So it would appear Scottish nationalists are being discouraged from using the “I” word.

Independence is now the policy that dare not speak its name.

As in the last Holyrood election, we seem to have reached the ultimate absurdity where the SNP is terrified of mentioning its very reason for existence.

Yet the reasons are understandable: the fact is polls would suggest around 70 per cent of the Scottish people, despite millionaire-funded campaigns and “celebrity’’ endorsements to make them change their minds, consistently and for decades have shunned separation and the break-up of the UK.

Looking in from the outside, others must find the tail wagging the dog situation in Scotland ludicrous.

Alexander McKay

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh

Letters from Jim Fairlie and others (16 June) question what Scottish independence will mean.

For me a Scottish seat at the United Nations and a Scottish team in the Olympic Games would indicate that we are a normal independent country. No country is totally independent of the rest of the world – I expect Scotland to be co-operative, friendly and constructive, internationally.

We shared a monarch with England from 1603 to 1707 and can do so again, if that is our choice and if that choice is open to us.

I worked in Malawi (Nyasaland when I went there) while it shared a currency with the Rhodesias. It kept that currency for a while after it became independent. Now it has its own.

I worked briefly in Cameroun when that country shared the Central African Franc with five neighbours – all were sovereign independent states. I see no problem in us sharing a currency with our neighbours, by mutual agreement.

David Stevenson

Blacket Place

Edinburgh