A sense of Britishness is hard to find

It is little wonder that support for Scottish independence rockets to 65 per cent if people can be convinced of the economic case, even by a slender £500.

Britishness has gone. The whole social fabric that was British Rail, British Road Services, British Coal, British Steel has disappeared.

Germany, France and Spain own the utilities. Royal Mail will go.

Delhi and Beijing decide on Welsh steelworks and English car plants, and 80 per cent of Westminster decisions are simply about implementing EU legislation.

Britain is a province of Europe and a military vassal state of the USA, to where British citizens can be extradited by law.

There once were attempts to be fair to all Britain – regional policies which taxed firms which tried to set up in south-east England. The free market was defied as car plants were forced north, to Linwood and Bathgate.

Film studios based in the south of England produced The Maggie, Whisky Galore, Rockets Galore and Rob Roy, all made on location in Scotland. Saturday night TV had a Scottish variety show, plus highlights from two – yes, two – Scottish football matches.

At school, we were systematically taught the folk songs of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales. Sadly, today, the north-south divide is a divisive, economic wall.

Scots can’t afford to buy homes in southern England, while southern English home-owners can sell up and buy hotels in Scotland.

It’s not the SNP which is breaking up Britain, it’s the free-market London establishment which has chosen that road over the past 50 years. That’s why an extra £500 is now all it takes to complete the job.

(Cllr) Tom Johnston

Burn View

Cumbernauld

Brian Wilson (Perspective, 7 December) is right to point up the shabbiness of reaching a view on Scottish independence on the “will I be better-off?” test, but, like many Unionists, seems rather unsteady when it comes to listing the more serious arguments for the Union.

Particularly unconvincing is the implied picture of England and Scotland as two mighty oxen once yoked together striving successfully towards a better society. A successful pair of oxen need to be the same size!

The Union was a takeover pure and simple and the price has been the decline of Scotland to the status of a mere appendage. The culture of “Britain” is the culture of England, a view reinforced relentlessly by the BBC. The average Englishman knows nothing and is content to know nothing of Scottish history and culture. Equally weak is the suggestion that Scots would somehow miss out on job opportunities in the south. How would that be possible under EU rules?

And Scots have in any case always ventured successfully far beyond the limited scope presented by England. I would respect north Britons more if they argued for fuller integration – no more nonsense about Scottish teams, no more Scots Law, a ban on Scottish history teaching, etc.

Then instead of complaining about overbearing English jingoism in sport and much else (which is getting worse) we would simply embrace it.

Alan Oliver

Battock Road

Brightons, Falkirk