SNP fixated on language of division

David Garvie (Letters, 3 June) starts with an incorrect assumption and merely exacerbates it as his letter reaches levels of near hysteria when he repeatedly refers to Scotland “owning” 8.7 per cent of everything in the UK. It does not. Neither does England or the rest of the UK.

Such is the fixation in the minds of Nationalists that they cannot think in any way other than divisively. Everything is sliced up into “mine” and “yours”.

Unfortunately for them, they have no word in their vocabulary for what is “ours” collectively.

In a rather sad attempt to diminish Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Letters, 1 June) and the overwhelming proportion of the Scottish population, which is unionist, he describes the latter and most of his fellow countrymen as having an “inferiority complex”, but does not explain what this alleged inferiority relates to, so we are none the wiser.

However, Mr Garvie should really pay more attention in class. Does he not know that his favourite party wants to join the European Union (even if the EU seems rather less than welcoming)? What is the second word in that name? I do believe that it is “Union”.

Why, then, is he so shy about admitting that he, too, is a unionist; an EUnionist, in favour of the union that dare not speak its name?

Instead of getting over-excited, Mr Garvie and his fellow Nationalists should consider this: do they prefer democratically accountable government in which they have a say, which is what we have in the United Kingdom, or an undemocratic form of rule by Brussels-based commissioners (or even by 
Berlin), where they can have as much influence as Greece or Italy, whose governments were replaced without democratic involvement by the EU, or Cyprus, upon whose banking bailout the EU refused to allow its parliament to vote?

What share of “ownership” did those nations have – 8.7 per cent, or none?

Andrew HN Gray

Craiglea Drive

Edinburgh

I am saddened but not surprised by Lord Robertson’s letter. His belief, that a definition that “seems to say it all” by referring to “smaller, mutually hostile states or groups” is relevant to the
relations between Scotland and England now or in the future, is worrying.

My working life as a civil servant in Edinburgh took me to London, Brussels and elsewhere, as well as a stint in Britain’s Washington 
embassy.

My London-based colleagues were neither hostile nor worried by my differing views. Perhaps Lord Robertson has spent too long 
encountering wars and the rumours of war.

LV McEwan

Kirkhill Road

Edinburgh