Disbanding the Union is not the answer
Do you genuinely feel that you are merely a province of the English “inner empire”?
Am I really expected to believe that if the trinity of SNP grievances – Westminster, Trident and the Iraq war – could be wiped from history, I would be living in a political and social utopia?
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Hide AdThat the only thing holding me back from living a fulfilling life in Scotland is the corruption of the current political system based in London and a historic union dating from 1707?
Personally, I don’t feel like this at all. I am a citizen of the United Kingdom with freedom of worship, speech, association and expression. I have shared a common culture and history with the English, Irish and Welsh since even before the Act of Union.
In the current globalised world, the idea that one of the most prosperous and relatively influential states in the world could break down into its constituent nations seems preposterous, and even more so considering the issue was settled less than a year ago.
David Bone
Ailsa Street West
Girvan, South Ayrshire
As an Englishman living in Northumberland, I have a question for your Scottish readers: what advantages do they see for me in the event of Scotland becoming independent? I see many disadvantages to the “Rest of UK” of Scottish independence; an emotive one being the name by which it shall be known.
Others would be belonging to a country of smaller population, economy, military strength and influence than previously.
In the event of one of us not being in the European Union I can only guess at the feelings of the citizens of Cornhill, Berwick-on-Tweed and other Borderers of an international boundary being created between us. Can your readers suggest any advantages to the English of Scottish independence?
JR Shaw
Morpeth
Northumberland
In his shrewd and sharp response to my letter (6 August), Alexander McKay (Letters, 7 August) nevertheless nitpicks and in his devotion to the Union puts trees again in the way of the wood, ie encourages us not to see the wood for the trees.
The raison d’etre of the SNP is for Scotland to resume being a self-governing nation – monarchical or republican irrespective; it is the 1707 Union of Parliaments that is the subject of challenge, not the Union of the Crowns 1603.
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Hide AdAs seen by the majority of Scots at the time, the Union was a sell-out, but the monarchical fusion, to coin a phrase, was a different kettle of fish.
In fact, it could well be said that there were, and are, two separate strands of consequences and everything else about the two separate Union events of Crowns and Parliaments, which have awkwardly co-existed in terms of popular history of Scotland-England relations ever since.
I think there is a subtlety about the differences of the two histories (though more often singularised as one history) that invites a deeper study and exposition than a letter to the papers.
However, until there is recognition of the possibility of disparateness of the Crowns and Parliaments events, a letter will do.
Ian Johnstone
Forman Drive
Peterhead