Letters II: Indyref2 will be the last in a generation, maybe the last ever

This is no exaggeration given the emergence of an “English Nationalism” from Brexit, one that is likely to only harden over time. Remember, the day after we lost the vote in 2014, Boris Johnson announced “we still own Scotland”. This phrase, however flippant, defines exactly what the majority of English people believe and certainly explains the total disregard that the present UK Government has for Scotland.

I agree with Carolyn Leckie (We are not immune to the politics of reaction, The National, January 23) when she says that: “We need a clear, simple vision of independence we can unite around and take to the people.”

Whether we liked it or not, and of course most of us didn’t, the ‘average voter’ is less sophisticated than we who have had the dream of independence over many years. If the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign should teach us anything it is exactly as Carolyn has stated, we need “a clear and simple message” one that clearly articulates what an independent Scotland could look like.

We also need to rebut the misinformation about the Scottish economy and present the facts that we are well able to be a successful nation state. Half the states of Europe have a smaller population than Scotland and none of the natural resources. Not only do we have enviable natural resources but contribute more than 50 per cent of the UK’s food and drink exports and are world leaders in life sciences and green energy. I don’t hear any of this, in the form of rebuttals, from the SNP.

I have had letters published in your paper about the bias of the UK press and broadcasters in the recent past, i recognise that this makes getting that positive message out there extremely difficult. There is, however, one avenue that I believe could be used more effectively, an avenue that the SNP have a right to by law, that is the political party broadcast slot on national television.

I watched last week’s SNP advert and, while it is clearly well constructed, I felt it was almost too intellectual without wishing to offend the voting public. By contrast, Brexit won with the simple strap line “Take back control”. Trump with “Make America great again”, hardly intellectually stimulating but nonetheless successful.

I am not suggesting reducing the indyref2 campaign to that level of narrative, but I do agree with Carolyn that there is a need for a clear and simple independence message.

The political broadcast slot could more effectively be used to put the record straight on what an independent Scotland could look like on an item-by-item basis.

We could start by pointing out that the UK, and Scotland if it remains part of the Union, faces 30 years of Tory rule, and develop a series of topics to cover the all to well known weaknesses last time round. This could cover currency, balance of payments, pensions, our share of the national debt, our defence intentions, fishing and farming policy, opportunities for our young people, etc etc.

Finally, I also agree with Carolyn’s view on the lead in timescale for Indy Ref 2, no more than 12 months.

Ideally this should be within the leaving period for the UK, and September 2018 looks a viable date as the Scottish Government should have a good outline of what post-Brexit could look like. We can therefore put the two alternative visions to the Scottish people. Simplicity and clarity on what independence will deliver being essential throughout the campaign.

Lets do it!

Ian Stewart, Uig, Isle of Skye

HOW the UK Government love that get out of gaol free card “national security” (Sturgeon demands the truth on Trident, The National, January 23). We all know that this is nothing more than a cover up, they know that we know but they so not care.

The latest use of the ploy is Trident but it has been used many times before by governments of differing political complexion.

When I refer to the English Government I mean all English Governments since the Norman conquest. English Governments for centuries have been mendacious and untrustworthy, any student of history could all the stuff of this.

I would not wish anything I write to be taken as an attack on the English, perfectly decent people much like all others. It is the English governments which I find to be so unspeakable. Why do I refer to the government of the regrettably United Kingdom as English, I simply base this on fact, a government which is voted in by 80 per cent of the population of this island is an English government, the term British is merely a euphemism for English, the whole world knows it, even the Northern English provincial living here (Scots & British types) know it.

No matter how many bagpipes they play how many sgian dubhs they have in their hose, the Scots know what they are, the English government knows what they are and the world if it bothers to think at all about our little country knows what they are. There is an old Scots saying “He wha sups with the deil mun hae a lang spoon,” just transpose English Government for deil.

Aefauldly, R Mill Irving

THE issue of Scotland’s languages is always an inflammatory one, but an inaccuracy in Hamish MacPherson’s article cannot go unchallenged (Separating fact from Gibson in the search for Wallace, The National, January 24).

Despite Mr MacPherson’s listing of “English and Early Scots” as two of Robert Bruce’s four languages, there is simply no possibility of arguing that the Anglo-Saxon tongues of England and non-Gaelic Scotland were separate languages in Bruce’s time. Early Scots in this period was not “sometimes” known as Inglis: it was always known as Inglis, for the simple reason that nobody thought of it as anything else.

Nearly half a century after the great king’s death, John Barbour wrote his epic Brus in a medium which, though different in many respects from that of his contemporary Chaucer, neither was objectively nor was imagined as being a separate language. If the two poets ever met during Barbour’s diplomatic journeys to the English court, they could have talked poetry and politics over a mediaeval pie and pint with no more difficulty than an Aberdonian (speaking English, not Doric) and a Londoner of today. And though Barbour’s credentials as a patriotic Scot does not need to be argued, the fact that his language was Inglis did not worry him in the least – exactly the same is true of Blind Harry nearly a century later.

Gavin Douglas’ proclamation in 1513 that his poetic medium was Scottis – “na Sudroun but our awin langage” – marks a radically new perception of the language; and though it is certainly true that the tongues of lowland Scotland and the London area had by then diverged much more substantially, it can hardly be thought that his stance was free of political motivation.

There is nothing surprising or disconcerting in this: the status of any speech-form is always founded on social and political considerations as well as on objective linguistic facts. Scots in our time is recognised as a language, and that issue need not be re-opened. But it certainly was not so during the Wars of Independence.

Derrick McClure, Aberdeen

I DON’T know what all the fuss is about one nuclear missile going astray. I thought the point of nuclear weapons was that you didn’t need pinpoint accuracy when you have wholesale mass destruction at your fingertips.

Peter Craigie Edinburgh AFTER listening to Good Morning Scotland today, I have one simple question for Nigel Lawson. How can one be “devastated” by the loss of something, namely Scotland, the existence of which one has always totally ignored?

P. Davidson, Falkirk

The English are a great people. They have contributed incalculably to the world, by no means least (though it may be unfashionable to say so) through the British Empire. But the time came for a new and better relationship between the British and their former colonies.

It has, without doubt, been the historical experience of their neighbours that the English have regarded themselves as natural superiors. They are not good on partnership – hence Brexit.

Within the context of the United Kingdom this is not merely a matter of ingrained arrogance. The English have a pronounced numerical superiority. This is reflected in the parliament which they naturally regard as their own and in which their will has always and will always be dominant and decisive.

Any notion of the English regarding the Scots as equal partners is a fantasy. It has never been the case and it never will be. The legal dismissal of Scottish opinion in the Brexit case is just the latest in a very long list of such slap-downs. Such is the price of Union.

For those who continue to hide behind the myth that Scotland is too small and too poor to prosper without long-suffering English subsidy, a reminder is surely timely that among the nations which gained independence were not just the likes of India, Canada and Australia, but Jamaica, Cyprus, Malta, the Republic of Ireland...

It’s time for us to grow up.

Billy Scobie, Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire