IN October 2017, on the last day of the SNP conference, I sat in a pub in Glasgow with two other people bitterly disappointed that there had been nothing about independence or indeed indyref2 in the First Minister’s speech.

The conversation turned to how it was possible that the Catalan people were able to fill the streets of Barcelona with a million people whilst Scotland seemed happy to accept its fate so much that the party set up to get Scottish independence had spent their conference ignoring the elephant in the room.

We decided that the best way to find out why it seemed to work in Catalonia and not here would be to ask the people responsible for the mass outpourings, and appointments were made for some of us to attend Assemblea Nacional Catalana meetings in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

So we went to meetings and met Catalans living in this country and discovered that in spite of our systems being very different, our options and goals are unbelievably similar. Both our cultures are under attack by larger forces who rewrite history to support their own twisted view of their relationships with us whilst protesting their desire to remain as minority shareholders with minority voting shares whilst we provide the lion’s share of the income.

Whilst learning about their organisation methods, which are a half-century ahead of ours, we gradually began to see that our own battle for Scottish independence is not one that we are fighting alone. We have kindred spirits with better weather fighting the same battle on the streets of Catalonia, and we began to see them not as similar to us but family in a common struggle

This explains the record-breaking crowdfund for Clara Ponsati, who it was a joy to meet along with ex-Catalan President Artur Mas at an event on Tuesday evening in Edinburgh. It explains the thrill that runs up my spine when I hear The Reapers played on pipes. It explains why I am proud to be called a Scotalan and why the Scottish Yes movement will not be completely free until our Catalan family is free of the tyranny of Spain.

Dave Llewellyn
Edinburgh

IT was interesting to read in Donald Anderson’s recent letter about Gaelic speakers in the Highland Host being understood by native Gaelic speakers of Galloway (Letters, April 13).

The veracity of that has been challenged by the people who would challenge it, but there are plenty of indications, including place names and Gaelic words surviving as barely disguised “Scots”, that Galloway (Gall-ghaidhealaibh in Gaelic) was a largely Gaelic-speaking region before English “missionaries”, Border Scots carpetbaggers and other forces (political, “educational” and economic) wore the Gall-ghaidheil out of existence as a culture and even a memory – but not as a people.

On September 8 this year, a day-long conference on Galloway, Gaelic’s Lost Province will be held at the Catstrand cultural centre in New Galloway which will aim to rekindle a consciousness among those with Gall-ghaidheal ancestry, and awareness among others, that that identity remains part of the region’s.

I say this especially because, intriguingly, there seems to be movement afoot towards seeing whether and how Gaeldom’s more communitarian ethos can step in to correct the failings of over-individualistic Anglo-Saxon socio-economics. An emergent future based on a special role, maybe.

Ian McQueen
Dumfries

NOW overcome with the desire to import hormone beef and chlorine chicken – and to force GM and fracking onto Scotland’s soil – to show an isolated Brexit retail price benefit, the UK Government displays the same lack of moral integrity that has been applied to UK citizens who migrated here from the West Indies. They either don’t know any better, or do but don’t care.

Those of us who watched the war films of the 60s and 70s will remember the phrase “Papieren Bitte!”, but now so too do those who came to Great Britain from the West Indies in the 50s and 60s.

As one who has regarded the UK Government as technically incompetent and morally corrupt for well over a decade (or is it technically corrupt and morally incompetent?), I watch the further debasement of “British” values continuing relentlessly.

Scotland must move forward from being a God-fearing country within a kingdom to a modern, interdependent nation state with its own tax system, its own legal system, its own currency eg the Scottish Pound, and its own migration system, all compatible but not necessarily the same as those of neighbouring nation states.

However, outside the EU, Scotland is fully exposed to UK governments, and there will be the threats of facing “Papieren Bitte” when entering or living within the rUK, which may be sufficient to deliver a No vote. Scotland therefore probably needs to be in the EU to gain the level of self-determination necessary to determine its future relationships with rUK, the EU and the rest of the world. The next indyref therefore needs to be before the UK formally leaves the EU.

Stephen Tingle
Greater Glasgow