BY definition, loyalty to the directionless British Labour Party and the corrupt, internationally discredited British establishment at Westminster requires an ability to ignore contradictions. Anas Sarwar, in my opinion, should be left in peace.

Professor Devine, however, had to qualify a lot of his argument that Scotland – as a nation – prospered at the heart of the British Empire. He confirmed that it was the Scottish “elites” who freely entered the Union with England in 1707. He is quite right about that – but didn’t refer to the bribery and corruption involved in the vote, nor the imperial economic blackmail applied to Scotland – before and after the treaty was signed.

Yes indeed, Scots functioned as soldiers, administrators and merchants in the brutal, racist, asset-stripping, subjugation of the whole Indian sub-continent. George Orwell and others confirmed the horrors of the British Raj – not to mention the horrific, vicious suppression of the fight for independence – which was constant throughout London rule.

Back at home in the Scottish nation, thousands of ordinary people were subject to the same sort of London rule – 400 British military camps established after Culloden, with their language banned, their homes and their crofts seized, with forcible deportations to other parts of the Empire.

Professor Devine has commented on the “remarkable” numbers of Highland men who ended up in the Imperial Army – as the rest of their families were being driven off their lands. Scottish “elites” were participating in an entirely different sort of imperial experience. And the same rotten divide anachronistically persists under London misrule today.

It’s more than risky to argue with a professor of history but the way I see it, Professor Devine should forget the “elites’” experience of the British Empire – in all the colonies. The history of ordinary Scotland has a lot in common with ordinary India and Pakistan – not least, in the last few years, our progress towards re-establishing independence. The British Empire has a long and shameful record of murky, vicious tactics to retain control of wealthy colonies.

Frances McKie

Evanton, Ross-shire

REGARDING the comparison between Pakistan and Scotland, I stand to be corrected but I do not think political independence for the people of the Asian sub-continent, incorporating the areas of India and what would become West and East Pakistan later Bangladesh, came about through a process of referendum. Rather, was it not decided through negotiations between political parties? Parties elected from those people, who had the right to vote.

It might be reasonable to surmise that there was at least some support for staying in the Empire even if the UK may not have been unhappy at the prospect of withdrawing, following the aftermath of WW2.

As to the Union of 1707, there was no referendum in 1707, the matter being decided by the Scottish representatives in the Scottish Parliament, who gained their seats by virtue of various means or position.

For those who settle in a new country it is obviously a matter of personal choice of how strongly they cling to the perception of their roots and what historical events they choose to celebrate. The history of Scotland straddles 1607 (Unification of the Crowns) and 1707. 1947 brought a new Pakistan. 1707 brought a changed Scotland, an admirable event for some and less so for others.

Peter Gorrie

Edinburgh

AS the son of a serving soldier, I spent seven of my early years in India, mostly in the Deccan region, in Khadki, which is situated close to the place I knew as Poona, which had its name altered to Pune when India gained its independence from Britain.

Having seen how the British treated the locals during my time there, it did not come as a surprise to see how delighted the locals were to get shot of the Brits.

As a follower of history, it reminded me of the treatment of the slaves by Scottish traders before they realised how abhorrent their treatment of other humans was.

Sadly, the latest crop of extreme right-wing views is currently rife in England which, whether Raab and co have the courage to admit it or not, is totally disgraceful in a supposedly Christian society.

Whether they like it or not, what used to be touted suggesting the UK as a contented Union of equals has become a disunion of four countries seeking to go their own way. Wales, bless it, has now achieved what it has waited a long time for whilst Scotland has to sit and watch Pinky and Perky, aka Truss and Sunak, both eager to get their hands on what they fail to accept is but a poison chalice.

To cap all the failures that the UK, driven mainly by England, has perpetrated, the worst is arguably the current division of Ulster by the comical cavorting of the DUP minority which has refused to accept the very thing that it expects others to observe, which is the democratic majority of the people in the province seeking a united Ireland.

The will of the democratically minded people in Ireland is being frustrated by a minority of people clinging to the outdated claims of the Orange Order, which itself was given birth to by forces of arms, and not by democratic vote, a long time ago.

Allan MacDougall

Stirling