A LETTER to friends in Catalunya. Estimats amics: “It’s broken.” Two years ago, “It” was the viability of the political union between Scotland and the rest of the UK. The recognition of this breakdown was clearly seen by 45 per cent of the Scottish population who voted to leave that union.

There was hope that, guided by our own lights, we could build a new, viable society based on social justice and human dignity. The SNP produced a White Paper of some 650 pages of their vision – a road map of the way ahead. There were many other academic reports and publications from authors across the political spectrum which guided and informed the quality and passionate debate you so admired at the time.

Two weeks ago the results for the EU referendum showed “It” may even more broken than was thought. “It” has grown to encompass the moral and political health of British society – the viability of democracy within the present state. In this most recent referendum, there was no road map, no serious, informed debate, no vision from either side as to the way ahead. Instead,we had two parallel campaigns of squalid threats and vile misinformation.

When I remember the way our then first minister, Alex Salmond, underwent the daily inquisitions as regards the minute detail of currency, of the logistics of the actual separation, and compare that to the casual flippancy of the media’s dalliance with La Belle Boris, it passeth all understanding. A matter of serious contention remains as to whether the result of this fiasco reflects any broad understanding of the issues or serious, legitimate judgment, of our place within or outwith the EU.

I know that within your own Madrid government there is extreme antipathy towards holding a referendum for Catalan independence and I am aware of the way in which Senor Rajoy is holding the events of the past few weeks as a justification for his own belief that democracy is safer in the hands of the few. May he dine in hell with Boris throughout eternity!

The papers state there is now a compelling case for Scottish independence. The SNP have always offered the opinion that Scotland has for too long been ruled by governments that increasingly feels separate from Scottish needs and interests.

Perhaps you are not aware of the details of the independence referendum. Tens of thousands of people from the poorest, most marginalised backgrounds, shook off their apathy and registered to vote. Looking at the constituency map of voting in the EU referendum, apparently, hundreds of thousands of those from the poorest and most marginalised backgrounds in England and Wales, shook off decades of apathy and registered their despair.

Seeds laid down in the 70s and 80s are now bearing the most hellish fruit. In a sense many of the Brexit voters in the old Labour constituencies of northern England and Wales, at some level might well be fellow travellers of sections of our own independence movement. Where do they go, having been utterly abandoned by Conservative governments and betrayed by a factionalised implosion of the Labour Party?

You know me to be a committed independence voter and might expect me to be energised and ready to go through another referendum. But I now have the disquieting sense of walking the decks of the Titanic.

As I make my way calmly towards my upper-deck lifeboat, I am aware of those desperate lives in the steerage levels who are being quietly locked in below. Among their numbers are my daughter and her partner, my grandsons and many, many good comrades and friends. Where do I go?

Lewis Waugh, Portobello

CAT Boyd’s column (Iraq would end up a disaster? Who knew, The National, July 12 ) articulated what many ordinary people have thought for so long, that almost all of the world’s problems of poverty and disease could and should have been resolved if only all governments would focus their resources on them.

Instead, vast amounts of the world’s resources are squandered, particularly on developing the means to kill more people, more quickly and more effectively.

I remember in the 1970s the UN declared its intention to eliminate water poverty in the Third World and suggesting that the cost of doing so would be the equivalent of each one of the world’s smokers giving up the cost of one pack of cigarettes. More than 40 years later we still have water poverty and all the diseases that follow from that, despite the UN declaring 2005-15 the Decade of Water for Life.

Malaria was endemic in southern Europe until resources were made available to eradicate the conditions in which the vector (the Anopheles mosquito) thrived. Yet, last year, 214 million people were affected by malaria with 438,000 deaths, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa .

We in the UK are about to commit £50-£100 billion (choose your figure, no-one really knows) on a Trident replacement system , hopefully never to be used. Imagine the suffering that could be alleviated in the UK alone if that money was diverted to provide medical treatment or funds for medical research.

The UK Government in 2011 spent £315 million bombing Libya yet only £25m on reconstruction. What would Libya be like today if those figures were reversed?

In 1962, then US president John F Kennedy declared to America that, “We choose to go to the Moon ... not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”

This incredible feat was achieved before the end of that decade because the political will and the resources were committed to making it possible. Imagine what George W Bush could have achieved with the trillions of dollars spent on laying waste to Iraq.

Sadly, in this century, there is no political will to end the petty selfishness or blatant greed displayed by nations, particularly the richest ones, which could transform the lives of so many in this world. War War is always better than Jaw Jaw, it seems. As Churchill didn’t say.

James Mills, Johnstone  

HAMISH MacPherson’s history column is a great innovation by The National. I, like too many Scots, know too little of my country’s history.

Unfortunately, in this week’s article (Plus ca change ahead of historic Trident vote, The National, July 12) he repeats a notorious historical error. He writes that the nuclear weapons dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “ended the Second World War”.

This is a commonly held, but erroneous belief.

Yet another two destroyed cities, irrespective of whether one bomb or many achieved the destruction, was not enough to end the war. Most experts now believe that it was the threat of the Russian army’s imminent arrival on Japanese soil forced Japan’s surrender. The US knew the war was over before dropping the bombs, making this act as inexcusable then as it would be today.

But enough of history. Scotland can yet have a massively positive influence on the future of nuclear weapons, by voting Yes to independence and forcing removal of WMDs from the Clyde.

Dr Ron Dickinson, Glasgow

I READ with interest the article about craft beer and tourism (Bringing tourists here for the beer, The National, July 13). In mid-June, I participated in a trip round Scotland with some 40 other people. Some of us were looking forward to sampling Scottish beers.

To my dismay this was thin on the ground. Pub after pub, especially in the Highlands, had not so much as a bottle of Scottish beer, never mind on tap. My French companions were perplexed. How could this be, they wondered. Imagine an Irish pub without Guinness.

Is the Scottish licensed trade so indifferent to national produce? In Atlanta Georgia, my son found on tap a Scottish beer that at home he had only seen in bottles. How so?

Tom O’Hagan, Felletin, France