I NOTED a somewhat jarring note from Robert Dingwall in all the comments about the recent election in Saturday's paper. It is little short of racist to deny the democratic vote to people from outwith Scotland just because of where they were born. What about Scots living abroad whose children are not Scots-born but who later come back here to live? Do they not have the right, being what he seems to regard as real Scots?

The margin of defeat was about 400,000 in indyref1 - about 100,000 voters were from elsewhere in the UK, and all would have had to be resident. Many will have voted No, but not all, including me. Does that not therefore leave 300,000 of the 'right sort' of Scots who also voted No? Conversely, I did not notice any requirement from Robert Dingwall for people to stay resident in Scotland for a period of time after any independence vote - there are people we know of who voted No, then scarpered out of Scotland, never to return. What is his take on them? Don't outsiders who have made their home here have more right to vote than native Scots who could not get out fast enough?

It is an uncomfortable truth for the indy movement that some of its biggest enemies are those who are Scots, born and bred, but ... are British beyond all else. I and many others saw independence as an economic split - the poorer you are, the more likely to vote Yes to indy. Equally uncomfortable, then, that many Scots 'haves' are not that bothered about the prospects of their poorer fellow-countrymen and like things just the way they are, as long as their bubble does not burst. I cannot really believe that with the UK's dreadful deficit and debt anyone can seriously believe that remaining in the UK is a better economic prospect for Scotland's poor, so it must therefore be selfishness.

In any case, to exclude people from anywhere else apart from Scotland amounts to scapegoating of immigrants, because that is what we are, even if we are just from elsewhere in the UK.

On a different note, Thursday was disappointing, but only because we had such a huge success two years ago. The SNP won over half the Scottish seats and more than the other three combined, but this is lambasted as a failure. The only failure is the Unionist media's failure to grasp the truth. However, there are lessons. I do not think the national or local campaigns were at fault. It was always a pre-run of indyref2, that is, the SNP vs the three Unionist parties, and in that context of course we did really well.

The elephant in the room is of course the EU, because if anything cost the SNP, it was its slavish devotion to the EU at all costs. Voters can see Scotland almost begging to join the EU on any terms after independence and it frightens them. One comment in The National mentioned that the EU was a group of independent countries getting together to trade. That is just not the case. The EEC was a group of independent countries trading, the EU has a worrying political element to it. From time to time, Brexiters are berated for just not understanding that the EU is democratic - but that is the point, for us it is not democratic, it is another distant stitch-up of smaller nations, just like the UK stitches Scotland up.

I also think it is dangerous to take the EU vote last year as Scotland's last word on the subject. Essentially we voted as a region of another country and I think there may even have been tactical voting by some, maybe not many, to try and engineer indyref2. What we need is a clear vote by an independent Scotland as to whether we seek to join or not, and we need to know the terms.

It is another uncomfortable truth for the SNP that many SNP voters will turn against independence if it means falling headlong into Europe. Many of the 38 per cent No voters were SNP, and all I have seen so far by some commentators is an acknowledgement of our problem with the EU, then swiftly on. I acknowledge that the EU has given regional and structural funding, and also its contribution to higher education, but it has also given us CETA, which may devastate consumer and environmental rights and put multinationals at the heart of Scottish economic policy. The most worrying thing about CETA is how secretively it was brought in. Even our MEPs seem to have had scant knowledge of what they were dealing with. For many poorer Scots, the EU has brought us nothing, either good or bad, and to tie the SNP to the EU is to almost guarantee falling support in future elections and in indyref2.

Julia Pannell
Friockheim, Angus