AS a US citizen and native-born southern Californian, I take great umbrage at Ms Major’s characterisation of how we feel about Mexicans and our sad, disgusting and pathetic excuse for a president (Letters, July 14).
First of all he did and does infer that all Mexicans are criminals and has repeated this frequently. He is a racist, a bigot, and has a very, very loose connection with the truth.
His recent statement about immigration destroying the culture of Europe is an excellent example of his extreme xenophobia as he is obviously referring to Europe becoming less white. His hatred of immigrants is ironic since he is the son of two immigrants and the husband and former husband of two more. He was not elected by the majority of American voters (too complicated to explain here, look up Electoral College sometime if you can’t fall asleep), and the rest of us deeply apologise. Please have patience, we are working on it.
As for Mexicans and Mexico, who are our second largest economic market and also one of our biggest labour pools, they are a kind, hard-working and incredibly creative and intelligent nation.
The only people in southern California who hate Mexicans and Latinos are that group of poorly educated, right-wing neo-nazis who simply hate everyone who is not like them. Sadly, racism is not dead, the roaches just feel safer coming out into the light now.
Finally I would like to personally thank the Scottish people for their warm, loud and very eloquent welcome for the Giant Orange Numpty ... well done, I bow to you all in awe! I also look forward before the end of this decade to visiting a free and independent Scottish nation.
Debra Brice, California
via thenational.scot
YES, KM Campbell (Letters, July 14) is right. It is hard to exaggerate the stupidity, ignorance and contempt of Westminster down through the ages. He alludes to the British Government’s gross mishandling of the North American colonies, which resulted in war and the creation of the United States as an independent nation.
Of all the mistakes the British made in that particular mess, the one that is perhaps least well known is the deliberate humiliation of Benjamin Franklin, spokesman for the colonists, by Westminster. At that stage he and many others were not yet revolutionaries. They wanted only reasonable political representation if they were to be taxed by Westminster.
Instead Franklin, though already an elderly man, was treated with contempt and kept standing at the bar of the House of Commons for several hours, alternatively ignored or verbally abused by the honourable members. Franklin had come to propose a peaceful solution. Instead he returned to America an angry man, convinced the British parliament would never agree to any loss of control. The result was independence and the USA.
That was in 1760. It doesn’t look as if much has changed in Westminster since then.
Peter Craigie
Edinburgh
STEVE Bannon of the rabid right has stated that Tommy Robinson, jailed for breaking the law, should be set free. He also calls for Boris Johnson to be Tory leader.
We are living in interesting times. Change the name to Putin instead of Bannon, then there would be outrage in the right-wing media – one can imagine which ones – at interference in our internal affairs.
Bannon on LBC went as far as to incite violence in calling for an insurrection by Robinson’s supporters to “free” him.
Other preachers of violence have been banned from the country. It looks like the Westminster settlement is under fire from without and within. Yet, it has brought this debacle on itself: the Tory party under Cameron using a referendum to calm internal splits; May calling an election when she had a majority, and invoking Article 50 without a Plan B let alone Plan A; the machinations of the Brexiteers in the Tory party in cahoots with the US far right; Labour split too over Brexit.
It is a body politic and society in crisis and chaos! There will always be an England, in some shape or form, but not a UK.
John Edgar
Kilmaurs
I MUCH enjoyed Peter Kerr’s response (Letters, July 14) to Julia Pannell’s letter regarding secularism and “good and evil”.
Richard Dawkins provides an evolutionary explanation in The Selfish Gene which Julia might consider reading as a counterpoint to whichever religious text she follows.
Tony Williams
Muasdale
IT was pretty much exactly a year ago when you had your brilliant “Independence, and beyond…” front page (July 15, 2017) that was mocked by the Unionist crowd. Now a year on, and it’s happening. Not too wee or too small. Brilliant news for the Highlands.Kenneth Sutherland
Livingston
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