IN response to Murray Dunan of Auchterarder (Letters, September 14), sorry to hear you have lost faith in my judgment but there are a few missteps in your logic that I feel I need to respond to.

Firstly I am not repeating any Project Fear currency statements, the 2014 plan for a currency union was one that would have satisfied EU membership but sterlingisation, using another country’s currency unofficially (let’s gloss over that its our currency too), does not meet the criteria to join/rejoin/maintain membership of the EU.

You may have forgotten that I was one of the lead voices in disproving that Scotland would have to use the euro, and we still wouldn’t be forced to use the euro were the SNP government planning to launch a sovereign currency at the point of independence, or to maintain an official sterling currency union.

You also state quite correctly that any country in the world can (unofficially) use sterling.Yes they can, but they could not then join the EU – so EFTA is the answer to maintain single market membership.

England is our largest trading partner, and Unionists have never claimed that a Scottish pound would rise above sterling in value – in fact they hid such speculation from the public when they made the McCrone Report secret for all those years. There is no problem with England being our largest trading partner. After Brexit when the pound sinks, as long as Scotland are using the pound our goods will be 10-20% cheaper than alternatives from America or the EU so our trade to England will grow significantly as an independent nation. Also a weaker pound will mean our exports to America and EU will fly.

So that was your misunderstanding – now to the bits you just got plain wrong. The claim that Scottish exports that go from English ports are not considered Scottish exports is nonsense. All Scotch is identified as Scottish and is calculated in the export statistics compiled by the Scottish Government regardless of where it leaves from. You may also have heard that the export duties are counted as English as well but there is no such thing as export duties. Some goods are sold to English companies and then put in products and exported and those don’t count as Scottish exports, but is a small amount – 80% is laughable. Even if 80% of Scottish exports left from English ports then it doesn’t impact on Scotland’s export figures. The Scottish Government does a survey every year (the Global Connections Survey) that asks Scottish companies about their exporting activities. They then extrapolate the figures up into a national exporting picture (assume all Harris Tweed and Scotch etc must come from Scotland and add those in) and then they publish Scottish export figures based on that data. Business for Scotland (BfS) has never at any time suggested the English ports and export duties story is true; if it was we would have been the ones sharing it. If economic facts supporting independence seem to good to be true and they not on the BfS website then they are to good to be true!

Europe is a much larger market for us, and after Brexit and after independence and using sterling unofficially for a time we will be in a better pace to maximise it.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp
Glasgow

READ MORE: Letters: Why should Unionists dictate the indyref timetable?​

I INITIALLY started agreeing with Stewart Robinson (Letters, September 14) when he stated his dislike for the film Braveheart – but when I read his reasons they were entirely different to my concerns on historical accuracy. He described it as “glorifying an unprincipled psychopathic thug who slaughtered innocent people for personal gain”.

I prefer to continue to view Edward I of England as the principle thug of the period with his lust for foreign conquest and his rapacious sack of Berwick-on-Tweed, and the slaughter of every man, woman and child in it, many hung from its walls, as being but one example of the actions of what that unprincipled psychopathic foreign bastard was capable of. Perhaps Stewart could elucidate further on his opinion of a Guardian of Scotland who was cruelly tortured to death in public in a foreign city by telling us his other “part of the story”.

Bruce Moglia
Bridge of Weir

READ MORE: Letters, September 14

WHO are all the critics of the details in Braveheart? THE SCOTS! Such a fuss – it was made for an international market by an Australian who looked on it as an adventure film so it had to be spiced up. All these faults were noted when it first came out. Expect the new Outlaw King to be just as “accurate”!

Hamish Macqueen
Glasgow

READ MORE: I finally watched Braveheart ... here's why I rolled my eyes

THE photo on page three of Saturday’s edition is one of the saddest I have seen for a long time – here we have a person wanting to be a clan chief in the 21st century (Scots clan rejoices after rightful chief finally found, September 15). The question is why, in this day and age? We don’t need them and never did. We should get rid of these titles, and their flags can be hung at Holyrood. As for the Lord Lyon’s office, it should be shut down and all records sent to a university for research only.

Alistair MacCalman
Muir of Ord

READ MORE: Ancient clan rejoices as rightful chief found after 300-year search​