OF course, the EU flag should continue to fly at public buildings across Scotland after January 31. If not simply to make the point that the people of Scotland voted to remain in the EU, then to highlight the investments from the EU across Scotland over the years, for which the individual scheme signboards should also be renewed as required.
The Saltire should also fly proudly alongside the EU flag, but I would suggest that January 31 should be marked with the Union Jack at half-mast, possibly until Scotland gains its independence, whereupon it can be taken down completely.
As for commemorating the Tory/Ukip/Brexit Party Brexit, a day of mourning perhaps, or a national moment of silence, as we ready ourselves to become Trump’s bought-and-paid-for vassal state.
Stephen Tingle
Greater Glasgow
READ MORE: Scottish Government moves to stop EU flag being taken down at Holyrood
I AM a little bemused as to why the European flag at the Scottish Parliament is being removed at the end of January.
The flag is defined by the Scottish Parliament as the “European” flag. This represents both the European Union and the Council of Europe.
We are indeed leaving the European Union, but not as far as I am aware the 47-member Council of Europe, which is the continent’s leading human rights organisation.
The history of the flag goes back to 1955, when the present design was chosen by the Council of Europe. In the years that followed, it encouraged the emerging European institutions to adopt the same flag.
In 1983 the European Parliament decided that the Communities’ flag should be that used by the Council of Europe. In 1985, it was adopted by all EU leaders as the official emblem of the European Communities, later to become the European Union. So I for one would question why it is being removed.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh
READ MORE: Call to fly European Union flag on government buildings rejected
I SUPPOSE any real leap of faith or hope is either tinged with, or wholly driven by, fear. The wrong response to fear is to huddle up into the nearest hole and freeze. So here is a thought for those who remember the 2014 “Project Fear” and might hope to use the same powerful persuasion to good purpose for indy2.
The folk who promoted Project Fear have now got us out of Europe and are currently fostering relationships with the madcap US president. He seems to be hell-bent (I don’t use that word loosely) on stirring the Middle East casserole.
It would be very interesting to hear the results of a decent poll as to how enthusiastic Scots are about hosting Britain’s nuclear deterrent at the back door of its largest population concentration. If fear has been proven to be such a motivator for being better together out of Europe, perhaps a good healthy angst about being the bull’s eye target for a nuke attack might concentrate the paranoia and voting patterns for the forthcoming referendum, which under the circumstances jist canna come quick enough.
Lewis Waugh
Portobello
THE correspondence anent former colonies asking permission from their colonial masters by Pete Mearns in yesterday’s National chimes with my experience of childhood upbringing in the past colonial colony of Kenya and their struggle for independence, when Mau Mau terrorists saw that their way was the best way forward in their approach to dealing with the intransigent colonial authorities towards their efforts for independence.
The great British empire at that time would not accept that, and emergency powers were introduced. This set the scene for imprisonment and torture, killings of Africans, extreme tortures by the colonial masters and the setting up of gulags, all conveniently suppressed by the British media. Incredibly, they were to annihilate the dominant African tribe, the Kikuyu, to show who were the masters.
Imperial Reckoning is the title of a very authoritative book by Caroline Elkins – who, using freedom of information and her research over ten years as a professor, details the utter incompetence of the colonial authorities in dealing with Kenya and its wish for independence. What a hard way to get freedom and independence.
Let us hope Scotland can achieve its independence in a more reasoned and acceptable manner and break free from Boris Johnson and his drive to minimise Scottish democracy.
W D Mill Irving
Kilbirnie
IAN Murray is “off the wall”. Scottish independence is bad for Scotland and the UK, he says, and adds that a Labour party must be for all regions and nations of the UK. At the launch of his bid to enter the race for deputy leader he forgets that Scotland does not see the need for the Labour party. Its demise over the last 12 years in indicative of that.
His a lone, deluded voice in his party north of the Tweed, a party which is terminally done fir by its own inadequate procedures and skewed perception of Scotland today. It is carrying so much dead wood at all levels, up to “has-beens” and those who never were in the House of Lords. In fact, it is a party split in two, undermined by the anti-EU faction down south. Ian Murray is the Westminster-centrist Labour eejit north of the Tweed who will always put the Union aka England before his own country no matter what.
John Edgar
Kilmaurs
WHY is there any question about who will pay for policing COP26? Is it not the case that the Devolution Act states that whichever government commissions anything will pay for it?
Since our law-abiding PM has single-handedly proposed to host this conference and stated that he does not want Nicola Sturgeon anywhere near it, he obviously intends to honour his obligation and pay this bill in full.
P Davidson
Falkirk
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