This is why Unionists are becoming the flat earthers of their time

These panegyrics to Empire, the royal family and the military are further evidence of the Unionists disdain for democracy or dissenting viewpoints. Unionists are indulging in a fever of craziness severe racism, violence. They indulge in “alternative facts” all blustered out on various media platforms with smug oblivious ignorance and vile putrescence.

The Tories attempt to try to rig the independence referendum by extending the franchise to those who do not live in Scotland is utterly blatant. This is like the Russians flooding Crimea with its own citizens to legitimise their invasion of that territory.

Boris Johnson like his buddies Trump, Orban and Erdogan is ruthlessly trying to silence anyone who opposes this beefy English Nationalism. Attempting to sell-off Channel 4 is the latest act of Tory censorship.

This hardcore Unionist guff goes down well with extremist Orange Order bigots, the elderly, racists and other headbangers. Conversely it alienates swing voters. Nonetheless the mass indoctrination of ignorant fanatical unionists by the media against the idea of Scottish independence is a threat when independence is gained.

In order to counter this; there needs to be a conversational intolerance of unionists. Unionism should be viewed the same way as those who advocate a Flat Earth, Creationism or those who think Elvis lives on the Moon.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

I MUST say I was rather disturbed by the One Britain One Nation Day article. The UK Government wants to, let’s be honest, annihilate Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish identity as it is a threat to them. They have absolutely no regard for the children in those schools singing that god-awful “anthem”, it is blatant indoctrination of a sense of ubiquitous Britishness.

I have grave concerns for the future of this country and if we want to make it out alive the only option is independence If this government wishes to ever succeed at anything, listening is always important but the government would rather wipe out any opposition to this disgusting, shameful misadventure.

Westminster has substituted in hierarchy for equality and if Scotland breaks free from the Union it’s not because she is better than it, but because she is different from it. Two sovereign, great nations entered into a mutual agreement in 1707, why does one need permission from the other to leave?

It is just ludicrous. Johnson and his cabinet of broken dishes are going to try and keep Scotland on a lead, we must break free from it and cultivate and rejuvenate Scotland.

Noah Miles Rutherglen, Glasgow AS someone who can never be considered worthy of the title “an old Red Clydesider”, may I congratulate David Pratt profoundly for his wise article in The National. I have for some time been in fear that there are signs of the re-emergence, in “Nazi-free clothes”, of fascism in our world.

The sickening current nonsense promoting “One Britain One Nation” is but one such. This week’s immense ballyhoo about the Russian reaction to the provocative behaviour of a British warship in the Black Sea is another. Last week’s reports that an English Tory wants every UK home have a portrait of a queen with false numbers (she is the FIRST, not second Elizabeth to be Queen of the miscalled United Kingdom), is a third.

I’ve now been politically active since the first half of the 1960s, so nearly 60 years. As someone well-read in history and politics, I have never previously been concerned that fascism may be attempting to “tiptoe through the back door” here, as David puts it.

Now I am. Many thanks to David for writing this. And to The National for having the courage to print what I have always hoped would never need to be published.

Dougie Harrison
Milngavie, Glasgow

GIVEN the current enthusiasm for extending democratic rights to people who no longer live in a country, allied with the importance of establishing that you know a wee bit about the country whose future you are being invited to determine, I suggest that the essential test (Not SQA) for any person purporting to be a Scot should be: 1 Who is Queen Elizabeth the First of the UK? 2 Who won the Battle of Waterloo? an Irish or an English General or even a Prussian. 3 Was the Duke of York (Hitler’s Pal) a traitor or not? 4 Who won the World Cup just after Germany equalised. 5 Who are the First of Foot?

A failure to obtain more than one correct answer will guarantee instant exposure to ridicule or transportation to an outer isle whichever be the lesser and an absolute prohibition on ever voting in any English Election Ever Again’ I probably would not have written this if I had not heard some Tory invoke the “Dunkirk Spirit” when I know that my mother was guarding schoolchildren in a Lambhill bombshelter, my father was in a scarcely protected North Atlantic Convoy and the parents of the minister concerned were safely elsewhere.

KM Campbell
Doune

SO some senior Tories plan to offer a future referendum vote to Scots living in other parts of the UK. What a wonderful idea but why stop there. Let’s include Scots in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the EU.

Restricting the franchise to those with an immediate and dynamic interest in Scotland, including all of her people regardless of their ethnicity is something we should be proud of. Everyone who chooses to live in Scotland should have the right to determine their constitutional future, but if we are to open it up, let’s open it up to the Scottish diaspora across the world, or is this just a cynical pathetic attempt from panicking Unionists to gerrymander the result ( again).

Professor Alan Boyter Argyll & Bute SOME Tories want the franchise for the next referendum to be extended to include Scots living elsewhere in the UK and they consider a “Yes”/”No” vote unfairly biased.

Does this mean that they believe that the last referendum was not the “gold standard” it was claimed to be and therefore Better Together won on an unfairly biased question put to an unrepresentative franchise?

If so, why did they not demand a re-run at the time?

L McGregor
Falkirk

WITH the renewed conversation about extending the vote to Scots who no longer live in Scotland all I can say is that it matters less where you were born than where your aspirations lie. That applies equally to settlers who were not born here. You are welcome to participate in our future; please join our independence movement.

Ni Holmes
St Andrews

THERE have been a number of recent contributions on the scandal of our housing crisis that focused on the rural and highland areas.

This is not just down to second homes, it is also the scourge of very short term lets.

When our parliament was considering a then new planning bill a few years ago, and before the pandemic, there was wide agreement at the Committee stage for a range of measures designed to curtail the excesses of short term lets and to give communities some real influence on planning matters.

When the final draft bill was debated in the full parliament, the SNP Scottish Government, allied by the Tories ripped out virtually all of the progressive elements of the proposed legislation.

Very belatedly, part the way through the pandemic the then housing minister announced measures for Local Authorities to have a degree of control of short term lets, but only from 2022.

Only this week I was informed that a relatively recent newcomer to a small former mining village, had acquired not one, but two adjacent houses and rented them out as short term lets. Quite a high percentage of homes in a small village.

Our Scottish Government may talk the talk, but we need something more like the Norway model of twin but separate housing markets for prime residences and second homes, as well as controls for very short-term lets.

Willie Oswald Blanefield I’M really not sure what to make of Laura Webster’s article “Greens urged to push SNP on lynx reintroduction in cooperation talks” (The National of the 23rd June).

I do not claim to be any kind of expert on the subject of Scottish wildlife beyond what gets served up on my plate, usually well done, with a suitable sauce and the occasional wee glass of wine.

The re-introduction of a species that mankind presumably hunted to extinction seems, on the face of it, a good idea, and public opinion seems narrowly in favour of these plans. However the thought of meeting a recently rewilded lynx on a dark night does fill me with some apprehension. The grand plan is to eventually have 400 of them roaming the land. I just hope that bears and wolves are not next on the agenda.

I do wonder if we should turn Scotland’s ecological clock back 1000 years without a good deal of research on the effects this project will have on existing wildlife. Just what furry critters will be eating other furry critters, and in what proportions, would seem worthy of some very serious thought before the lynx cages are cast open.

The subject does have wider implications. It seems the SNP Government (or at least some parts of it) are in talks with the Greens on presumably a wider range of subjects than the rewilding of Scotland. I don’t remember a mention of this from the SNP before the election and very little, so far, on this subject after the election. I do wonder if the forthcoming SNP conference or even its National Executive will have the opportunity to discuss, let alone decide, the terms and conditions of this proposed coalition deal.

I could live with a deal if the price was simply some lynx on the loose but I fear there may be a higher price to pay.

John Baird
Largs

HAVING had two jags, do I qualify for a Prescott certificate to allow me to travel?

Richard W Russell
Bowmore, Isle of Islay