Martin Kettle’s view on a Scottish independence referendum is distorted by his understandable suspicion of nationalism (Sturgeon is unlikely to get her 2023 referendum, but be warned: the threat is not going away, 1 July). As an English migrant recently settled in Scotland, I can offer an alternative view. I moved here for many reasons, but one of them was that I was sick of living in England. For most of my adult life, I have had to suffer various brands of Conservative government as a result of a distorted electoral system and an increasingly ignorant English electorate.
I now have a chance to break away from this blight, and I am not going to miss it. As a social democrat, I wish Scottish Labour or Scottish Lib Dems supported an independence referendum. If they did, I would have voted for them. Since they do not, I have no option but to vote SNP or Green (PR allows me to vote for both up here).
I am not alone in voting this way, and it has nothing at all to do with Scottish nationalism. If Scotland were to gain independence, I would immediately switch my voting to non-nationalist social democratic parties. This is the possible irony of Scottish independence for the SNP: it could result in its demise.
Colin Mann
Barrhead, East Renfrewshire
• Martin Kettle’s article takes it as read that nationalism is a bad thing. Is that so? Norway is a successful and stable social democracy. Should Norway still be in a union with Sweden, which it left in 1905? Do citizens of Ireland long to be back in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (which itself only existed from 1801 to 1922)? And so on.
Nations evolve and change over time. If people in a nation think that their existing state cannot deliver what they want and need, why shouldn’t they seek change? Yes, nationalism can have a dark side, but not all nationalism is bad.
Adam Rennie
Edinburgh
• Martin Kettle writes that “it may be common to see [Nicola] Sturgeon as essentially the moderate social democratic reformist that she sometimes appears to be. But this is wrong. She is in reality, and above all, a nationalist leader of a nationalist party”. I’ve lost track of the number of times we’ve had to explain this to friends in England, deceived by the illusion of progressiveness created by the SNP.
Giselle Dye
Edinburgh
• Martin Kettle aptly describes the SNP’s ploy and where it might lead, but he doesn’t consider the consequences of the SNP losing in court or at the ballot box. It would lose its reason for existence as a political force, opening the way for a realignment in Holyrood.
The demand for Scottish independence is a symptom of the huge democratic deficit in the UK as a whole, brought starkly into focus by the current government. A lot therefore hangs on Labour’s ability to come up with constitutional reforms that not only counter the arguments for independence, but also appeal to voters across the UK who are fed up with living under a centralised elected dictatorship.
Christopher Rainger
York
• I never fail to be amazed at the tenacity of SNP supporters despite the appallingly poor record of their party (Letters, 30 June). It is blindingly obvious to everyone else in Scotland that independence would be suicide, but they cling to the delusion of a glorious future free from the rotters in Westminster, where we can go on to reclaim our hills, lochs and glens.
Education, the NHS, justice, infrastructure, police and society’s drug problems have been totally mismanaged by the SNP. The party refuses to take any responsibility for these failures – it is only too easy to shift the blame to Westminster.
It should be noted that a slight majority of those who voted in Scotland in both general and Scottish elections voted for unionist parties. The unfairness of both forms of voting are all too evident, and we need our election systems to be overhauled.
Pauline Carruthers
Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway
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