Drafted ‘home’

Joyce Mcmillan decries the idea that Scots living in the rest of the UK should have a vote in any Indyref2. Sadly, that comment shows how anti-democratic Ms Mcmillan actually is.

In the White Paper ‘Scotland’s Future’ in 2014 the Scottish Government stated explicitly that Scots living in the rest of the UK would be automatically made Scottish citizens whether they wanted it or not.

Thus they are denied a vote but forced to become citizens of a country they do not live in! If Russia or China suggested this I am sure Ms Mcmillan would be up in arms but as it Scotland it is OK – I think not. (DR) ROGER I CARTWRIGHT Turretbank Place Crieff, Perthshire

It is great news that Michael Gove has been speaking to “old enemies” in the pro-united Kingdom camp.

Exasperation with the Scottish Opposition’s refusal to join forces in a formal alliance to defeat the SNP and Greens in 2021 was reaching fever pitch when George Galloway set the cat among the pigeons and announced a new party to win seats and engineer a Government for Unity.

It won’t be easy. Scottish Labour’s leadership and the SNP fifth columnists in their midst stand in the way of alliance. It’s crazy.

Last November the SNP won 48 seats with 1.3 million votes, an average of 25,000 per MP. The other 1.4m votes for Labour, Lib Dem and conservative yielded 11 MPS. Labour’s 519,000 votes yielded one MP, Ian Murray. The SNP won 25 seats with that total

What political party in its right mind carries on like this?

The UK Labour leadership needs to be as cold blooded as Gove and Johnson and force leadership and policy changes in Scotland.

“Nodandawink”tacticalvoting is useless. The Hungarian opposition have announced an alliance to topple Orban. Why can’t MSPS realise that if they don’t listen to the electorate and do the same they won’t just lose their jobs, they’ll lose their country and turn millions against them forever. ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven

Grant Frazer describes the utterances of Better Together as “dismal and dreary” (“Utopia awaits”, Letters, 21 August).

Apart from the fact that as a political organisation it formally dissolved years ago, after its success in getting a majority No in the independence referendum, its title was far from being a misnomer.

The big driving force behind my participation in it was saving science in the UK.

Being in the Union has been very good for science and technology in Scotland; we have always punched above our weight and, to quote Grant Frazer’s words, “achieved our full potential in an explosion of creativity” because of it, since before the days of James Watt.

I declare an interest in that I was recruited into bacteriology and virology by someone who worked with that Kilmarnock Academy former pupil, Alexander Fleming, in London.

HUGH PENNINGTON Carlton Place, Aberdeen