EU membership

Fraser Grant (Letters, 19 January) is probably right to claim that a Scottish application for membership would be acceptable to the EU, as indeed it was for Serbia in 2009.

The trouble is that Serbia's application, I believe, might be favorably concluded by 2024, allowing full membership by 2026 – 17 years from the start of negotiations. That of course might be within the timescale of Scotland's efforts to leave the UK and become a fully working, fully independent country.

We cannot say "once again" for the latter. Few people I expect will know and acknowledge that Scotland was such an independent nation for just a few years post1314. Prior to that, up until the death of Alexander III, the Scottish monarchs accepted the English king to be their superior. This was the reason for Edward the I's initial direct involvement in Scottish politics, as arbiter in the choice of Alexander's successor.

For about 200 years of Stuart/ Stewart reigns until 1603 Scotland was very much a dependency of France (Flodden, 1513, being possibly the worst result of this) so we could just about strike out the "again" in what Jim Duffy (Scotsman, 15 January) describes as "one of the worst national anthems in the whole wide world".

DR A MCCORMICK Kirkland Road, Terregles, Dumfries