Selective facts

The Rev Dr John Cameron contends that the pre-1945 SNP had “an association with the nationalist parties of 1930’s Europe” (Letters 27 June). His evidence comprises selected quotes from individuals,each with no context (Letters, 1 July). One quote is from the poet Hugh Macdiarmid, 11 years before the SNP was even formed. The Rev Dr Cameron remains silent about British links to fascism – Mosley’s Blackshirts and King Edward VIII. The Rev Dr Cameron claims, disapprovingly, using hindsight history interpretation, that “most of the nationalist leadership supported appeasement” – well, so did the Toryled UK National Government and the enthusiastic crowds which lined the streets in London to welcome back Neville Chamberlain from Munich. “God bless you, Mr Chamberlain” was a hit song,written in 1938. Appeasement was only generally accepted as a failure after Hitler’s march into Prague in 1939. Essentially, the Rev Dr Cameron’s case relies on entertaining tales and scare stories from the fringe.

In reality, the case for Scottish Home Rule/independence was always led by decent, democratic, honourable people and the electorate of Scotland recognised this to be the case – hence the huge vote shares the SNP received in the three wartime Westminster by-elections.

Within just six years after the war a staggering 66 per cent of Scottish voters had signed the Covenant demanding a Scottish Home Rule Parliament. The pre-war formation of the SNP in 1934 basically arose from Westminster’s rejection of the 1926 Home Rule Bill – just one in a series of Westminster rejections dating back to before the Great War.

TOM JOHNSTON Burn View, Cumbernauld