Independence

For those who regard these as synonymous, Germany offers an example of the damage a nation state can do to an otherwise highly successful nation.

The nation state idea appeals to a sense of history. But it actually relies upon a profound ignorance of history, particularly of the extent to which the home nations of the British Isles are intermingled and mixed.

Where these have fired upon one another they have each tended to spill almost as much of their own blood as of the others’. It imposes a simplistic identity upon the individual when in reality most of us, if we care to recognise it, have more complex backgrounds.

From the nation state perspective the long running emigration from Scotland has been a dead loss, yet for the nation it has represented dramatic growth and flowering as Scots (thanks to the Union) colonised the rest of the UK and large parts of the rest of the world.

This has resulted also in Scotland itself remaining a beautiful country. It seems bizarre that Scots could wish the diaspora all to have stayed at home, causing their land to be concreted over like the South East of England.

John Riseley, Harrogate.

I FEEL that many Scots are being bullied into making a decision on voting ‘yes’ in the forthcoming devolution election by scaremongering by Government leaders, High Street shops and even a German bank.

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot.

How would our political parties like the Scots, such as Alex Salmond, coming to England and telling us not to vote for certain political parties because this or that may happen.

I feel this is a vote that should have been left to the people of Scotland to decide without outside influences by our political leaders.

JM Gowland, Heighington.

I RECALL helping Sunderland ‘metric martyrs’ Neil Herron and Colin Moran during the 2004 No Campaign against a North-East Assembly, certainly not for thinking the North-East doesn’t deserve better, but that a Yes vote would lead to England and thus the UK being divided, whereby a more narrow-minded political elite would pitch the peoples of EU-inspired made up UK regions against each other.

Starting at the Cumbrian border, a very small band of volunteers walked eastward, village by village, delivering the necessary No message hoping to stop such madness – it appears to have only appeased some for so long.

Once the North-East had a regional assembly, so the south, the east, the west and the Midlands would demand one.

The North-East would have been stuffed well and truly.

The hated Tory-voting south-east would demand to keep its locallyraised revenue and stem the flow of money propping up the North (and the rest of the UK for that matter).

England, now pretty much defunct as a great country, would have EU regions squabbling with each other. How the EU would be thrilled, the English people themselves dividing their opposition to EU dictatorship.

Having parish, district, county local authorities, with a constituency MP in Westminster, plus representatives in the EU, seems a perfectly rational way to govern a nation. Strengthen that with good people at every level, don’t destroy it.

Despite that need to strengthen democracy and continue to work on inequality, this small nation is without equals in what is becoming an unstable world.

Take a step back. The UK is the most tolerant, accepting and fairest country on this planet.

To remain so, we can’t be divided up and governed separately, for then the real problems will start.

Jim Tague, Bishop Auckland.