[Nigel Mace]

Indeed, Adam, nobody - me least of all - would question your deeply developed connection with Italian culture. That was rather my point - and I think that you are actually making it for me. Political 'independence' even amidst the constraints of the contemporary world, does not mean cultural 'separation' (on which, see below).

As you will see if you - or anyone on this site - watches and listens to Nicola's Aberdeen speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhsEDCvWKw4 (and I do recommend it as a swift and clear intro. to what this is all about and the character of the SNP), it is NOT from an English state still less "English oppression" that we wish to be independent. We would welcome an independent England as a friend and neighbour. The malign state in question for us is Britain/the UK, its corrupt and anti-democratic Westminster system and its Establishment, a body whose membership includes numbers of people from Scotland as well as from the shires.

The independence which we seek, and which I'm pretty confident you in a like position would also want, is that of the right to govern ourselves, to shape and follow the priorities which we find most relevant to the propserity and shared well-being of our peoples' futures, to escape being burdened with governments and policies for which we do not vote - and to resist, absolutely, being torn from the consensual ties to the countries and cultures of that wider Europe to which we have always belonged.

The word "separation" - never used by supporters of independence, because it is never in our mind-set - is a tool employed by our opponents, blissfully unaware of their own romantic British nationalist/imperialist myths, guided by which they are about to 'separate' from a free association of European states. We seek the liberty to be one such and thus to escape from the incorporating domination of a very different kind of 'Union' - one in which we have no effective political voice, not even when we have voted specifically to demonstrate it.

[Adam Elgar]

Nigel, this is eloquent and persuasive. I need no convincing of the justice of the Scottish desire for self-government. Every Scot I know wants to leave the Union. However much I regret this as the Union's loss, I acknowledge the Scots' right to decide. I'm just worried that they're buying a pup, just as the UK is with the promise of a wonderful life out of the EU.

[John Whitworth]

The Scots of course have every right to decide, just as the English do. The people who do not wish anyone to decide for themselves are the panjandrums of the EU, hugely rich with copper-bottomed pensions. They wish to PUNISH (their word) anyone who wishes to leave this arrangement. Why? Because otherwise there would be a rush for the exit. And the Scots will not be allowed to join the EU unless they embrace the euro which Sturgeon and her crew have already said they will not do.

Life outside the EU will not be a bed of roses but it has to be better than life within it, don't you think, Adam?

We, the English, CANNOT facilitate the Scots efforts. How would we, Nigel?

[Adam Elgar]

Your evidence, John?

[John Whitworth]

My evidence for what, Adam? The EU big cheeses are so arrogant they say all that stuff. And they also say that Scotland CANNOT join the EU unless they agree to use the Euro. Look it up anywhere you like.

As I said before, I am sorry that is the way it is.

[Nigel Mace]

Thanks for that, Adam - yet I think you can rest easy for us. I don't want to bore on with loads of economic 'hard stuff' here, though I can send you some more links should you wish them.

Among my reading at present is some Indian history (which long ago I had to lecture on for several years) and the echoes of today's puzzled debates are sometimes uncanny. (Jon Wilson's India Conquered is a remarkable piece of scholarship.) A country - indeed a whole sub-continent - which was constantly told of its incapacity for independent economic survival, is now pursued with shameless celerity for favours and trade deals by the very PM who is, proconsul-like, dismissing the sovereign will of the Scottish Government while rubbishing our abilities to survive - and all as she is about to crash "her precious" (Has she heard of Tolkein?) "Union" and its economy.

Truly, invention sometimes just pales before fact!

[John Whitworth]

I see Alex Salmond reckons the dead terrorist McGuinness was a friend to Scotland. Comments, Nigel?

[Nigel Mace]

Alex's sensible and well-judged statement on the passing from the political scene of Martin McGuinness can be found here http://www.alexsalmond.scot/press-re...tin-mcguinness On friendship offered to Scotland, you will note that Alex refers to both the NI First and Deputy FM. Anyone who thinks peace in Ireland - north/Northern or south - is brought nearer by present circumstances, from McGuinness's death to the perils of 'Brexit', is not sensibly in touch with reality.

[John Whitworth]

You live in a world of your own, Nigel. The terrorist McGuinness took up 'peace' because the IRA was losing the war to the British Army. He continued to kill people, however, quite a few of them Scots. That was to make his IRA colleagues feel better. McGuinness lived till he was 66, far too long in my opinion.

[Nigel Mace]

Turning people from terrorism to politics is always some other person's achievement - and a great one, but, John, their efforts need leading terrorists to take up the political path and to pursue it with skill, not least to 'bring with them' those whose tacit quiesence/active support kept violence going in the past. Every time - in many, many different places (write your own list and it will be long) - peace benefits from such messy forms of progress. To reduce that to righteous re-condemnation of the perpetrator that once was, serves no public good whatsoever - and in the dangerous context of the island of Ireland has the potential to do considerable harm. There's an old maxim about not shouting amidst the risk of avalanches. I'd suggest that you give it a moment's reflection.