WELL said Steve Arnott in yesterday’s Long Letter. His rational argument is not only democratically sound but also, if enacted, gives opportunity for much-needed discussion on pertinent issues concerning Scotland, its past and needs for the future.

Scots have been herded and banished from our countryside for centuries and are now being replaced by a lower order of the privileged, as rural development is invariably conversions to residential units rather than maintenance or creation of rural working opportunity.

Land reform is essential, along with the hunger of Scotland to lift poverty from our city streets and an element of rural opportunity for those cast there.

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The Highland Clearances have been well recorded, but make no mistake: rural clearances have been silently ongoing since Scottish farmers first held influence in the formulation of EU agricultural support policies.

Despite all other publicly funded support being capped to individuals within our broader society, this was vehemently opposed by Scottish farming representations throughout all negotiating for change to EU policy. Consequently we have large estates now farming in their own right the very family farms whose preservation was the hue and cry of the time but have fallen like snow aff a dyke ever since.

The more you have, the more public support you receive in the Scottish farming world within the EU, hence the dramatic and ongoing demise of family farms in Scotland.

It is the land and mankind in harmony which produces our food, yet we have seriously lost our way in a haze of greed and exploitation.

Now take a squint at Norway, a northern European nation with many similar physical attributes to Scotland, yet where encouragement for all residents to maintain strong personal association with the countryside is in place, with family units encouraged and large land-holding discouraged by targeted support to those ends. For the same public support we could clearly create a more equitable society by extending rural opportunity as never before.

Thank you for reminding us, Steve Arnott, that we need to think seriously: is it to be EU or EFTA? The only way to decide is by firstly gaining independence.

Tom Gray
Braco

I ENTIRELY agree with Steve Arnott in his Long Letter. I was one of the minority in Scotland who voted to leave the EU. There are very many like myself in Scotland who are not keen to get back into the EU, and Steve is right that this is a separate issue from the question of Scottish independence from the UK, and must not be mixed up with it.

The EU was a much wider issue than the single market; it is also a neo-liberal political union tied up with Nato and meddling in the Ukraine and elsewhere, and it is a monetary union.

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Now, while I would be keen to see Scotland get full access to the European single market and meet the conditions for that, this can be done in a number of ways without formally joining the EU. In fact we can’t even apply to join the EU until we have won our independence, so let us address this question first and focus on it.

When Scotland has gained its independence the government can look at getting Scotland into the European single market. I, and many others who voted against staying in the EU, would support this. This is what many people think is what the EU is in reality. So I would be happy with this approach.

Andy Anderson
Saltcoats

I WAS suitably impressed by your Monday front-page banner headline “YES CAMPAIGN STARTING GUN CALL FOR OUR DAY OF ACTION”.

To their credit, The National and Believe in Scotland have organised a Day of Action for Independence and more than 80 Yes groups have already signed up to take part.

The event, to be held on September 18, the seventh anniversary of the 2014 referendum, will apparently be used to “fire the starting gun on a major, co-ordinated, grassroots independence campaign”.

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Street stalls, coffee mornings, and the delivery of more than 150,000 leaflets are planned. A free campaign pack will be available.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, to his great credit, is quoted as saying “the indy movement needs a shot in the arm”.

The rather obvious question at the front of my mind is: where is the SNP, the party of government in Scotland, while all this is going on? I am sure many of its “ordinary” members will be taking part in the day of action but where will be the SNP’s party leader, its deputy leader, its Westminster leader, its Cabinet ministers, its many MPs and MSPs?

Why is this campaign not being at least partly funded by the £600,000 raised years ago and apparently both ring-fenced and woven through the accounts of the SNP?

At which point in the new independence campaign will the SNP leadership decide to join in with the rest of us?

Glenda Burns
Glasgow