The Spectator

‘Please, stay with us’: the best of Spectator readers’ letters to Scottish voters

It's not about economics – it's about Britain, its values, and what might be destroyed if the country is snapped in two

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[/audioplayer]At 9.30 p.m. last Saturday news broke that Scotland’s ‘yes’ campaign had established its first opinion poll lead. Since then, the country has been confronting the possibility of its impending dissolution. The vote will affect all 64 million people in the United Kingdom, and most have neither a vote, not a voice. Last weekend, The Spectator asked readers to submit letters to Scottish voters, saying why they are hoping for a ‘no’ vote. Those printed here are a small selection from the hundreds we received. Strikingly, almost no one talks (as the ‘no’ campaign does) about the economic drawbacks of separation. No one who wrote to us claimed that Scotland could not go it alone, and no one seemed interested in the allure of ‘devo max’. They were concerned about Britain, its values, and what might be destroyed if the country were snapped in two. As a patriotic Welshman, I understand some of the appeal of independence. Nothing would push me towards it more than the English media telling me it wasn’t possible, but Scotland doesn’t need to need to listen to the minority making such claims. Everyone I know in Wales is desperate for you to stay with us, precisely because of the success that Scotland has always brought to the union. I supported Celtic as a boy and lived in fear of ‘ten in a row’ in the late 1990s. I was introduced to classical music by Nicola Benedetti. When I pour myself a single malt on a Friday evening I swirl it in the glass and marvel at the most complex, sophisticated drink man has yet invented. And I like to feel that I have a stake in all of that. That it’s a part of my national identity.

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