English people, kindly keep your nose out of debates about Scottish and Welsh independence

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The depiction of Scottish and Welsh independence drips with English self-centredness – a “shrivel”, a “divorce”, “trauma”, “political strife”. Your leader likens it to Yugoslavia – if you ever visited the region before and compare it with now, there is no way you could ever refer to it as a shrivelling.

You in London just cannot help only seeing the UK from your own perspective, continually opining on what is best for what you regard as natives on the edges of your civilisation, peddling the myth that to be small is to be backward.

In Wales and Scotland we are developing new ways of thinking about the economy (see, for example, Nicola Sturgeon’s recent TED Talk on the wellbeing economy). It would be a huge relief and liberation for many of us to be shot of the distraction of domineering and right-wing English nationalism, and instead part of a community of progressive internationalist nations actually capable of prioritising things of importance, such as climate change, equity, local democracy and human wellbeing.

We will have our debates about whether or not to stay in the UK here in Wales and Scotland, where it belongs. In the meantime you in England should sort out your own house – if anything is shrivelling right now, it is that.

Duncan Fisher
Crickhowell

Sturgeon’s lack of courtesy

Unlike when she met Theresa May at Bute House, Nicola Sturgeon at least had the good manners not to display two Saltires when Boris Johnson visited her on Monday. It's regrettable though that the nationalist leader couldn't bring herself to display her visitor's flag, as she would for every other visiting dignitary.

Martin Redfern
Edinburgh

The Scottish government has one priority

With ill-mannered protesters booing and jeering, and our first minister standing with a scowling face on the steps of Bute House, Boris Johnson was given a typical Scottish nationalist welcome in Edinburgh.

Nicola Sturgeon then went on to demonstrate in the subsequent meeting that for her and her government everything ultimately has to come back to their one overriding ambition, namely the break-up of the UK. After complaining that not enough progress had been made in getting a deal for the UK’s departure from the EU, she went on to suggest that our new prime minister takes time out to have a public debate with her about independence. Scotland has lots of critical questions to consider but the current Scottish government has only one answer to offer.

Keith Howell
West Linton

Jacob Rees-Mogg's rules

I can only assume that Jacob Rees-Mogg’s list of office rules stop short of specifying traditional British paper sizes for all correspondence in the realisation that, what with the national shortage of Quarto and Imperial paper, office staff would be forced to use Foolscap.

John Bailey
Preston

Earth Overshoot Day

How apposite for Earth Overshoot Day to coincide with the English victory at the 1966 World Cup (albeit a day after).They think it’s all over...it will be soon.

Graham Powell
Cirencester

What’s wrong with Christian assemblies?

Primary schools which carry out largely Christian assemblies are giving children a moral and spiritual compass for their lives as well as fulfilling the law. If the nation believes Christianity is the truth, and the faith has a proven record of bringing positive benefits to individuals and societies around the world as well as economic and business practice, the earlier children are taught the better.

Christianity allows tolerance of other faiths facilitating the pluralist society we have in the UK so non-believers can follow whatever belief they choose but schools have an obligation to obey the law, whether they are faith schools or not. Parents of all faiths or none should respect that.

Jonathan Longstaff
Buxted