The political consequences of breaking up the UK would be perilous

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Sean O’Grady’s comment piece on whether a no-deal Brexit would lead to Scottish independence reminds us how history has a habit of repeating itself. Nicola Sturgeon’s roadmap towards Scottish independence is likely to follow next year’s assembly elections. It may be an ill omen for Boris Johnson and his party that 2021 also coincides with the 100th anniversary of Irish independence, following the unilateral withdrawal of the majority of Irish Nationalist MPs from Westminster to a Dublin assembly after the post-Great War general election.

While the factors and circumstances surrounding that violent secession may be entirely different to today, the political consequences of a further break-up of the Union Kingdom may be as perilous to the survival of the Conservative and Unionist Party as it was for the Liberal Party, which after Ireland’s departure (excluding Ulster) never governed Britain again as a single party.

Paul Dolan
Northwich

No more Bame game

Amanda Parker’s article objecting to the term Bame is valid. There is a simple solution to this problem that has been lingering for more than 40 years.

There are huge differences between the people from the subcontinent. The Indian community wants to be known as just that – Indian.

The solution is that every ethnic group should be called by their ethnic origin. Bame has been foisted upon us by stealth. We are surprised as to how it has suddenly become widely used. The message is clear, we do not want to be known as Bame.

Nitin Mehta
Croydon

Extinction Rebellion

Despite their sincerity, XR’s tactics (‘The Sun newspaper delayed by Extinction Rebellion printing press protests’) are at best an irrelevance and at worst an affront to the people who most need persuading that we are on a trajectory to climate catastrophe. I suggest a more grown-up approach. This is to mount regular environmental and biodiversity briefings involving a wider range of environmental campaigners than XR activists that mimic the format used for the coronavirus pandemic. The mainstream media will be invited. Good news will be reported as well as bad. No one will appear at the briefings who is not able to speak authoritatively on the issues they are explaining. Every statement will be independently fact-checked. A combination of seriousness, sobriety, and urgency needs to prevail over theatricals if the majority of the public is to be won over.

Patrick Cosgrove
Bucknell

Maguire affair

Excellent article by Tony Evans about the Maguire affair. Described and illustrated really well the old-fashioned and discriminatory attitudes that still widely exist in the UK. Unfortunately not something that is improving in the current circumstances and with the current leadership.

Kevin Alderson
Address supplied

Turbulent idiots

As the awfulness of our current administration is, literally, cemented in with the formal resumption of construction of the devastating HS2 line, the cry of anyone who gives a damn about the environment must echo the words of Henry II, the amended version being “will no one rid us of these turbulent idiots?”

If I see Boris Johnson one more time playing Bob the Builder in a hard hat for the cameras. Oh for some gravitas, some respect, some care for something other than self-interest.

Under this government what’s left of our self-respect is withering away, and we cannot remain healthy if we keep destroying everything that we should be protecting.

Penny Little
Great Haseley

ID cards

I have been carrying an ID card for many years – it’s called a photo driving licence. On holiday in (the then) Yugoslavia a few decades ago, I needed cash but had left my passport in the hotel. Fortunately, I had my NHS photo ID with me and this was accepted in the bank and the necessary money was readily forthcoming.

I find that the convenience of portable photographic ID is absolutely essential and, in these times of multiple agencies holding details based on a variety of personal identifiers – HMRC and the Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR), my NI and NHS numbers, and a whole range of financial institutions’ numerically personalised databases, there isn’t much left for a national ID card database to garner that hasn’t been collected before. If a national ID card is to become a reality, let us accept its very real benefits and not get exercised in collective paranoia about some giant, national body hungrily devouring our very being as we are subsumed within its electronically driven maw.

Stephen Dickinson
Horley