STRUAN Stevenson MEP (Letters, July 31) is being rather simplistic in suggesting that a Yes vote in the forthcoming independence referendum will lead to farmers losing the EU grant support from which they currently benefit, and that they should therefore logically vote No.

Should Scotland decide to vote Yes and the EU then prevaricates over whether to allow Scotland to become an EU member in its own right, we would be under no obligation to make any payment towards the costs of the EU. After allowing for payments made and rebates received, the UK is a net contributor to the EU budget to the tune of £8-10bn a year – with Scotland's share of that net contribution being in the order of £600-800m. This simple arithmetic makes it clear that in financial terms alone the EU would stand to gain far more than it would lose by allowing an independent Scotland to be a member of the club from day one. However, until that decision was made a future Scottish Government would be free of obligation to pay any contribution to EU running costs, and free therefore to use the very substantial sums saved to continue to run any grant schemes it so chooses.

Steve Inch,

72 Stirling Drive,

Bishopbriggs.

THE comments from Liberal Democrat MEP George Lyon (Letters, July 30) seem to be another example of a politician playing a simple mantra for perceived political advantage. The real issues are as ever more complex. He will be aware of the exercise of the veto by the UK Coalition Government in Luxembourg recently which thwarted a proposal to cap payments to large landowners under the Single Farm Payment scheme. Proponents have been trying to achieve this change since 1999 with a view to directing a reduced band of subsidies to smallholders and reducing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) burden on taxpayers. Major beneficiaries of the scheme included the family of Iain Duncan Smith, who have received subsidies of £1.5m in recent years. Your sister paper the Sunday Herald reported (July 28) on the refusal to publish details of the large land­owners in Scotland receiving eye-watering subsidies under the same policy. These included the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earls of Moray and Roseberry and other significant big shots.

Mr Lyon attempts to score points in the independence debate, while conveniently overlooking the real scandal propagated by a UK Coalition Government reliant on his party for survival. I can think of many more deserving destinations for my tax payments ahead of Mr Duncan Smith and his like.

Stuart Chalmers,

Whitecraigs Court, Glasgow.

CONGRATULATIONS must surely be presented to Dr Alexander S Waugh (Letters, July 31) who has neatly outed the truth that dare not speak its name.

The fact is that the constitutional consequences of a Yes vote in the referendum will undoubtedly have effects which are unpredictable. There will be some people who are awaiting the moment to manipulate a vulnerable public if a Yes vote succeeded. The issue of the continuation of the monarchy is just one area where passionate self-interest in change would be witnessed. Clearly a Yes vote is, as Dr Waugh suggests, a vote for uncertainty.

It would not be beyond the bounds of imagination to consider a post-independence Scottish court commissioned to review the place of the monarchy, to adjudge that Article 2 of the Treaty of Union of 1707 was so worded that the Union of the Crowns in 1603 was by now unsound without the subsequent political union of 1707 still being intact to legally endorse it.

Although the First Minister has adopted a policy of appeasement on the issue of a Scottish sovereign and has implied that our present Queen would still be Queen of Scots the issue would be out of his hands in an independent Scotland. The newly-elected members of an independent Scottish Parliament would not necessarily be those sitting today in Holyrood. Their election manifestos would have to contain their voting intentions on the critical issue of the status of the monarchy in Scotland's constitution.

While Dennis Canavan might dreamily visualise himself as the first head of state of an independent Scotland many others could come forward during the turmoil. Those, for example, who still hanker after a Stuart line of Scottish monarchy would likely accept the 80-year-old Francis II as the legitimate King of Scotland. As Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria Prinz von Bayern he is currently Duke of Bavaria and head of the Wittelsbach family and his lineage provides the obvious choice for certain people.

One might suspect however that he might decline the offer as that situation would contain not only the ingredients of potential civil unrest but would also invoke scenes from that farcical Ealing film Passport to Pimlico.

I am confident, however, that common sense will prevail and a No vote will effectively pull Great Britain together as a stronger and more purposeful family team, with Scotland having an essential and more actively committed leading role.

Bill Brown,

46 Breadie Drive,

Milngavie.

DR Waugh writes in defence of the monarchy but in doing so exposes the undemocratic nature of monarchism and indeed his own Unionism.

Dr Waugh calls for the Queen to take a more proactive role, for which we can presumably read "undemocratic", but what exactly does Dr Waugh have in mind?

Does he mean she should veto legislation passed by an elected parliament as he called for a few months ago in relation to same-sex marriage? Perhaps he means she should dismiss a government not to her tastes, as happened in Australia in 1975 when the Governor-General dismissed the elected government of Gough Whitlam. In any event this is completely incompatible with democracy.

Finally, Dr Waugh claims that unlike an elected head of state the Queen can represent all of us. She certainly does not represent me, and cannot represent anyone who holds Republican views as she represents something to which we are diametrically opposed. Moreover, she is not really representing most monarchists as she is fundamentally the symbol of the elite and social exclusion. The monarchy should be abolished.

Iain Paterson,

2F Killermont View, Glasgow.

SOMETIMES my stated intention to vote Yes in the independence referendum brings a charge of my being racist, which I counter with the conviction that Scotland shares a lot, both culturally and in socio-political aspirations, with the northern England counties, and it not being inconceivable that some time in the future they could be invited to come under the Scottish umbrella.

I therefore found your report on the new report already urging closer ties between these northern counties and Scotland warmly welcome ("English councils gear up for Scots referendum", The Herald, July 27).

Shona Arthur,

9 Culpleasant Avenue, Tain.