EMIGRATION and immigration have been the way of the world since people could walk ("Seven out of ten Scots 'back Ukip policy on immigration'", The Herald, May 21).

The Scots at home are made up of Britons, Picts, Scots, Norse, Jutes, Angles, Flemings, Normans and Irish and many others and in more recent years folk from all around the world. The biggest group of immigrants into Scotland at the moment are the 460,000 folk from England who have chosen to live among us. We are indeed a mongrel nation, but what makes us a nation is shared experience, shared values and shared identity in our communities. You are Scottish because that is what you choose to be. I watch with anger as unscrupulous forces in UK at the moment are using immigration as a political weapon. We are moving on to very dangerous ground if this is allowed to get hold in Scotland.

You never hear of the other side of the story. Millions of people from Britain are spread right across the world in other peoples' countries. There are hundreds of thousands of Scots all over this globe, many thousands in other European countries, and where would Australia, Canada and New Zealand be without them?

Are they all to come home?

David McEwan Hill,

1 Tom Nan Ragh, Dalinlongart, Sandbank, Argyll.

I WRITE as a chartered accountant and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (Icas) as well as being an MSP. The report by Icas, Scotland's Tax Future: Taxes Explained, sounds like it is an objective document ("A lack of details on tax plans, says Icas", The Herald, May 21). And I accept that Icas is not officially taking a position on the referendum and states that this report "is not written with a political perspective". However, it is written with a definite slant against independence.

I would suggest there are at least two types of accountants and business people taking two different world views. One group is very focused on the historical position. It looks at a business which is heavily in debt and clearly struggling. Could part of that business be hived off to form a new profitable and growing business? "Oh well," it says, "that part has been running at a loss as part of the whole, so obviously it would be in a worse position if set up on its own. The best thing is to just keep cutting the costs we can control to compen­sate for falling sales and heavy fixed costs."

However, there is another group of accountants and business folk. These people look more at the opportunity: "Here is a small division of a bigger business. It has been badly mismanaged for years. If we can take it out of the big old-fashioned bureaucratic business, we can create a smaller slimmer company which will have huge potential to exploit its niche strengths."

Icas as a whole has taken the former approach. It has looked at the current wretched situation of the UK and has argued that Scotland can only get worse if standing on her own two feet. No room for opportunity, boosting the economy through a fairer distribution of wealth and income, no up side at all, it seems. However, there are a variety of views within the institute. Some accountants do focus solely on the costs. Others are realistic about the costs but also see the opportun­ities. Just as when someone starts up a new business, they know there may well be initial costs and extra effort required, but they do it because they believe they can build a stronger better business in the longer term. That is the kind of vision we need to have for Scotland plc. Yes there are costs; but the opportunities far outweigh them.

John Mason,

SNP MSP for Glasgow Shettleston,

1335 Gallowgate, Glasgow.

IN a thoughtful contribution (Letters, May 20), Iain AD Mann is surely correct to observe that a No vote in September will usher in an end to further progress towards resolving Scotland's democratic deficit, as Westminster becomes engaged in more immediately concerning matters. Mr Mann lists some of the most obvious possibilities, but fails to include arguably the most important issue, namely the regular flooding of southern England as climate change introduces increasingly wet and destructive weather and rising sea levels to that low-lying part of the UK.

Very much in accordance with scientific predictions, humanity has now seen, without absorbing the implications, weather records being breached regularly all around the globe, including the recent floods in the south-west of England and now the floods in Bosnia and Serbia. As we continue with our addictive relation­ship with fossil fuels, these overwhelming weather events will get more severe and more frequent as the planet warms. Inevitably, at Westminster considerable attention will be directed toward protecting the south and especially London. Plans for a massively expensive new flood barrier in the Thames estuary are already being drawn up. Adaption to climate change in that part of the UK will soon be absorbing so much of the nation's wealth that it will no longer be the Scots who are described as "subsidy junkies".

As these trends evolve during the next decade, the needs of Scotland, including enhanced devolution, will disappear off the radar of the overstretched UK Government, and we will soon be wishing that we had taken control of our own affairs when the chance was proffered in 2014. In the predicted, climatically unstable world of tomorrow small nations with flexible and responsive governments could arguably be best placed to insulate their citizens.

Alan J Sangster,

37 Craigmount Terrace, Edinburgh.