I see from your report (February 4) that a Conservative MP from Essex has taken up Gordon Brown's attempts to have us fly the Union flag in Scotland. I expect he will not find a great uptake in support for his campaign. Andrew Rosindell MP also says he doesn't like the "narrow nationalism" of the SNP. When I hear Gordon Brown talking about "British jobs for British workers" I question how we define "narrow nationalism". When I hear the SNP Scottish Government oppose dawn raids on families seeking asylum and see the SNP provide equal access to education for asylum-seeker children I think how proud I am to be part of such open-minded and welcoming nationalism.

I see from your report (February 4) that a Conservative MP from Essex has taken up Gordon Brown's attempts to have us fly the Union flag in Scotland. I expect he will not find a great uptake in support for his campaign. Andrew Rosindell MP also says he doesn't like the "narrow nationalism" of the SNP. When I hear Gordon Brown talking about "British jobs for British workers" I question how we define "narrow nationalism". When I hear the SNP Scottish Government oppose dawn raids on families seeking asylum and see the SNP provide equal access to education for asylum-seeker children I think how proud I am to be part of such open-minded and welcoming nationalism.

The Andrew Rosindell quoted in your newspaper is the same MP who was forced to resign a few years ago by the then Tory leadership from the right-wing Monday Club. The main reason was the unacceptable policy of the Monday Club in support of the "voluntary repatriation" of immigrants. And he has the cheek to accuse others of "narrow nationalism".

Another man from Essex wrote a song a few years ago on the topic of Britishness. The song was called Take Down the Union Jack and Andrew Rosindell should consider its lyrics: Britain isn't cool, you know, it's really not that great It's not a proper country, it doesn't even have a patron saint It's just an economic union that's passed its sell-by date.

I would happily and naturally side with inclusive and outward-looking English people like the songwriter Billy Bragg, against Rosindell or Brown, any day - on this issue and on many others.

William Henderson, 3/3, 2 Torrin Road, Summerston, Glasgow.

Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell's initiative to fly the Union flag over public buildings smacks of a slightly desperate attempt to persuade us all to accept an identity of "Britishness" which many of us simply do not share. As a Scot and a European, I personally would never claim to be British, not out of any sense of animosity, but because I simply don't identify with the concept. Whenever I go to London, as I often do, I feel like a tourist in a friendly, pleasant but certainly different country. People don't understand my accent, so I have to speak slower and more clearly. They reject my currency, and they know very little about my politics or culture.

In Scotland we don't need flags to remind us of our identity. We already know who we are and the number of St George's flags displayed in London on my last visit suggests that our English neighbours are also asserting their own renewed sense of nationhood, which is English not British.

Sophie L Anderson, 2/3 45 Marchmont Road, Edinburgh.