25 JUNE 1977, Page 19

Sir: May I point out two factual errors in your

otherwise excellent editorial The bles sings of continuity (4 June)? You say that the Queen embodies 'the nation and national unity'. This is strictly untrue, if only for the simple reason that Britain is neither a nation, nor is it unified. A nation, by definition, is a communal ancestral entity which is governed by its own sovereign state,. without which its will lacks expression, and without which it therefore ceases to be the responsible individual that a nation necessarily is. As a matter of brute legal fact, Britain does not possess a sovereign state, a fact which I am sure Lord Denning would confirm if consulted on the matter.

Secondly, it is not unified. Approximately one half of the population is orientated to, and loyal to, a sovereign entity which is in essence foreign, namely the Treaty of Rome and the EEC. The latter is another nation, albeit an arbitrary/associational and historyless one, i.e. a false nation. Meanwhile the other half of the population, although subject to the dictates of this legal entity, is orientated to, and loyal to, the idea of a nation that once was, namely the once sovereign nation-state of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Disunities of this order can never be reconciled by spurious sloganising, dualistic patriotisms, and archaic symbols referring to non-existent entities. The Queen, therefore, represents Nothing, which is probably why she looks so pale. The Queen sold away her birthright, that is her right to represent and symbolise a unified nation, when in 1971 she voluntarily surrendered her sovereignty, 'for an unlimited period' (Article 240), to a bit of paper drawn up by foreigners. Please do not confuse sentiments with facts, instead work for the translation of them into the other.

C. E. Ashworth Department of Sociology, The University, Leicester