Yet more evidence of growing concerns about Nicola Sturgeon’s approach to the constitutional issue. George Kay’s words will resonate with a very significant proportion of SNP members and with a great many people in the wider independence movement.
Unfortunately, the conclusion reached in the debate facilitated by Inchkeith branch of the SNP doesn’t go far enough. Why are we talking about a “Consultative Referendum”? Why would we seek to confirm a mandate which we know already exists? And if the British government can deny the mandates already afforded Nicola Sturgeon’s administration why would anybody imaging they’d accept the outcome of this referendum?
George Kay of the branch told The National: “The following is the conclusion agreed at the debate – it was felt that the present position by the SNP leadership in the drive to securing a second independence referendum needs to be bolder and have a strategy which is clear both to the UK Government and to all supporters of independence.
Everybody needs to get it through their heads that no British Prime Minister will EVER permit anything which puts the Union in jeopardy. The Union is just too essential to the British state’s conceit of itself – never mind its bankrupt economy.
They got a fright in 2014. No British Prime Minister will ever be allowed to take that risk again. They will NEVER undertake to recognise a vote to restore Scotland’s independence. They will NEVER cooperate with any process which could lead to the dissolution of the Union. Which matters because the Section 30 process committed to by Nicola Sturgeon is entirely and absolutely dependent on that cooperation.
Worse! it is dependent on willing and honest cooperation. Even if there was some way that Boris Johnson could be forced to grant a Section 30 order (THERE ISN’T!) he would only do so knowing that the process could very easily be sabotaged.
Have that “Consultative Referendum”! But don’t act all shocked and outraged when the British establishment simply disregards it in the same way that they contemptuously ignored Scotland’s Remain vote in 2016.
Get this through your heads before it’s too late! If Scotland’s independence is to be restored then it will ONLY by a process entirely made and managed in Scotland by Scotland’s elected representatives. It will ONLY happen by a process which excludes Westminster. It will ONLY happen DESPITE the fervent opposition of the British state and DESPITE them deploying their entire arsenal of dirty tricks.
There is no route to independence within the legal and constitutional framework formulated – purposefully or incidentally – for the preservation of the Union.
There is no route to independence that does not involve direct and acrimonious confrontation with the British political elite.
Any plan or strategy which fails to take account of these fundamental facts is doomed to fail. WAKE UP!
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Peter A Bell 
Peter … I believe we share this opinion – the independence of Scotland will be achieved in the Scottish Parliament, and by those chosen and elected by the sovereign people of Scotland. (Hope that is close.)
We currently differ – by a wide margin on the issue of how best to select and elect the MSPs who will give effect to that position.
I offer my thoughts from another place:
Not good at maths?? Can D’Hondt be made simple?? Yes, it can if you have ever watched a two round football tournament, here are the results from 2016.
Game 1: SNP: … 59 v Opposition: …14 – the SNP smashed the oppostion out of the park! (Constituency Vote)
Game 2 : SNP: … 4 v Opposition: … 52 – the opposition smashed the SNP out of the park! (List Vote)
In May 2021 – there will be another Game 1 and Game 2. Simple question – if you are YES – do you want to win both games?
Winning both games is a team game – will you play in a Yes team? After Game 1 – simply choose the right substitutes, that is what all great managers do – the substitutes are all wearing a strip called YES and It’s called the Alliance for Independence!
Who will the candidates be – it will be you and every Yes supporter who will choose every candidate. A Conference to make that happen will be held late May/early June.
Those candidates – chosen by Yes – will play to win Game 2 – by scoring the goals we need – and then jointly with the SNP they will win Independence for Scotland!
The Scottish Parliament with a majority of Yes MSPs, and a majority which is 100% Yes for Independence?
Result!!!
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You are absolutely correct about our shared opinion. Although I would say that it has the status of indisputable fact rather than opinion. Nobody has yet been able to explain to me how we get to a referendum, never mind independence, by a route which depends crucially and entirely on the willing and honest cooperation of the forces most fervently opposed to either and both.
The rest is probably irrelevant. I’m increasingly persuaded that fretting over the system by which we elect MSPs and how that system might be gamed will look extremely silly by the time the British state is done emasculating the Scottish Parliament.
I say again, three years late and ten points short. That may well be the epitaph of the independence movement.
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I agree with you here. But only mathematically. Iff all conditions are met then Holyrood will be full of pro independence members.
But ….
Then what? We are still tied to the imperial power by the goolies.
How do we persuade the whole SNP voting population to vote for the alliance? Particularly when many have already made it clear they will not join in because they feel it will not work. Cutting through this logic is heavy work.
Chances are that by the time the election comes around our parliamentary goolies will have already been unceremoniously removed.
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How?
1) By asking the whole of the Yes movement to vote SNP – Game 1.
2) By asking the whole of the Yes movement to choose the candidates they want – Game 2.
And if you are sadly correct, and you may well be – that the limited powers of the Parliament, already being diminished, are being further reduced – then may I suggest the Yes movement are more than savvy enough to choose the candidates in 2) – who they see as best fitted to take on the ensuing stramash.
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I admire your optimism. I too was initially excited by the maths. It does work. It is logic. Not opinion. Iff all voted SNP in game 1 and independents alliance in game 2, then there would be an independence supporting majority at Holyrood. Nobody has yet presented an argument against this point. What I do get is lots of stuff that I accept and acknowledge about the practicality of doing it and making it happen, and most bizarrely that the mathematics is wrong because “both votes SNP”.
From which I have now concluded that rational debate is possible only in very arcane minority nooks, and certainly not in the mainstream newsfeed. Getting everybody to vote according to the required pattern … ??? I don’t know, knitting snow, gathering farts, counting air, all would be a deal easier.
More importantly we have to do something now!
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I believe it HAS to be this way now, SNP win the majority of Constituency seats (If not all) We need another INDY party that will sit someone in EVERY list seat in the country, & they must get the full support of the INDY voters backing them. We can’t just wait in HOPE for the SNP to call all the shots. For an INDEPENDENCE party they have certainly taken to tourist route when it comes to INDY. We need them to be as dominant in their approach to INDY as FARAGE & Johnson were over the BREXIT situation.
NICOLA is a world stage performer, when it comes to TALKING Politics. But, I have lost all faith in her ever taking the fight TO WESTMINSTER. It should start with our SNP MPs walking out of that shit hole of a place. Coming home & forcing HOLYROOD Gov to do what they should have done some time ago. Trying & taking every route that is available to them. INDY will never be given, it MUST be taken. So it is time those we have voted for over decades, along with all the newer voters who have seen the light & jumped on the INDY ship, & are also craving INDY, saw some real results in fighting the good fight for Scotland..
SNP are starting to look like LABOUR in Scotland, in that they are looking to be taking the voters for granted. They HAVE several mandates on which to act now, ANOTHER mandate is NOT Guaranteed Anymore..
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I take it the opening chords of Rage Against the Machine’s classic are to be heard at the close of this. More and more folks are waking up to these things. Sadly nobody much at SNP central command. Although as I have said before, the SNP is its branches and with enough pressure from the branches the penny might drop. In any event while we are talking and prevaricating Perfidious Albion is no doubt several steps ahead. Wake up indeed.
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A reminder is apposite: the majority in Scotland voted for a devolved assembly in 1979. It was not allowed to happen, and took another decade to achieve. As Independence is even more damaging to the Union, it will not be allowed either, even after decades of sucking Scotland dry. (Remember: despite the costs, Northern Ireland has not been given up either.) Global warming is also likely to reduce the available land for the English, at which point many, many English opponents of Independence and the EU will move into Scotland. We don’t have time on our side to stop the Kingdom of Scots from being fully incorporated into a Greater England.
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Let’s say you had a bicycle and you’d owned it for years.
A relative hires it to your big nasty neighbour against your will and pockets the money.
You’re furious and get angry, but your relative bashes you around a bit until you shut up.
But you don’t give up and keep trying to wrest your bike back from the neighbour. The big neighbour gets violent and bashes you up each time you try.
Eventually the neighbour gets fed up and lends it back to you on condition you only ride to places with his prior permission and he gets half your income.
Should you be grateful and seek permission?
Or should you grab your bike, tell him to eff off and get going?
Now substitute Scotland for the bike and Westminster for the big nasty neighbour.
Are we sovereign, or aren’t we? It’s time to find out.
Let’s grab our bike and go…
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SNP 1 and Some Other Indy Party 2 – why it’s a non-starter:
It’s nothing to do with any complicated mathematical gymnastics. It’s all to do with the one thing NOBODY is considering with this proposal, i.e. how you stop the unionists from ganging up and targeting any of the SNP’s big hitters and ousting them.
The only way it could work is if the SNP were 100% behind it and didn’t put up any list candidates themselves to give this new party a clear run. However, they would also need all their present MSP’s to be in with unassailable majorities and everyone knows there’s no such thing. With zero difference between the Tories and Labour, and the Lib Dems being such an irrelevance that their votes are also up for grabs, a concentrated local campaign could see some major players toppled.
Does anyone seriously think the SNP would risk that? They’re going to leave their top candidates without the safety net of being at the top of the lists? Do you think they’ll be telling their canvassers to knock on doors and try and persuade the voting public to do this?
This plan will never get off the ground, and if it does all it’ll do is split the independence vote.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. It’s a good one – in theory, but unfortunately that’s as far as it gets.
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Win the people of Scotland first then you can win the country.
Self opinionated Herbert’s spouting how we can have a better Scotland won’t get the SNP anywhere. Win the trust of the population that must be the priority otherwise FAIL AGAIN
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