I FOUND Iain Gunn’s long letter in the Sunday National (August 9) very interesting – interesting, but not persuasive.

1. He began by painting a hypothetical scenario in which the strategy of voting SNP in the constituency vote and voting for another party in the list vote, has been very successful. I take issue with that idea. It could indeed be so, but there is no certainty that such a strategy would be successful, and it is my opinion that it would not succeed. I envisage a sustained campaign by the Unionist press and media to encourage us to adopt this idea, in which case it would probably be a failure (from our perspective and a huge success from theirs) and we would have squandered a promising opportunity.

2. I understand the mechanism of how the D’Hondt voting process works, and I thank him for his explanation. I do wonder, however, why, if he really does think that a split vote is a solution, he favours some party which has recently been set up (regarding which we have no background information at all), and does not think to spare many words on the Scottish Greens.

If a split vote works at all, why would it not work if we gave our second vote to the Greens? All it would need would be a prior arrangement with the SNP to withhold their own candidature for the list vote. So I would be grateful if Mr Gunn would write another letter to explain, in some detail, exactly why he wants a split vote to be given to a new party and would not advocate the giving of that vote to the Greens. I would be very interested indeed to read such an explanation.

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3. I think that the length of time for which he suggests we wait patiently for a referendum on independence (about five years) is very much too long. That would give ample time for the Westminster Government to get up to all kinds of mischief – reducing the powers of Holyrood, introducing new powers to Westminster, denying us access to legitimate sources of funding, giving the technical advantage of Scotland’s immense renewable energy assets to others elsewhere.

In the past I have advocated taking our legal argument to external authorities, like the UN and EU. On further reflection, however, I favour a two-pronged assault – the first, in a domestic context, for our own independence, and the second, aimed at those external authorities, would be an attack on all legislatures which have no satisfactory constitution.

The world’s attention is currently on Lebanon, but there are others, perhaps not so dramatic, but, as in our own case, insidious. An unwritten constitution, which can be changed on a whim, without a prescribed mechanism for doing that, is, if I may coin a phrase an “unconstitutional constitution”. The UN/EU would surely be willing to express an opinion on that.

Hugh Noble

Appin

FURTHER to David Henry’s letter (Sunday National, August 9) concerning the continuation of the governance from Holyrood, I have written previously within the wider Yes movement and a letter to this newspaper regarding this matter.

As a great deal of damage can and will be done to Scotland between January 1, 2021 and the May elections. Much of it will be hidden behind the guise of resurgent Covid-19 requiring a UK-wide effort.

The real reason will, of course, be the reducing of all devolved powers and the power grab. I would suggest, that the election be brought forward to this November (albeit postal) and following a manifesto commitment to independence, and with a strong Yes vote we will have time to notify the UK, EU and UN of our intention to resile the various documents tying us to UK.

The postal election could be overseen by a neutral observation team, perhaps The Finnish government, to ensure fairness.

M Ross

Aviemore