ACTION for Independence (AFI), which is trying to persuade people to give them their second vote in the Holyrood election in May, has described the SNP’s road map to independence as “mutton dressed up as lamb”.
Dave Thompson, the former SNP MSP who is the AFI’s interim leader, said that while they welcomed the SNP announcement, they had “serious misgivings” about the strategy.
AFI is trying to create a pro-indy supermajority in Holyrood with a strategy to maximise the number of Yes votes and encouraging people to vote SNP1 and AFI2, to make May’s ballot the “independence election”.
Thompson told the Sunday National: “While we welcome the SNP’s announcement to do something towards holding a new independence referendum, we do have serious misgivings about their strategy, with a ‘road map’ which looks like mutton dressed up as lamb and a ‘road to nowhere’.
“Unfortunately, refusal of a Section 30 order still leaves Westminster and Scotland’s Unionist minority holding the trump cards.”
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Thompson added: “That’s why we firmly believe all independence parties standing in this May’s election should declare it to be ‘the independence elections’ where a majority popular vote for pro-indy parties and candidates over both ballots is considered a mandate for independence itself, and for immediate independence negotiations to then begin with Westminster.”
He said AFI had published its own independence “route map” last year and he urged the Yes movement, SNP government and all other pro-indy parties to “study and seriously consider it”.
Derek Stewart MacPherson, AFI’s interim communications officer, added: “The SNP’s so-called 11-point plan, which is really a three or four-point plan in 11 numbered paragraphs, indicates their intention to publish a bill for an independence referendum in March, prior to the May election.
“However, they will make no attempt to pass the bill until after the election.
“This would allow the Westminster Tory government, and their lawyers, a clear two to three months, at least, to plan their counter-strategy.
“That represents a great deal of time for Westminster to look for loopholes in the bill, or even to pass new UK legislation, or amend existing legislation, in order to remove the relevant competencies to hold such a referendum from the Scottish Parliament.”
A spokesperson for the SNP declined to comment.
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