OKAY, my SNP membership survived last week, but here goes with the coup de grace. On Thursday, despite being an SNP member and activist, I voted for the Brexit Party.

Ironically, I did so largely because I very much want Scottish independence and I fear the SNP have boxed themselves in tactically. They seem to hope that somehow the force of pro-independence numbers in Scotland, plus playing nicely, will get us the Section 30 order. It won’t, but despite there being other options Nicola Sturgeon has said that a Section 30 order is the way we have to go. So what next?

We keep saying we need to send a message to Westminster. We keep sending clear messages to Westminster that Scotland is different, but all we get back is a big fat “Up yours, you’re irrelevant”. The fact remains they can out-vote Scotland any time, and frequently do. It is all very well for MPs to witter on to Sky News about how Scotland voted differently in 2016, but we did not vote as Scotland, we unfortunately voted as part of the UK.

If the UK was like Denmark, it would be big enough to give its constituent regions (or nations) the freedom to have a different relationship with the EU. Of course, Britain is not big enough for that.

So I believe we have to honour the Brexit vote if we want the UK to honour a future successful indyref2. If not, we will just get bogged down in confirmatory votes and independence will never happen. And how could we object to a confirmatory vote, since we have been agitating for one over EU 2016?

Independence supporters had to knuckle down and accept the No vote in 2014, and did so with more good grace than I think the No side would have had the result gone our way. We now have to accept the UK vote on the EU if there is to be any certainty in our future vote.

The other thing of concern to me is that again “Independence in Europe” is our mantra going into indyref2. Nicola Sturgeon said at conference that she is not ignoring Leave voters, but then proceeded to ignore us. Despite the affirmations of smug Remainers that we Leavers did not know what we were voting for in 2016, they are the ones who have no answers to our very real concerns about the EU (CETA, Greece, Catalonia, the euro). All we get is vague waffle about having to be in the EU to change it.

How has that worked so far? There is no will to change within the EU, and even groupings of smaller nations cannot effect meaningful change.

I do not want, and have never wanted, no-deal, and do not want economic chaos for Scotland or indeed anywhere in the UK. But the problem with ignoring Leave voters, principally down south, is that no-deal is probably what we are going to get because the Westminster elites decided Leave voters did not count and sought any means to set aside the result.

The problem is that, today, that policy has backfired spectacularly. In effect, we have re-run the EU 2016 vote and (by a different system) it is again a majority for Brexit (not exactly the same as a referendum, but about as democratic as a parliamentary party system can be). Yet people still want what in effect would be a third referendum on EU membership.

I do not for one moment want Scottish Leave voters to overrule the majority Remainers, and no doubt an independent Scotland would vote to Remain in the EU or rejoin it, but it is a discussion for another time, when Scottish Remain can finally answer our very real concerns over the EU, instead of sniping from the sidelines at Jim Sillars, Gerry Fisher and the like for daring to criticise the EU.
Julia Pannell
Friockheim