I WAS very encouraged to see so many sensible letters in The National on Wednesday. There are two very destructive voices in the background which have been fostering division and undermining our leader for some time, to what particular end I have no idea.
Both bewail the present tactics of the SNP’s leadership. Neither offer any coherent or persuasive alternative. Both appear to subscribe to the “Nicola Sturgeon is a devolution Unionist” slander and this, of course, is a description cleverly engineered by our enemy and used by false friends among us.
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The theme is that Nicola Sturgeon is destroying the campaign for independence. This she is doing by governing well, pushing support for independence to its highest level and attracting respect not only here in Scotland but across the whole of the UK and further afield. Hell of a clever tactic that. Can you roll me up another one of those things we were smoking, Willie?
Can I make a simple point? The SNP has an annual conference. At which the membership choose the leader and the party’s governing team. If you want to play a part in that process join the SNP, put your points, speak to others inside the SNP, support and help to elect the leadership you want (and remove those you don’t want) and engage in constructive dialogue with everybody else, particularly those outside the party, in pursuit of independence.
At my age I thought all this stuff was beyond me. I’ve done my thousands of hours over half a century, contested elections seven times for the SNP, served on National Councils of the party as long ago as the late sixties and been utterly infuriated periodically by cock-ups and incompetence (like the 2017 election fiasco and the appalling, disgraceful and completely unacceptable vetting procedures for our most recent council elections) but I will never play for the other side just to get a blow in.
This is what some folk are doing right now. I hope they understand.
David McEwan Hill
Sandbank, Argyll
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