Keep the heid, and keep the election strategy for 2021 simple

In Scotland it has undoubtedly saved lives. Perhaps as a direct consequence, it has boosted support for the First Minister, the Scottish Government and the cause of Scottish independence.

Anyone in favour of independence should absorb that lesson before proposing a Holyrood election strategy involving tactical voting and splitting the SNP and indy vote. It would make clear campaign messaging to ordinary voters very problematic, while leaving the SNP wide open to very obvious and potentially very damaging attacks from the opposition parties and the media about “attempts to game the democratic process” and “divided parties never winning”.

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Worse of all, if the SNP chose not to compete on the list and only to contest constituency seats it would leave itself open to charges of arrogance for expecting to be home and dry in the constituency vote. Unionist parties would understandably take that as a gift, and invite voters to bring the SNP back to earth.

Achieving some kind of “super-majority” for independence, at the expense of newly found trust in the Scottish Government among previous “soft No” voters, would be a hollow victory.

The only thing that Johnson, Gove, Cummings and co fear, in any way, is a demonstrably increasing majority of the Scottish public in favour of exercising their right to self-determination and in favour of independence. If and when that majority opinion is represented by a unified SNP, in power in Holyrood with an “honest” majority, and led by the one politician in the British Isles who consistently out-manoeuvres the Tories at Westminster and Holyrood, then the tectonic plates will finally shift in favour of independence.

In these uncertain times there is no reason why those two things – public support for independence significantly above 50% and a healthy working majority for the SNP – should not be the outcome of next year’s elections. That’s what the polls currently point towards.

Let those Unionists who have historically shown themselves to be arrogant liars, and have now also shown themselves to be utterly incompetent, try to game the democratic system. If the SNP fights clean and plays to its strengths – one of which traditionally being unity of purpose – it will win the argument, win the election, secure the right of people in Scotland to self-determination and free Scotland from these charlatans at Westminster. “Yessers” just need to keep it simple – “both votes SNP” – and keep the heid!

K Dick
Ayr

WHEN the Scottish Parliament was founded in 1999, the decision to use the Additional Member System (AMS) was hailed as being a fairer and more democratic method than the “first past the post” system used in the UK elections. In the 1999 elections, Labour won 53 constituency seats and the SNP won seven. The two parties received three and 28 list seats respectively.

Those of an indy state of mind were delighted with the new system, for obvious reasons, and quite rightly so. I think it is still a fair way to populate our parliament, ensuring that a cross-section of Scotland is fairly represented.

Fast forward to 2021 and now the roles have reversed, with the SNP having the very real prospect of winning somewhere north of 70 constituency seats, whilst the Tories will be in for maybe only one.

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If we want to be serious about being a modern, forward-looking independent country, we must learn that“what is good for the goose is good for the gander; under AMS the Tories got an extra 24 seats in 2016 (fewer list seats than the SNP got in 1999).

It is not a video game we are playing here, where total annihilation of our opponents is the goal. I would like to think our goal is independence for Scotland where the parliament is a debating chamber, with everyone’s views represented, because like it not there are Unionists who feel just as Scottish as we do, and deserve to be heard (currently around 40-45% of Scots are of a Unionist leaning).

If some sort of “gaming the system” is undertaken as suggested by Alliance for Independence et al, it will undermine the electoral system in Scotland that we lauded on its introduction and benefitted from in 1999 and result in (quite rightly in my opinion) a weakening, not a strengthening of our cause.

I believe we must accept the system we have in place, and accept that we do not have the monopoly of opinion in Scotland, others are allowed to disagree, that’s called democracy. What “gaming the system” might give us is more seats to add to our already magnificent 70ish, but it will also sour the whole result with the feeling of subterfuge.

I get the argument that we want to show Boris etc that the majority of the parliament is pro-indy, but we will do that easily without resorting to gaming and I would rather spend time talking to wavering No voters so that we bring the country along as a whole as much as possible. We have the high ground at the moment, let’s “keep the heid”.

Charlie Ambrose
Argyll

THE National’s “Happy Birthday” campaign for Nicola is deeply suspect.

Imagine the outrage if any Unionist paper, even the arch-Conservative Telegraph, had run a birthday campaign like this for Boris Johnson. The National would have mocked it, even condemned it, and rightly so. Not even Murdoch, in his absolute prime, would have considered a campaign like this for Thatcher, or Blair.

With SNP “pretend columnists” like Robertson and Smith already embedded in The National, the paper is looking more and more like the house journal of the SNP.

Adulation like this for any political leader, particularly if engineered by a newspaper, is deeply suspect. In the past it has often proved a sign of a more troubled politics to come.

Please, not in Scotland.

Tom Pate
Edinburgh