I READ the Sunday National’s article “Voices for Scotland hoping to take over from Yes campaign for indyref2” with a mixture of disbelief and increasing concern. By about the third paragraph I was beginning to think, and hope, that this was some kind of rather well-written spoof story. Sadly it was not.

As if it were not bad enough that a number of pop up political parties are trying to slide their way on to the ballot paper for next May’s Scottish Parliament elections, we now have a number of pop-up political/civic organisations hoping to “lead the charge for indyref2”.

It seems that Audrey Birt, chair of Voices for Scotland (VfS), believes her organisation is “best placed” to carry on the work of Yes Scotland. My first thought was “who is Audrey Birt and why have I never heard of her?” A quick Google search for her and a look at the organisation’s website left me none the wiser.

READ MORE: Voices for Scotland hoping to take over from Yes campaign for indyref2

Apparently this pop-up organisation is funded by donations from £5 per month. I have to wonder who these folk are, what are their underlying political aims and how many of them actually exist? How will they take on the well-financed, media-led might of the Unionist campaign which will soon face us?

Audrey Birt apparently believes VfS is “best placed to take forward that non-party-political position”. She said “I think we are in a natural position to do that. We have got a lot of skill”. I can see absolutely no evidence of this.

As a lifelong supporter of independence, I find the SNP’s silence on the successor to Yes Scotland deafening. Where is the SNP’s leadership in all this? Where is the lead from the organisation with more than 100,000 paid-up members, stacks of MPs, loads of MSPs, hundreds of councillors and even its very own government?

Yes Scotland needs life breathed back into it. The SNP need to give it some CPR – and very soon please.

John Baird
Paisley