I SEE the UK Government is claiming that it will only consider an overall SNP majority at Holyrood (as was elected in 2011) and not an overall pro-indy majority at Holyrood (as was elected in 2016) to be a legitimate mandate for a second independence referendum. Some SNP politicians are picking up on this – it suits their standard “both votes SNP” narrative for Holyrood campaigns. However I have also seen it coming up on recent social media discussions about next year’s elections.
I’m concerned that anyone thinks we should just accept Westminster’s claim that a pro-indy majority at Holyrood is not enough and it has to be an outright SNP majority. If we accept that assertion then it backs us into a corner. There might be an outright SNP majority next year (the opinion polls look promising at the moment for that) but there might also be an SNP minority and pro-indy majority again like we had in 2016 – and if we’re saying now that we’re accepting the Unionist claim that that is not a valid majority for a second indyref then we are stuffing ourselves.
We shouldn’t allow Westminster or Unionist politicians to dictate the terms to us like this. They don’t play fair. Look at the way Andrew Marr tricked Alex Salmond into “agreeing” that the first indyref was a once-in-a-generation opportunity during a BBC interview, and how that’s been taken out of context and used against us ever since. Going further back, look at the “40% of eligible voters” clause that was added to the 1979 devolution referendum, which meant we had to wait another 20 years for a Scottish Parliament. The same thing will happen if we get trapped now into agreeing that only an outright SNP majority will be an accepted precondition for a second indyref. It will close down our options post-2021.
And, given that we support independence presumably because we do not accept the UK Government telling us what we can and cannot do in Scotland, why all of the sudden are some of us taking Boris Johnson’s word as the final word on the matter?
Tim Clancey
Stow
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