A CONSEQUENCE of our huge support is a wide variety of different attitudes and ideas about how we best proceed to our goal. And also the opportunity this gives our opponents to encourage division among us.
Sadly, however, senior figures (who do know better) sometimes appear to have abandoned the principal political rule of finding agreed positions for public consumption and debating differences through internal channels. A lot of this appears to be generated by personal ambition or personal antipathy, and we can’t afford either at this point.
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Our opponents are now at desperation. Every straw will be clutched. But the lies are being exposed, and exposed lies do more damage to the liars than the do to the target, so our task now – while we continue to steadily expose the lies – is to stay together, maintaining the huge polling advantage we presently enjoy.
Our strong position is not an invitation or an opportunity to roll out divisive positions. Our opponents are champing at the bit to promote division and are very happy indeed to encourage the naive among us to undermine positions, policies and programmes of government that have put us in our best ever position. Just let that sink in. We are in the best position we have ever achieved, and dominate politics in Scotland – and the only people who can really destroy that are ourselves. And, now, the many among us who are not with us. Be aware.
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The BBC is at it now online. “Will Alex Salmond bring Sturgeon down?” This is one of their lifelines, they believe. They must have been hugely alarmed when the latest poll pointed out that this issue appeared to be having no effect on the level of support for independence and for the SNP. They will bang on about it however. So can I suggest that we all just shut up about this issue and keep it like that? We know very little. There is legal process going on. And it has nothing to do with the case for independence.
What is particularly irritating is the amount of Unionist spin that has become truth and the naivety that has allowed this to happen.
We got some this week. Apparently we were “all over the place” on currency at the referendum. No. We most certainly were not. The SNP government employed four of the world’s most renowned economic experts to examine the currency issue for us. They came up with four perfectly feasible options (out of the multitude of the options available) and these were published in our White Paper.
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We choose one of them and George Osborne came flying up the road and told a big lie. The lie held. Because we don’t have the media. But I would expect supporters who consider themselves well-informed to have known the truth. But herein lies a lesson. It’s all about not giving targets to a dishonest and well-funded opposition.
Apparently we were “found wanting” on GERS as well. Really? I was hugely encouraged when the Scottish Government decided not to bother arguing about figures that bear no relationship whatsoever to the funding at the disposal of an independent Scotland or its spending choices.
“Found wanting” is in fact an apt description of some of our support, which very often takes its information or positions from our enemy and then attacks our own side on it.
The latest piece of naive idiocy came out this week. Apparently, as they are going to refuse to allow us an agreed referendum on independence, we should just have an independence election in May. Presumably to which they will agree – or accept the result. Really? Run that past me again.
That really takes all ten points in the gullible stakes. I wonder who really came up with that as a diversion.
The fact is that independence is not an event. It is a process. When we decide for it, as life goes on, we sit down with our erstwhile partners and negotiate the transfer of powers, responsibilities, assets, debts and complicated mutual arrangements. By agreement. As indicated is our right in international law.
Dave McEwan Hill
Sandbank, Argyll
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