THE debate on the SNP independence strategy for the forthcoming UK election is an important one and I’d like to respond to Brian Lawson’s contribution of Tuesday.
I’m no longer a supporter of the SNP as they’ve failed in their primary function too many times, but I am a supporter of their latest independence strategy of most seats wins because it is only by playing by Westminster’s rules that we will succeed in our cause of independence.
The current crop of 44 SNP MPs, 74% and therefore a majority of Scottish MPs, are the heirs and successors of that band of doughty fechters or parcel of rogues, depending on your point of view, that went to London in October 1707 as members of the new House of Commons of Great Britain.
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Whether or not they were as effective as today’s tartan caretakers of the green benches is difficult to determine, but the current crew of SNP MPs are the manifestation of the sovereignty of the Scottish people whatever you might think of their collective performance.
We can never escape the fact that the Holyrood parliament is a creature of Westminster and its Scotland Act, and as we’ve been told countless times constitutional affairs are squarely in Westminster’s bailiwick.
Remember Boris Johnson, him of the anarchic haircut – he became prime minister of the UK with a 80-seat majority on 43.6% of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 UK General Election, and that on a 67.3% voter turnout.
By contrast it is highly unlikely we will see the heady days of May 2015 again. Surely we were definitively on the road to independence with 56 SNP seats, 49.97% of the vote on a turn out of 71%. Given all the subsequent dirty water that has flowed under the metaphorical bridge since then, I for one am reluctant to bet a fiver on it.
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How can the Member for Perth and Kinross and his supporters ever hope to achieve 50% +1 of the popular vote in the forthcoming election given the current disarray of their party?
So I very much support the proposal, although it should be extended to any party standing for Scottish independence that a majority of seats is the key to unlocking that independence. Yes, there might well be an issue of democratic deficit for those of a Unionist persuasion but that’s the way of Westminster rules!
The victors then give notice that they declare the Act of Union null and void and return to Edinburgh as a block, leaving behind those of a Unionist disposition. In Edinburgh they declare the real Scottish Parliament reconvened and focus their endeavours on drafting a constitution for an independent Scotland. This would would be put to a referendum of the sovereign Scottish people both to demonstrate democratic legitimacy to the international community and on the basis of a successful outcome, a formal termination of the Act of Union.
Should that referendum fail to validate the proposals, then that’s a whole new ball of wax as the saying goes but surely, surely after The Vow, the democratic outrage of ignoring 62% of the Scottish electorate who voted to remain in the EU, ignoring Scotland’s place in Europe and the alternative Brexit strategies tabled by the Scottish Government to suit our circumstances, the subsequent Internal Market Act, the Sewel Convention, the ministrations of the Supreme Court on behalf of their colonial masters and the current Section 35 debacle, surely we couldn’t be that stupid?
In the immortal words of Martin Luther King, “I have a dream”.
Iain Bruce
Nairn
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