IN response to Brian Lawson (Letters, Sep 26), yes, I feel that there is a misconception and as most people will now be aware, an SNP motion has been put forward for debate and now an amendment to that motion, both of which will be put to the SNP conference.

Brian should be pleased to know that the amendment relates to votes cast, rather than seats won. However, are we talking about votes cast, or is it 50% plus one of the electoral roll as Brian unintentionally alludes to? That has clear echoes of the fiasco of 1979, when we won the referendum but didn’t get anything because even the dead were given a vote by Westminster.

I like to think that I’m a democrat and, like most people, I want a creditable opposition and constructive dialogue. Therefore I have no objection to Unionist parties winning seats and discussing their case. The problem is that they refuse to discuss the independence issue or allow any means to find a solution to the problem and both sides are bouncing about at the 50% mark and have been for the last nine years.

The last time they tried to find a solution was in 1997, and they hoped that devolution would kill the independence movement dead. That’s what we were told anyway by the Labour Party. Nearly 30 years has elapsed and the independence issue keeps raising its head above the parapet and the Unionists are still unable to shoot us down.

The motion as I understand it is not for more of the same, but for decisive action after the next General Election and that is what the SNP are gearing up for, something in writing that makes it clear what their intentions are.

The Westminster system is based on first-past-the-post (FPTP) irrespective of how many people vote against the winning candidate. The vast majority of our MPs would not be in Westminster if you used a different system, and that suits the two main Unionist parties because at some time or another they know that they will be in power and form the government.

The FPTP system is not about giving the electorate what they want, its about maintaining the Conservative/Labour dominance in Westminster and consequently in the House of Lords as well. That means the SNP, as the main Scottish party wanting independence, need to secure a minimum of 29+ seats at the next election as that amounts to 50% + of seats. If it’s votes alone, then you could be sitting with more than 50% of the seats and wait until who knows when to get a mandate in votes cast. Is that what the independence movement wants? I’m sure that if other Scottish independence parties were to win seats they might want to join in, but we need to wait and see.

Yes, we did secure a majority in the past and we did request a second referendum and took the issue to the English Supreme Court, all to no avail, because you have to exhaust every possibility before you take the next step. But what exactly was in our manifestos for those elections? This is why we need it clearly written down and clearly understood what we intend to do after the next General Election.

However, Brian assumes that we should continue down the same road we have since 2015 when Westminster have shown that they are treating us like second-class citizens in the UK. As I’ve said here on more than one occasion now, I suspect that the independence question will end up in the European Court of Human Rights before we are allowed to hold a second referendum for independence or have any meaningful say in our own affairs.

That leads to the question of how do we find a resolve? Yes, we can keep going on getting a majority of Scottish MPs but not asking for a direct mandate to start negotiations (not referendums). If you don’t ask for a direct mandate to start negotiations then you can’t start those talks and you don’t resolve the issues. People are sick and tired of nothing happening because the Unionists are feart they lose the cash-cow Scotland and they keep blocking any attempt at moving forward. Their dictum is that if they can silence Scotland, they can keep Wales and Northern Ireland under their thumb as well. Somehow we have to break the cycle and to do that in Westminster you need seats, not votes.

The SNP have no desire to remain at Westminster and this is the main objective of getting the mandate, in the way of seats. The mandate is to force whomever forms the next government round the table to discuss Scottish independence, not to ask for more of the same!

I think everybody knows by now that we won’t get a second independence referendum no matter how many votes or seats we get, or how many independence party MPs are elected from the various parties. So why go down that road? Far from the SNP wanting to keep the status quo, it is the Unionists who desire no change.

Brian has clearly missed a point I made in my original letter – and past letters as well – and that is the precedent set in Westminster by other independence parties and groupings, and I take Brian’s point that it can be more than one Scottish party as long as they are all in agreement on the course of action after the next election. My original point was that the Irish nationalists walked out of Westminster and set up the Irish Republic because they won the majority of seats at a General Election. And Westminster is based on precedent!

We clearly require a majority of Scottish MPs to walk out of Westminster and set up in Scotland. Westminster won’t do anything until they are forced round the table to discuss options.

When Scottish MPs set up in government in Scotland by a majority of MPs as defined by the Westminster system, then the only option left is to sit round the table as they did with the Irish Republic and others who have gone down that very same route.

I very much doubt if Brian’s Unionist friends and relatives will be annoyed in the long term at Scottish independence when they realise that they are better off in a richer country than they had been led to believe under their Unionist masters.

The SNP are clearly trying to resolve an issue created by Westminster and the English constitution. The only reason David Cameron agreed to hold a referendum in 2014 was because he and his advisors didn’t expect such a close result. Scotland has come to a deadlock on this issue and the only way for both sides to move on is to break the impasse. Unionists need to stop burying their heads in concrete and hoping that Scottish independence will quietly go away. It won’t! The independence movement needs seats in Westminster after the next General Election so that we can take the decisive action that puts us, and not the majority of English MPs, in control of our own destiny.

Alexander Potts
Kilmarnock