NOW that the BBC has hosted the Scottish leaders’ debate, some of Scotland has the opportunity to see how STV manage it on April 13. By some I mean everywhere excluding the south of Scotland, which receives ITV from the north of England.
The south of Scotland is dominated by Tory MPs and constituency MSPs all the way from Stranraer to Eyemouth. It voted strongly against independence and there has even been the suggestion that the Border between England and Scotland be moved to somewhere around Kilmarnock. This is not helped by excluding our part of Scotland from an important debate on the future of Scotland. It almost reinforces the feeling that we are irrelevant.
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The Tory stranglehold here presents a real challenge to getting any independence-supporting MSP elected. Every regional list vote for the SNP here helps secure some independence representation for our region in that three of the four current SNP list MSPs are in the South of Scotland. So, a split in the independence vote here will just open the door to further Unionist victory.
We really need to engage voters on the issues if we stand a chance of turning any Unionist or undecided voters and helping secure an SNP majority, preferably for the constituency but if that fails then to secure regional MSPs. To do this voters need to have access to all the debates, especially now when so much of the campaign will be via the media. Alas they will only have the biased and poorly managed BBC debate.
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It’s time for the whole of Scotland to have access to the same information and opportunity to decide how to vote in what may turn out to be the most important election for many years.
Ann Ferguson
via email
STAN Grodynski suggests “that switching a list vote from SNP or the Greens to Alba could deprive the SNP or the Greens of a list MSP without delivering an Alba MSP”.
With regard to the SNP, how likely is that? In 2016 some three-quarters of a million voted SNP on the list and elected no-one at all. Unless the polls have it totally wrong, the same thing would happen this May. It’s hard to do worse than zero, and hard to think of a bigger waste of time than voting in a way that is almost certainly doomed to elect no-one – again!
Concerning the Greens, if you examine the list votes in the regions that elected Green MSPs, it is pretty clear that at least four of them were elected early in the process in 2016, and seem well-placed to keep their seats, Alba or not. Moreover, polls suggest that the Green vote, 6.6% in 2016, is likely to increase, perhaps even to the 11% suggested by Survation in a recent poll.
Of course it can be argued that this depends on data from five years ago, and opinion polls. But I would suggest it is a stronger basis for argument than making it up for misdirected political loyalty.
Alasdair Galloway
Dumbarton
I ENTIRELY concur with Mr Dan Wood (Long Letter, March 31) when he says the creation of new pro-independence parties is a positive step change in Scottish politics, but I challenge Mr Tom Crozier (Website Comments, March 31) for evidence that Scotia Future is “ego-driven”.
Scotia Future was launched in October 2020 due to fundamental policy differences which our members had with the direction of the SNP, and in this forthcoming election we are clear that the focus should be on policies not on personalities.
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In this direction Scotia Future are committed to a Statement of Independence which asserts the indivisible sovereignty of the Scottish people over the intransigence of Westminster; are campaigning for the repatriation of all employment law from Westminster to implement workplace democracy with shares and representation for employees in companies above a certain size; and are calling for Holyrood to have the power to implement a wellhead tax on oil companies, to start a Scottish oil fund, the Alba Fund, which – like Norway – will allow the use of oil revenues to create a new green energy deal to re-industrialise Scotland with clean and green manufacturing jobs.
In the longer post-independence situation Scotia Future wants a Swiss-style deal in EFTA, wants to be in partnership for peace, with a separate Scottish currency. In terms of extending democracy we also want a revising Scottish senate, which I note Ruth Wishart recently championed, and a referendum on the monarchy. Kirsteen Paterson of The National recently published a shapshot of policies of all the Yes parties, which was excellent, but should only be the beginning of policy debates on the shape of an independent Scotland. Independence is not about changing flags but about changing society.
Cllr Andy Doig
Scotia Future Parliamentary Candidate, Renfrewshire South
IF Mr Salmond and Alba are genuinely targeting a “super-majority” for independence, I wonder why they are standing in the South of Scotland and Highland, where all four SNP list seats are sited. Surely it would make sense, if this is their goal, to avoid these regions.
Furthermore, I have a concern that if any “super-majority” is achieved the Unionist parties can maintain that the election was “gamed” as an SNP constituency vote and Alba list vote gives independence supporters twice the voting power of Unionists.
How would independence supporters feel about, say, a pact of Labour for the constituency and LibDem (only standing for the list vote) for the list? We would, rightly, cry foul. I believe Alba are looking rather like a Scottish equivalent of a Ukip/the Brexit Party, which is not a good look.
George Rhind
Hardgate, West Dunbartonshire
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