THE saddest developments of recent years in the Yes movement have been the unwillingness to accept good faith in others and the frequency of rumours spreading as fact. I was therefore stunned to read (Letters, March 30) that I had supposedly “admitted last week nothing is being done because [I am] too busy dealing with Covid.”
Why would I be dealing with Covid? I’m not a doctor, I’m not a civil servant charged with running the vaccination programme, I’m a political strategist contracted by the party’s HQ. I am working on the independence case every day, supporting election efforts and preparing for what has to happen after May 6 to secure a fresh referendum.
READ MORE: Alba Party launch has Unionists in a panic – this is more than an ego trip
The Scottish Government has focused virtually all of its resources on fighting the pandemic. Why have they done that and the UK Government hasn’t? Because unlike them the Scottish Government puts fighting the pandemic and saving lives first. Anyone who thinks it would serve the cause of independence to be devoting vast civil service resources to it right now should ask themselves why, if that is true, the Unionist parties are so desperate to tell people this is what we are actually doing. That time will come.
I can only assume this was a genuine misunderstanding of this point that I had conveyed. But what worries me is that how strange it is. Before envisaging me apparently off shooting AstraZenecas into arms with no qualifications and transmitting this frankly bizarre situation as fact to anyone who reads the letters page of The National, would it not have been better to have checked? If for no other reason than it just sounds so implausible?
A plea to all fellow independence supporters – we are all on the same side. Let’s remember that and turn our attention to those who would perpetuate the Union rather than thinking – and saying – the worst of each other so readily.
Marco Biagi
Edinburgh
THERE has been much discussion recently about “gaming” the electoral system, with specific accusations, including of subverting democracy, made about the new Alba Party from a variety of sources.
The current electoral system is the same one used for all Scottish Parliamentary elections since the advent of devolution. What the Alba Party is doing is totally within the rules of the electoral system. Other parties and individuals have stood only on the list in previous elections. The main difference this time is the number of candidates standing and the high profile of several of its formative members.
READ MORE: Alba Party publish final list of candidates for Holyrood elections
Whilst I do not support the Alba Party, can I ask what is undemocratic about a group of people forming a new political party and subjecting the party to the decision of the electorate? That looks like democracy to me.
I may not like or support what they are doing, but I will defend their right to do so.
Can I gently remind all Alba Party members and supporters that any electoral success that they may have will depend on an overwhelming return of SNP MSPs in the constituency vote? Any actions that they take that undermines the SNP in the eyes of the electorate is a spectacular own goal.
Every independence supporter needs to recognise that this may be our last chance of getting another shot at independence for many years to come. Let’s not blow it by petty infighting within the independence movement.
David Howie
Dunblane
IN his article in yesterday’s National (For democracy to be ‘gamed’, it needs to exist in the first place), Kevin McKenna coyly, if ironically, refers to the SNP leadership’s “relaxed” approach to achieving a second referendum on independence. His views are given credibility, unintentionally no doubt, by Alyn Smith in his commentary (We won’t win Scottish independence by gaming our democracy) in the same edition.
Smith states that it was fear of giving the impression of taking the people for granted “that made me nervous about excessive Plan B talk … discussing a referendum we don’t have a mandate for yet because the people have not yet given us one” (emphasis added).
READ MORE: Kevin McKenna: For democracy to be ‘gamed’, it needs to exist in the first place
You don’t have to be a true believer in Wings over Scotland to appreciate how preposterous Smith’s assertion is, but merely consult the SNP’s own website: “The SNP Scottish Government has a clear mandate to offer the people of Scotland a choice. The SNP has won four elections – the Scottish Parliament election in 2016, the General Election in 2017, the European Parliament election and the General Election in 2019 – with an explicit commitment in our manifesto on holding a referendum.”
The “relaxed approach” of elected leaders like Smith is a major reason why so many SNP foot soldiers like myself, having been marched up and down numerous electoral hills by the Grand Old Duchess of York, are finally deserting the party in their thousands to muster under another flag on a different hill.
Dr Alan Campbell
Edinburgh
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