OVER the past month or two, this paper has carried several clearly reasoned letters warning the Scottish Government of the risk of their nothing-but-a-referendum policy, the latest being Dominic Milligan’s of Monday (“Without any plan B, Scotland could end up being held prisoner”). None has brought a single word of rebuttal or explanation from anyone who has the slightest input to high government decisions.

We must hope the First Minister’s strategy gets us a referendum, but if it doesn’t, declining to use the next election as the plebiscite would be tantamount to accepting that London has the power to keep Scotland in the Union irrespective of the will of her people. It would be scrofulously perfidious for a party of independence to stoop to that position.

Even London does not go there, because the UK Government knows fine well that Scotland can vote itself out of the Union at any election it chooses, if the appropriate manifesto is presented, and London can do precisely nothing about that. In fact, the Scottish Government would have a much better chance of gaining London’s cooperation with a referendum if they were to threaten to use the electoral route when seeking consent.

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One eminent voice is Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp of the leading non-party activist group Believe in Scotland, which collaborated with The National on September’s big Day of Action and, together with the SNP and the Greens, in the recent million-copy paper. In an Independence Live interview on November 25, this is what he said: “Let’s hope they are stupid enough to go to court, to try and stop a referendum, and stop a government elected to Holyrood with a majority mandate from holding a referendum. It would probably add seven, eight, nine, ten per cent to the Yes vote...

“If they put themselves on the wrong side of the democratic issue, then the other routes to independence come into play ... so Plan B, I would suggest, is that at the next General Election, if we are somehow stopped through the Supreme Court etc and the democratic route is somehow shut down, then at the next General Election we can then ask, quite reasonably, for a mandate [that] a majority plus one of MPs walks away.”

Earlier this year he had written that unless we have a referendum before the next UK General Election, the SNP “will disintegrate” and Ms Sturgeon’s “career is over”. Does he have the ear of the First Minister? Does anyone? Let’s hope that at long last, she will start listening. Otherwise, there is a real risk that if it is blocked, her planning for only a referendum will bring Scotland to a constitutional impasse, as an eternal supplicant to London.

That risk is completely avoidable, if only she would acknowledge the electoral route as a standby against failure. But the clock is ticking. The date for the referendum must be selected and the Holyrood process commenced now, with the electoral route publicly endorsed as a perfectly appropriate alternative.

Alan Crocket
Motherwell

IN response to Dominic Milligan’s letter on the possibility of using a General Election to gain independence. There are some downsides to this.

16- and 17-year-olds will be denied a vote. The majority of young people support independence, so this would result in a big loss for us.

The Tories are planning to change the rules on who can vote. The Elections Bill will deny voters who do not possess photo identification their vote. Again this will have a negative effect on our chances of a majority. Tories would no doubt do their very best to ensure Scotland is not successful.

Should we have a referendum regardless of Bojo’s permission, followed by recognition from our Nordic neighbours?

I Cooney
via email

THOM Muir’s letter of December 6 is 100% correct. Since Boris Johnson has no shame he is, of course, more than willing to play the clown while the rest of his right-wing Cabinet get on with the job of dismantling the UK as we know it and binding Scotland to that. His antics are certainly being effective in capturing headlines of the mainstream and social media traffic. It also appears to be the case that opposition parties are playing on the Tories’ “home turf”.

This brings to mind an excellent book written by George Lakoff titled Don’t Think of an Elephant! Written for an American audience, it does, however, contain very useful insights on how to compete against these tactics and, for independence, one critical insight. The book describes how the progressive movements in the USA splinter, don’t work together and fight on the Republicans’ ground or “frame”.

Therefore, in order to combat his clownship, and Unionists in general, the independence parties MUST find their common ground and drive the pro-independence arguments solely our common areas, or “frames”, as the book explains. Don’t fight the battle using Tory or Unionist frames or language.

I implore all of us, and especially senior members of the various political parties and other independence organisations, to put aside differences, seek and nurture the common “frames”, then develop the policy strategies, key messages/language and campaigns we can each of us get behind.

Nicoll Fletcher
Alloa

WHAT a great success the million papers put round households in Scotland was. What about another (public funded, of course) highlighting the corruption, lies and broken promises of PC Johnson and his despicable cohorts? Just a thought.

Ken McCartney
Hawick