FIRST, may I make clear to members of the SNP that I am an Alba member. But I am not writing this in my capacity as an Alba member. I am writing in my capacity as a former, now very disgruntled, supporter of the SNP for almost half my lifetime of 79 years.
As far as I am concerned, the SNP have found excuse after excuse to delay independence, or any campaign to get it, for the last eight years. About 18 months ago, I got fed up with their dilatory attitude concerning independence and moved to Alba.
Don’t forget, in 2014, we were told that only by voting to remain part of the UK could we stay in the EU. We were never able to actually test the truth of that statement, because that would have involved leaving the UK and applying to re-join the EU. Instead, we voted to stay in the EU by voting to stay in the UK. Less than two years later we were faced with the Brexit vote and again voted to stay in the EU. But England didn’t, so we were dragged out of it despite a decisive Scottish majority to stay in.
Quite frankly, as soon as that happened, Nicola Sturgeon should have demanded another independence referendum. Notice I used the word demanded and not requested. There is a difference. Their promise that we would stay in the EU by voting Remain was broken by Brexit. Therefore, that should have been democratically sufficient to enforce a fresh referendum at that moment.
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Instead, we got another six years of delays. (“Got to stop Brexit”; That didn’t work. “Got to get the best deal”; that didn’t work ... “Got to deal with the pandemic.” That worked but still stopped any independence progress.) Now it’s “Got to get the Supreme Court to rule on it.” But before that ruling even takes place, we have received two completely contradictory statements from the SNP within the last couple of days.
First there was the statement on Friday in the article on page 4,” SNP preparations under way for early General Election”; followed on Saturday by Michael Russell’s article: “We must resist all attempts to delay, divert or dilute our pursuit of independence.”
Obviously the first of these is the SNP’s latest attempt to kick independence even further down the road. May I suggest: “We can’t prepare for independence just now. We need to prepare for the early election”. This makes Michael Russell’s article nothing more than a diversionary tactic to make SNP members think that they are still pushing for independence even though they aren’t really.
Nowhere in his article does it give a single instance of any work being done to bring a campaign for independence to the public. Instead, it outlines all the problems and delays being caused by the Unionist parties and their intent to stop independence altogether. So, when any effort by the SNP doesn’t happen, they can blame the Unionist parties for preventing it.
There is another way to achieve independence that is being advocated by the Scottish Sovereign Research Group and Salvo and is being followed by Alba. That is to use the Scottish Claim of Right of 1689 which is mentioned in the Treaty of Union and is protected within that Treaty.
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In fact, the Claim of Right is a condition of the continued existence of the Treaty. Take away our sovereignty over parliament and the Crown, and the Treaty lapses. There have been legal efforts to declare this condition null and void but although accepted by Westminster – because it suits them – the arguments are dubious at best.
This Claim of Right allows us the right to tell Holyrood that they must hold a referendum regardless of what Westminster says, and would even allow the people of Scotland to instruct Holyrood to withdraw from the Treaty on the basis of the number of times England has breached it, even without a referendum.
It’s a powerful piece of legislation that has been hidden from us for some 300 years. But it’s still there and can still be used.
Perhaps it’s time to stop playing by Westminster’s rules and start applying our own rules by the use of this historic right of the Scottish people.
Charlie Kerr
Glenrothes
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