READING Tommy Sheppard’s diatribe laying out the reasons why indy supporters legitimately turned away from voting SNP and his then dismissing them and not holding his party to account for its abject mishandling of the fervour for independence generated since the 2014 referendum just makes my blood boil (A four-step route for the SNP to win back lost votes, Aug 12).
The reasons for lost support for his party that he laid out are not rocket science, nor a secret. They were well articulated and widely known prior to the last election. Yet he and his party deliberately chose to ignore them and failed to force debate on Westminster’s failings with only independence as the real solution to them.
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What makes me really angry about Sheppard and his party is that they have no answers, and no drive. I suspect they are hoping that others in the indy movement will encourage the necessary increase in support, somehow in their parallel universe Westminster will accept it and willingly accede to a referendum and if it is won, he and his party will step up to the plate to receive the plaudits. Er, no!
There are two salient hard facts that Sheppard and the SNP just fail to grasp.
First, his proposal to gain independence by adding new powers to Holyrood to make devolution work better is just political folly. Devolution only works in Westminster’s favour. It holds the purse strings and when the failures happen it’s the Scottish Parliament that takes the political blame. Even if his suggestion of added powers did ever work, that’s not going to persuade the waverers to independence, rather they’re going to take the “easy” step to maintain the status quo and reject independence as unnecessary and too much inconvenience to them to bother about it.
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The truth is that devolution, without full political and fiscal powers, can never work in the interests of Scots. And that was recognised by the 60 territories that have left Westminster control, none of which returned to its domination. Trying to make devolution work as Sheppard suggests is simply to play Westminster’s game. I suspect Sheppard must surely know this and wonder what his real agenda is.
Second, with Scotland’s valuable resources across fossil fuels, renewable energy, water, fishing, research, tourism and a whole host of others, Westminster has no intention of ever allowing Scotland to secede from the Union, Both major parties do not want rUK’s economic and political status and credibility to be diminished by Scotland becoming independent.
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The fact is we’re going to have to persuade people to demand the independence which is our right as a historic nation, stop mitigating the bad policies of Westminster to show just how bad things really are under English rule, take back control and assert our claim of right.
The Scottish Government took the UK to the Supreme Court on entirely the wrong premise. It was an issue it could never win on. The dice were loaded in the UK’s favour.
We need to foment a constitutional crisis by our indy-supporting MPs walking away from the undemocratic, domineering Westminster parliament that treats them and us with such disdain. The Scottish Parliament should repeal the Act of Union and take back ownership of our nation.
Sheppard’s SNP are not fit for purpose as a vehicle to exert the force for independence which is clearly essential. The party has lost its zeal, is now controlled by a bunch of Westminster-acquiescing luvvies and has lost its indy drive. Sheppard and his party’s Westminster tippy-tappying over indy just doesn’t cut it.
Jim Taylor
Scotland
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