All Yellow

New polling shows the Tories facing electoral wipe-out. The poll by Opinium predicted Scottish Tory MPs would be wiped out in a General Election with the SNP winning 56 seats with 48 % of the vote, the Lib Dems down to 2 seats and 7%, Labour 1 seat and 22% and the Scottish Tories crashing to 17% and 0 seats.

[Via @OpiniumResearch, 15-22 Dec 2021]

Great news to bring some much needed festive cheer to the bleakest of mid-winter landscapes?

Well yes. A Tory-Free Scotland is always a good thing and the return of the Panda Jokes will be hilarious.

But, Houston there’s a problem.

What does any of this mean and what’s the strategy?

If this isn’t a mandate what is?

What is the point of all of this?

MPs sent to Westminster represent their constituents and act on their party’s interests and the manifesto they stood on. But if the SNP send an overwhelming 56 seats they need a plan.

What is the plan? What is the strategy?

You cannot return to Westminster with these numbers and with the same plan as if there is no consequence.

As we stagger out of the most shambolic governance of the worst public health emergency in living memory and the historic clusterfuck of Brexit that makes Suez look like a triumph there has to be A Plan.

They could – if anything like these number of seats pan out – do a number of things they could:

Not go. Create a massive constitutional crisis.

Go and create chaos.

Make a pact with Labour for a new settlement (not really),

DO SOMETHING.

Anything.

You can’t have 56 MPs doing the same shit.

You can’t have 56 MPs being inert, passive, powerless.

It is not conceivable to have this mandate and not have leverage or strategy.

So?

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  1. Malcolm Kerr says:

    Well said. I left the SNP last month after half a century of active membership. It’s now nearly seven wasted years since I wrote this:
    https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2015/01/15/nae-bevvying/
    I’ve been saying for a while we need a new leadership ethic, but if there is also to be a sustained uptick for independence in polling, we do need a plan, too.

    1. Graeme Purves says:

      Exactly so!

    2. Jay Gatto says:

      So you’re determined to change SNP’s achievement, the ‘all yellow’ map, snatch defeat so close to victory, when the indy vote has crept above 50%? 50%! Why? Petulance? A delight in irony, or attention, it’s sadly the norm, or what? It’s a numbers game we can’t afford for it to be lost this way.

      1. Malcolm Kerr says:

        Jay. My understanding of the current situation is based on my experience and observation. It will be different from yours. But don’t accuse me of petulance. The yellow map is great if you want the SNP to retain and consolidate power. Not so great if you envisage a broad and inclusive movement which will make progress towards independence. The SNP leadership has a massive disdain for its members and for many of its voters. The current hierarchy plays free and fast with the Party’s constitution and rules and there’s a growing fear they’d do the same with whatever civil power they accrue. I hesitate to call it ‘Stalinism’ even metaphorically but I’d encourage you to re-read Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ nevertheless. The independence movement can’t afford the SNP’s kind of self-indulgence at present.

  2. Ste fella says:

    So what all your pathetic ablacadabra about then given that their existence is to force the SNP to do this as they patiently aren’t?

    1. I think Alba are polling on 0% down from 2%

      1. Ste fella says:

        That’s not a reqson to side with the Brits, BBC and Sturgeon over their existence..that most people take their steer from them..so what.

        You’re arguing now what many people have been arguing for years, at least since 2016 Brexit…

        There have been 4 parties created in that time, ISP, afi, Scotia future and alba all for the same reason, to DELIVER independence and not just pretend to

        Denigrating these attempts such as alba is not helping these efforts..we need bloggers/new media such as yourself to point it out, people to change it from within SNP (not likely) and a threat/opportunity in the form of a new party for people to vote for if and when the SNP don’t. That’s all alba is.

        1. Hi – telling you what the polling figures for Alba isn’t ‘denigrating them’ its just explaining reality. None of the parties you mention are remotely credible, have any cut-through to the wider public nor have any reasoned strategy to DELIVER independence.

          1. Niemand says:

            This is true, currently. But the question remains, would it still be a good thing if there were a credible pro-independence alternative to the SNP? One might even ask would it be a good thing if there were a more major unionist opposition to the SNP if only to arrest their complacency and creeping corruption? It is hard to see such a sustained dominance of one party in any democratic system as a good thing, especially when its power does not properly represent the popular vote.

          2. Ste fella says:

            You denigrated alba in your ablacadabra article before holyrood election . As for no indy strategy they clearly recognise both the delay in asking for a section 30 and no plan to do anything when it fails as farcical unlike the fake yes SNP under currently leadership and fake yes opportunist greens do. They’re not going to reveal their entire strategy but it’s pretty obvious it would be get the section 30 stalemate oot the road asap and use an electoral test of either a holyrood plebscite or a consultatory referendum from holyrood (if possible) to motivate a demand for udi and UN recognition..something along those lines is what is required. The fake SNP 11 point plan goes no further than say we’ll ask for a section 30 and then challenge it (when they say phuq off which they will and the challenge will lose as holyrood doesn’t have the authority to under UK law)…

            Waiting forever will worsen our chances as continuing mass migration from unionists from rUK, mainly England will see the opportunity lost. This latter point is from publicly available statistics from NRS and has seen inmgration increasing dwarving the yes youth effect. These immigrants are wealthy, have greater longevity and are politically active. Sturgeon and the heir apparent robertson know this but prefer to dither. Both have cited having time on their hands when the reverse is true. Both know better which shows you Devo administration is their real strategy.

            You recognise the problem in this article but offer no solution where an alternative party, the best placed of which is clearly alba, is the best bet…else you can kiss independence goodbye.

          3. I did ridicule Alba you’re right, I am not aligned with their politics.

            You say “They’re not going to reveal their entire strategy”, a cunning plan.

            You say that Alba are the “the best placed” party yet earlier accepted they are polling on somewhere between 0 and 1% with a leader more unpopular than Boris Johnson. Yet to point this out to you is to somehow be a turncoat blah blah blah.

          4. Mons Meg says:

            Stef: How do you know that the c. 47,500 in-flow of folk to Scotland from the rest of the UK (in the year when this was last measured – 2018-19) consisted of ‘white settlers’/unionist undesirables?

            Does Alba provide a home for such old-fashioned ‘Little Scotland’ nastiness?

          5. Cameron Fraser says:

            The focus must be on the reasons we lost in 2014, as far as I can see this has not even been attempted and until those issues are tackled it doesn’t matter what colour the map is.
            SNP don’t want to move on the reasons for the loss, as long as they exercise the same control that they’ve become accustomed to and the voters don’t wake up to the fact that day to day life is not getting any better for them under snp/Scot Gov. If snp do have a plan to secure independence it’s past time to share this with their membership and more importantly the electorate who are the people needed on side if we are ever to regain our independence.
            Alba, ISP and other independence parties have been born from deep feelings of frustration at the inertia of snp who have now become an almost internal part of the Scottish establishment and my goodness don’t they just love it!
            If snp are out of ideas or happy with what they have, just be honest about it and don’t keep lying to the voters about how deeply they are committed to independence.
            The other major concern must be their record in government, they have and continue to preside over many scandals such as the hospital buildings in Glasgow and Edinburgh and the Cal Mac ferries debacle at Ferguson Marine. This continues to erode public confidence in the administration and sows the seeds of doubt about being capable of running our own affairs.
            Many voters will say the snp are now in the “last chance saloon” despite the huge victory in May, if they want to redeem themselves now is the time.
            As for myself, that time has passed as I can no longer believe them or trust in them.

  3. Stephen Pritchard says:

    Erm Mike. Those stats show Scotland is already facing several constitutional crises. 3 seats for 52% of the vote; 56 seats for 48%?!? A one party state??? A nationalist party that is benefitting from a skewed electoral system grounded in Unionism?? A “nationalist” government intent on selling off almost everything to people from outside Scotland. There are more. Many more. I support independence, but this picture is bleak!

    1. Simon says:

      7% + 17% + 22% does not equal 52% …. unless I missed that day of maths ?
      You don’t know where the remaining 4% goes and it could be a majority vote for pro Indy parties

    2. David B says:

      Stephen – I totally agree. It would of course be great to see the Tories wiped out, but 95% of seats for 48% of the vote should be concerning to all of us. (Though the Lab-Lib-Con %s combined are just 46%. Presumably the SGP vote brings it up to a pro-Indy majority).

      My hope for the new year is that we adopt more consensus-based decision making tools. I feel both FPTP and binary Y/N referendums are failed systems.

      Hope the house move went well Mike. Thanks for all your thought-provoking articles.

      1. Mons Meg says:

        ‘My hope for the new year is that we adopt more consensus-based decision-making tools.’

        Yeah, like that’s going to happen, when the Independentistas are so close to obtaining the 51% of the turn-out vote they need to impose their will on Scotland as a whole!

        1. Malcolm Kerr says:

          Meg. If 51% of a population want something good for their country then, yes, they can ‘impose their will’ on the 49%. That is a widely accepted democratic principle, surely! My hope, like David’s, is that the ‘Independistas’ (effectively the tiny SNP leadership clique) will have more ambition, and seek a much bolder consensus, which ought to include all parts of the wider independence movement, and some of the currently ‘undecided’. I detect no sense at all they they understand this imperative, though, or have a plan to deliver it.

          1. But the challenge Malcolm isnt to have a ‘bolder consensus’ to reach all parts if the independence movement, the challenge is to reach BEYOND the independence movement, no?

            This has been a problem in the movement for years, to confuse the movement with its own sub-cultures with society or the wider electorate.

          2. Malcolm Kerr says:

            Yes, Mike. 100%. We need a collegiate approach to attract and embrace the undecided and co-opt the acquiesce even of people who end up voting ‘no’. I fear we have allowed our leadership to concentrate power in the hands of very few people (over a long period: this was a joint Salmond/Sturgeon project). Their first step should be to adopt a warm-hearted outreach to all SNP members and ex-members, and to independence supporters who don’t and won’t vote SNP. It might be obvious from outside the Party that a different kind of leadership is needed at this point, and that family/dynastic power accumulation is stigmatic of corruption. That doesn’t move us much further forward, sadly.

          3. Malcolm Kerr says:

            May I also take the opportunity to say thanks to BC for providing a forum for discussion of this kind? It is not possible to discuss strategy within the Party as there is now no appropriate place or publication for debate, no freedom of expression on Party social media and no means of holding office-bearers to account.

          4. Thanks Malcolm. I think its useful to remain un-committed to any political party for BC. We come from a green-left perspective committed to independence and wider / deeper transformation.

            I think there is dire need (and potential) for people to mobilise within the SNP and the wider movement for a far more radical disruptive and dynamic approach. But these strategies need to be (imho) 1) based in real world scenarios not just vague calls to action b) primarily based on building strategies and institutions not just performative acts to play to the base.

          5. Mons Meg says:

            Yes and no. It’s widely accepted as a democratic principle in our flawed democracy. But it’s accepted less widely, by those of us who want something better, as a ‘might is right’ tyranny of the majority.

            A less widely accepted democratic principle is that the state should be an expression of the whole of the demos (‘consensus’), and not just a part of it. Achieving that requires more than just a majority; it requires political units that are much smaller than the standard nation-state and a hell of a lot of negotiation, compromise, and accommodation. Otherwise, you just get the kind of same-old shitty polarising, combative politics in which Scotland excels today.

          6. This is true Mons, a big majority for such a momentous change would be far preferable ( as was achieved for devolution despite attempts to spike that vote) – and is highly attainable – however given such levels of distortion dark money and disinformation plowed into the public sphere by the Unionist movement its hard to ‘play fair’ and hold the higher ground. I’d take a majority in a referendum.

          7. Mons Meg says:

            A ‘big’ majority, though, is still just a majority and not an expression of the general will of society as a whole.

          8. David B says:

            Is consensus decision making ever taught in Scottish schools? I think it’s a really important life tool. It does involve trusting the process and not pre-judging the outcome. You can seek to persuade, but must also be open to being persuaded. To use a Quaker phrase, “consider the possibility that you might be wrong.” It’s also interesting how often a majority are willing to compromise when they recognise that a minority would be unduly affected by a certain course of action.

            I’m not sure how this would be replicated at a nationwide level, but a series of regional citizens’ assemblies, which then sent delegates to a national one, followed by a confirmatory referendum might be the best approximation.

          9. Mons Meg says:

            In the late ’80s/early ’90s, I helped set up SAPERE (Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education), an Oxford-based charity whose mission is to train teachers in the use of philosophy in the classroom to encourage children to engage critically, creatively, collaboratively, and caringly in their decision-making. I haven’t been involved as an activist for 30 years, but SAPERE still trains around 5,000 teachers, trainee teachers and other youth workers in partnership with universities, colleges and teaching schools in England and Wales every year.

            Philosophy for Children never really took off in Scotland. There was an assumption at the time that children were too stupid to learn how to think critically and that teaching them critical thinking skills would do little, in any case, to help qualify them for the world of work. The priority was to teach children literacy skills through the humanities and numeracy skills through STEM subjects; teaching critical thinking skills was held to be properly the province of tertiary education.

          10. Mons Meg says:

            Achieving consensus is relatively easy in decision-making at neighbourhood level (that is, at the level of real communities, where direct democracy can apply); it gets harder and harder the more abstract the community and the more ‘representative’ its governance becomes. Entirely imagined communities, like nations, are far too big to function as democratic political units. That’s why I’m not a nationalist.

            The fundamentally imperfect democratic nature of more abstract political units can be ameliorated by the principle of subsidiarity, whereby decisions are always taken as locally as possible. According to this principle, it’s only when the decision affects a number of neighbourhoods, that it’s referred ‘upward’ to a syndicate of those affected neighbourhoods, which formed for the sole and limited purpose of negotiating a consensus on the matter of that particular decision. Unlike representative democracy, direct democracy has no standing parliaments or regional or national assemblies, but only a loose confederation of autonomous neighbourhoods which come together in various configurations, only as and when required, to negotiate consensual solutions to shared problems.

  4. Wul says:

    The UK government has outfitted a special office in Edinburgh explicitly to undermine the government that Scottish voters elect. Think about that; they pay people (from our taxes) to deliberately destabilise the devolution settlement and our parliament. We have only earned the odious presence of “Queen Elizabeth House” because our government is successful and our resources plentiful.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/flagship-uk-government-hub-in-edinburgh-named-queen-elizabeth-house

    If people vote en-masse for a party called “The Scottish National Party” then it must get it’s effing finger out and demonstrate why it deserved our vote. Final warning Nicola et al. Patience is running out.

    1. Stan Evans says:

      Very true 3,000 in Edinburgh probably the same in Glasgow. They are not doing this to make Scotland better only to further their own agenda of making sure independence doesn’t happen!
      The SNP must act soon. I am a SNP member but the discontent of people at the perceived lack of action in them is growing.

  5. Darby O'Gill says:

    Could they go to Westminster, sign up to ensure they have salaries to live on and expenses to run their constituency offices, and return to Scotland as the ‘Scottish Government in exile’? I’m sure Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee and perhaps Glasgow will have premises large enough for them to meet on a rotating basis. They will only have Defence, Foreign Affairs and Treasury matters to discuss, but perhaps Holyrood could forward the legislation they have passed before sending it to Westminster to be homologated.

  6. Dougie Blackwood says:

    What we need now is a date for an Independence referendum. Pick a suitable date, announce it, let the troops get to work and defy Westminster to say us nay.

    There is no point asking the baloon in Westminster for permission as that gives him the legitimacy that he does not deserve. The people of Scotland are sovereign and he cannot refuse the mandate given at numerous elections. The court of session will agree and why should we pay any attention to an English dominated “Supreme Court” when the primacy of law in Scotland is guaranteed by the treaty of Union.

    Go for it.

    1. Jim Sansbury says:

      The yoons would boycott it, rendering it useless.

      1. Gavinochiltree says:

        Set a referendum date. If the Yoons refuse to participate, resign en masse from both parliaments, and stand for outright independence in the subsequent election.
        The Yoons cannot refuse to fight elections.
        It would be international news.
        The democratic world could hardly stand aside.
        Rule without consent——we are not Spain, with a written, binding constitution. The UK has already recognised, in law, that Ireland has the Right of Self-Determination.

  7. God Above says:

    As bellas token unionist I have to concede you do have a point Mike,in fact many,and well presented as always and like you I consider it hideous to live under a management team who have proven themselves dishonest and incompetent but it’s political nonsense to imply that a mid term poll means that the independancrc arguement and it’s corresponding support has now been proven
    When you get your ref 2,which I think the polls show you deserve a whole new set of questions will be put to the electorate and their response cannot be predicted by these polls
    Best as ever. Mm

    1. Alistair Taylor says:

      @God above
      I thought you were dead, no?
      Anyway, i suppose someone has to keep saving our gracious queen.
      (But there ain’t no future in England’s dreaming. )

  8. HeadBrickWall says:

    The plan is to continue ruthlessly consolidating power and influence around Sturgeon and keep deceiving her cult like fan boys into shouting anyone down who asks: “what is the plan?”

  9. Stan Evans says:

    Well said our MPs are not there to toe the Westminster line like they seem to do all the time. The tories didn’t think twice about pushing Brexit through in the middle of the pandemic! Let’s get a referendum done when we have the votes and the will of the people ! Boris will be getting the boot shortly as the Tories aren’t shy at sticking the knife in as even Maggie found out so we need to use the general hatred of the corruption lies etc asap LETS GET INDEPENDENCE DONE

  10. John Gibson says:

    The strategy is “carrots”
    That’s it
    They think it worked in the past so it will work in the future
    Bad news Nicola, those carrots go off eventually and I can smell them already. Soon we will all smell them

  11. Robert says:

    Watch out, we can’t be having this level of criticism of the SNP leadership clique’s non-strategy.

  12. Derek says:

    Aw, dinnae. Now I’ve got bloody Coldplay stuck in my head.

  13. Andrew Sinclair says:

    “All Yellow” could be the adjective to apply to the SNP these days. It’s ironic that the more successful the SNP becomes (in terms of Westminster seats) then the more dependent on Westminster it becomes too. The ‘short money’ would seem to have the SNP in a financial trap. From the recent accounts it looks like the party would struggle to be solvent without it. Hence, perhaps, the unwillingness (cowardice?) to do anything which might risk those financial payment from Westminster. I don’t know what the conditions under which the ‘short money’ is paid, but I’d bet that if the SNP MPs were to do a ‘Sinn Fein’ and not attend then Westminster would find a way of delaying or stopping the ‘short money’. Who’ d have thought that the Scottish National Party which is supposed to espouse that Scotland can’t live with Westminster control could end up being firmly under Westminster’s control for the very money it needs to stay in existence?

    Maybe that’s another reason why few, if any, of the SNP MPs are agitating for urgent independence. They know that the Party is over (financially) when independence happens. (To say nothing of MP’s having to compete for Holyrood seats with MSP’s) The only plan they’ve got is to keep themselves in jobs, thus preserving the ‘short money’ flowing into SNP’s accounts.

    1. Tunnag Brot says:

      The behaviour of the SNP appears to be typical of an administration which, set up to achieve de-colonisation, actaully settles for an accomodation with the colonisers. It’s a well known pattern of behaviour exihibited during the final death throws of the colonialists power.

      1. Mons Meg says:

        Indeed! The SNP is itself a creature of the colonial power of late capitalism, part of late capitalism’s ‘establishment’ (the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised within its global empire), part of its system of enslavement, exploitation, and oppression, its governing party in our part of the world.

    2. Andrew Sinclair says:

      Update. When asked, via Twitter, if the SNP could survive without the short money he gave me a one word answer – “yes” . Looks like i’m wrong about the importance of that money.

      1. Andrew Sinclair says:

        That was Mike Russell, I was asking, via twitter.

  14. Andy White says:

    Finally. And the only meaningful stategy is indeed ‘not to go’.

  15. Scott says:

    Ay first glance I thought it was a weather warning but when I started to read it it was a political weather warning…. That’s ok by me.

  16. DR says:

    Firstly, to everyone commenting on seats per vote share: FPTP, that’s what it is designed to do. This is the problem with the article’s argument. A massive mandate in the Westminster system is pretty irrelevant to creating a persistent majority for independence. It’s good for 1 of 2 things: creating a UK constitutional crisis or demonstrating the settled (& independent) governmental preference of Scotland’s electorate. They’re incompatible, and there’s no point doing the first until there is also a persistent majority for independence. What are the SNP doing? They’re creating good government for Scotland, building popular consensus and administrative/political capacity. Because – and honestly, the lack of recognition of this in such articles is troubling – voting for independence is just one step in successfully becoming indpendent. That’s a *process*. In which the active support of a stable majority *of the population* isn’t any kind of formality. So articles like this just read as unbearably, dysfunctionally, *British*. As though governance was winning the occassional unrepresentative vote & then doing as one pleases. No. That surely is what we’re aiming to improve on?

    1. David B says:

      DR – I think you make the case for gradualism fairly well, but I’d question whether the SNP really is building capacity. They could replace council tax with a land value tax and use it to properly fund local services; they could back Scottish Labour’s bill to create a Food Commission and improve our food security. Both moves would build resilience in local communities and make us more genuinely independent (regardless of our constitutional status).

      I think most Scots are very happy that Holyrood provides a firewall between us and Westminster, but if the Holyrood want more power they should really be looking at making better use of existing powers.

    2. Mons Meg says:

      You’re spot on here, DR. The Scottish government is currently building the institutional infrastructure it will need to operate independently of the UK government. (My partner’s one of the army of civil servants that’s engaged in this work of defining independence.)

      At the same time, the SNP is using grudge-and-grievance tactics in both the Westminster parliament and the relationship between Bute House and Downing Street to stoke a majority anti-Tory vote in Scotland, which it hopes will then transmute into a majority pro-independence vote.

      So, all’s well. Come the day and come the hour, when that majority pro-independence vote is brought to fruition, the Scottish establishment will be good to go.

      1. David B says:

        Meg – I’ve no doubt the Scottish establishment will be good to go, it’s the rest of us I’m worried about.

        1. Mons Meg says:

          ‘The rest of us’ are just as enmeshed as ‘they’ are in the matrix of social relations within which the Scottish government is ensuring power will be exercised in a post-independence Scotland; that is, we’re not ‘other than’ but ‘part of’ the establishment that’s currently being institutionalised by the Scottish government as a done deal.

          1. David B says:

            That all sounds quite abstract. I’m more concerned about whether my local authority can offer basic services following years of imposed council tax freeze, and whether our local hospitals will have “temporary” downgrades and closures reversed. Without them the ‘matrix of social relations’ will not hold.

          2. Mons Meg says:

            Indeed! I suspect that part of the Scottish establishment will be (for example) a new National Care Service, through which our basic social care needs will be administered by national rather than by local government, with an associated shift of resource (power) further from real local communities towards the imagined national community. The pretext will be that the current administration is broken and will cost too much to fix without economies of scale. And most folk (‘Middle Scotland’) won’t mind, providing they can continue to get cheap social care; that is, social care that doesn’t eat too far into the level of disposable income they might otherwise enjoy.

  17. florian albert says:

    Pro-independence voters had an opportunity last May to demonstrate their unhappiness with the SNP – which, de facto, means, Nicola – and its extremely cautious
    approach to Indyref2. They gave Nicola and the SNP a vote of confidence.
    Mike Small is convinced there ‘has to be A plan.’ The available evidence suggests that the pro-independence voters do not agree.

  18. Jim McGuinness says:

    Should it be considered to use the next general election (first past the post) as a route to independence rather than what seems will be a rather tight referendum? I for one would support this. SNP and Green manifesto to simply say that if we get the required majority in this election, well, it’s jaickets on and grab yir bunnet and bag on the way out the door. Don’t slam it behind you, ach well, gon then, slam it

  19. Dougie Blackwood says:

    Yes I think that a refusal from Westminster, mass resignation of MPs and MSPs and calling the elections a plebicite could be made to work. The Yoons might not want to play and still have a majority remaining at Westminster but in Holyrood the parliament cannot function if a majority of members demand a fresh election. Given that Nationalist MPs would have resigned as well, the game, as they say, would be a bogie. Westminster couldn’t just try to shut Holyrood down and let us lump it; international condemnation would make that impossible.

    1. Laurie Pocock says:

      Risky though I see the argument less committed SNP voters would not take kindly to having their MPs just resign when elected that would mean new polls that might not go well. Everybody though needs to treat opinion oblong with some degree of scepticism. Especially the editor

      1. I suppose Laurie it would only work – and have far greater impact if this was laid out before their election, so if you had 58 MPs elected on a platform of either withdrawal or disruption that would be a profound thing, especially if co-ordinated with a wider strategy of action?

        1. Mons Meg says:

          I’d certainly like to think that, in the event, the SNP’s prospective candidates would be upfront with the electorate about their intention not to represent their constituencies in the UK parliament.

  20. Janet Fenton says:

    Make Scotland ungovernable. Remove consent from Westminster’s authority where it has no mandate.

    1. Mons Meg says:

      The only way you could remove consent from Westminster’s authority, Janet, is to organise mass non-participation in the next general election to the UK parliament. The very fact that we come together in our constituencies to elect representatives of whatever party to that assembly presumes consent.

      So, how are you going to organise that?

      (BTW I have regularly cast a blank vote in UK, Scottish, and local elections and referendums to demonstrate my dissatisfaction with the choice of candidates and/or the undemocratic nature of the decision-making process. Apparently, this withholding of my consent makes me a Tory, on the grounds that it isn’t a vote for the SNP. Do you see the sort of opposition your proposed boycott is up against?)

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