Back in September I wrote a blog explaining in great detail why I personally would be giving my second vote to the ISP in May. It was a blog that invoked a lot of discussion as well as the usual bile from the usual suspects. Nobody, of course, challenged the mathematics or logic of my decision. The ones against it were the SNP fanatical loyalists and as expected The Greens who stand to lose support to a genuine independence party. The GRA fanatics that put gender politics before everything else. The Unionists who stand to lose the most, all those List Seats that SNP 1 2 gives them.If it didn’t give the game away, the Unionists would be promoting SNP 1 2 in their election material. It is the only reason they win seats at all! The amount of Yoons and paid trolls that objected was at times overwhelming. That convinced me more than anything that my decision was not only correct mathematically it was also politically the right course of action. I readily accept not everybody agrees. Most of SNP that do disagree fall into several categories Totally loyal, would not ever vote anything else unless the party said to do it. I was that soldier! Tribalists that only want SNP election victories, more than even independence. The lazy that don’t bother researching or availing themselves of all the facts, the Sheeple for short. None of these are bad people. It is up to me and others like me to show and convince those people that there is a better way to achieve what we all want, Independence!
As the blog says these are some of my reasons for my proposed actions. I do not tell anyone what they should do. I merely lay out my reasons the rest is up to you. Today is no different.
At present I will without doubt, while holding my nose tightly still vote SNP in the Constituency. My local candidate had a weird and wild outburst over the weekend and while it disturbed me it won’t prevent me giving him my vote. Though I would politely counsel him and other SNP members to stop attacking YES Supporters because they have a different viewpoint on the best route to independence.
What the last few weeks and months has highlighted to me is the vice like grip the supporters of Independence find themselves in, both in Scotland and inside the union. We are not in charge, not even close.We are beholden to the politicians of the SNP and Tories.
We have a single independence party in both the Constituency and list. As the SNP stumble from one self inflicted crisis to the next the frustrations grow. The loyalists and nervous deploy the usual tropes. ‘Wheesht For Indy,’ ‘Just get Independence first then we can find new parties.’ ‘We are so close!’ ‘Look at the polls!’ ‘Nicola would never do anything like that to Alec!’
It just highlights our lack of alternatives. The SNP leadership is more than aware of that too. They have used and abused the privilege we bestow upon them with our loyalty, votes and donations. Our leadership sat silently by while a group of single issue biology deniers took control of our NEC. That the entire Alec Salmond trumped up charges and court case ever came to fruition is a disgrace. That a Party that had over 125,000 members is now reduced to 84,000, no questions asked is indicative of how badly run the party has become. Whatever you say do not ask anything about ring fenced money or WhatsApp groups! That is just a few reminders of how our party of choice abuses its position.
In my working life I was in the Telecommunications and Data Communications industry. When we built networks that companies totally relied upon, we always looked to ensure there was no single point of failure. We always encouraged our clients to have diverse routing in the event of a catastrophic failure. When providing Internet connect to companies all it took to grind their business to a halt would be a JCB digging up the road for say, the Water Company to sever the Internet pipe and business is over until a team can repair the single link. That could result in massive losses and time delays.All our data centres were connected globally in the event of a single failure in one location. Back up servers and systems abound diverse routing and every precaution taken to ensure no failure. Never forget, Independence is our business we have no back up in the event of failure to deliver!
The Unionists have options, albeit pretty bad ones. We in the YES Movement have a single point of failure and now more than ever it is showing. The vast majority of SNP members and their voters are opposed to GRA and the HCB. Most of those, same supporters have expressed a desire for a Plebiscite Election in May. In all of these, a tiny coterie surrounding the Party Leader opposes the majority view. They win out because what are we going to do, vote unionist? At worst the leadership knows it will be like the 2017 UK General Election when 500,000+ Yes Supporters just stayed, at home because the SNP campaign was so bereft of any strategy or imagination. They still won the election. The leadership knows enough will turnout to let them ‘win.’ For them that is all that really matters.
That same leadership and all the SNP MSPs we elect in May will be cushioned from the effects of Brexit and IMB. Unlike the Scottish unemployed, low paid, pensioners, self-employed, those furloughed. That is just a fact. It is terribly easy to be all in favour of a gradualist policy if you do not need to worry about paying the rent or feeding and clothing your kids. It is easy to say now is not the time when the sufferings of the majority are not going to affect you and yours.
The biggest annoyance in the entire movement is the Party Leader’s obsession with asking Boris Johnson for permission to hold a referendum via a Section 30 order. Many alternatives have been offered up for at least a discussion on alternative strategies. Every time those discussions are sought, the leadership refuses to listen.The leadership had made up its mind and just doesn’t want to hear what the members want, apparently they know best! Besides what are the rank and file going to do, Vote Tory or Labour instead? No, of course, they won’t and Nicola Sturgeon and all her sycophants know you won’t, because you have no other choice! They can, and do treat you any way that they want. We need leverage to make them sit up and listen to our concerns.
There was an outcry at SNP Annual Conference when the leadership engineered it so that no Plan B could even be discussed by the members. The anger was such that the leadership decided they better offer up a sop to pretend they actually cared about the opinions of the masses. They would bring back the National Assembly in January, and the ordinary members could discuss alternative routes to independence then.
However, just to be sure nothing happened that would dare challenge or embarrass the leaders singular point of view they sabotaged the National Assembly.
Less than 24 hours before the event the Party launched an 11 point plan, which is just the same old Plan A Section 30 nonsense. They got The National to put a big splash on its front page, and they wrote an article that this was some new super-duper road to independence. To give it even more credibility Mike Russell put his name to it, that for me was my biggest disappointment. I have always up till now admired that man so much. To put it crudely this ‘Plan’ put forward on Saturday elicits the phrase,’YOU CANNOT POLISH A TURD.’ Not even the Blessed Leader can achieve that, no matter how much she and her sycophants try to dupe the voters.
The reason we know a Section 30 will not work is simple.We have no leverage at Westminster. There is nothing we can say, do or use to make England’s Prime Minister agree to the wishes of the Scottish colony.The worst that can happen to the Tories is they lose six MPs at the next UK General Election. They have an 80 seat majority, six losses is nothing. No leverage there then! We will get very angry and complain at PMQs. Anyone for weeks ‘we will not be dragged out of the EU Part II? No leverage in that either. We will get a huge majority at Holyrood in May, and your Party will lose, seats! So what? The Tories will still refuse and keep stealing our resources, collecting our taxes and using the River, Clyde for their Weapons of Mass Destruction. No leverage there!
I have asked many of those that attack me for my views to tell me what will force Boris Johnson to ever change his mind.To date of course nobody has ever managed to answer that.
Which brings me to the vital part of this blog. What do we the majority of Independence voters do to get the SNP to listen and change their mind about this idiotic section 30? Actually there is absolutely nothing we can do, because we have no leverage either. We trusted the SNP so much we put all our eggs in one basket. Sadly for us that basket has a few rotten eggs in it now. While on the subject of eggs when it comes to anything remotely strategic our SNP leadership run around like headless chickens! (Did you see what I did there?)So in the short term we cannot effect any change. Unless the threat of another independence party getting traction is the spur theSNP need to start listening. What we can for certain do though is ensure it never happens again. We can give ourselves in future elections a choice and some leverage!
We need to get ourselves some influence, and the only way to do that is to create a choice. Take all my other reasons for voting ISP on the List in May and add this one, leverage. If the SNP in Holyrood has an independence supporting party as the opposition every day they will be getting asked, ‘First Minster what have you done in the past week to advance the cause of Independence?’ The next time the SNP goes to the polls the voters will then have a choice of Independence Parties. They will almost certainly both be on the same side, Scotland, every time. Both will always listen to you because now they both know we have a choice, the power has shifted back to the people. We also get the added bonus of removing unionist seat warmers. We may even get a 2/3rds majority at Holyrood that would allow us to call a Plebiscite Election any time we like.Now that is leverage! Nothing Boris or his crime syndicate can do either
The choice though is yours, continue as we are and nothing will change. Alternatively elect ISP MSPs in numbers via, the List and help build a second independence Party and more importantly build ourselves some Leverage! It puts the YES Movement in charge of the narrative, not the party loyalists! ‘What Cesar gives Cesar can take away again’ That is the only thing politicians understand. Your vote is more powerful than you imagine, use it wisely! Let leverage become the new key word.
I’m with you totally. I actually wish we had the choice on the constituency vote. Yes I know, it would split the vote, but honestly I am so fed up with the SNP. We need choice and we need a leader who is actually hell-bent on delivering Indy.
Roddy thank you. I hope others will follow this line of thinking and your approach. My mind has been made up for months ago and like your good self I get attacked for my views. Alas it will make no difference to me because and despite my loyalty to self determination I refuse to give the SNP my complete support. They will get my first vote but not my list vote. There is too much monopoly on the process for Indy with those comfortable with power but we do not have time to waste. I do not give one iota if there is a lack of policies from the AFI or ISP et al Independence is the goal and other policies can come thereafter. Great blog.
Do you think, BB that the ISP would draw up a map of areas where voting Constituency SNP and List ISP would make sense, and the areas where it would not make sense? I think, now, we have to be strategic in our thinking and get the very best result we can across the country, but, at the same time, m give the SNP a sharp kick in its nethers.
How are they getting away with this? They are just a small coterie: the immediate higher echelons of the parliamentary party; some of the officials of the party and the civil servants, who are pseudo ‘woke’; and those elected representatives who like the inertia just fine: power and fat salaries without responsibility.
Partly, it is the same malaise that infected the Labour party in Scotland: far too complacent and greedy. But, partly, it is something else: a kind of managerialism we have not encountered before, even in Labour in the past. It has the distinct whiff of totalitarianism about it and is dangerous.
I believe it is down entirely to the ‘woke’ element in the party and around it, and that includes some of the civil servants who run the show and some of the unelected officials of the party itself. That ‘woke’ element in the NEC didn’t get there by accident. It is also the power behind the Alex Salmond affair, I think, a kind of coalition of different, even competing interests that all find common ground in one area: that of preventing independence from happening, and by keeping the managerial style intact.
They protest, some of them, that they are wholly in favour of independence, but that is b******t. They keep control and they thrive because of the ‘woke’ philosophy which is based, right across the board, on no debate with opponents, shutting down dissent, charging ahead with insane policies to the cost of everything else. This coterie has stymied and stopped independence from happening for six years, and they will prevent it from happening for another five years, if they can, then another five years, and so on.
They are fairly bloated with confidence and complacency because they believe there is no one else who can touch them. They need to be pulled down – all of them. No exceptions. They have destroyed the SNP, they have destroyed our momentum, and they have destroyed our country. They know that there is not the slightest chance of winning a referendum. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
I agree with them. The difference between us is that they would continue on this path forever, and, if forced to have a referendum, would be happy enough to lose it a second time. I would like to see us make the election a plebiscitary one and declare independence if we win. We do not have time to wait.
A lot of points to address Lorna. One the one re what areas are best and will ISP produce some guidance. They have on their website http://www.isp.scot there in their media sections they have a short video on the numbers and how the SNP 2 votes fared in each and every region. There is also a video explaining the D’Hondt/AMS method adopted at Holyrood a bastardised electoral system deployed to ensure no single party could attain a majority. We now know although extremely difficult it can in either extreme cases like the upcoming election or be done by fluke as in 2011.If the present polling is to be believed the SNP on somewhere between 52% and 58% of the Constituency vote they have are likely to landslide and if uniform will win 70+ out of 73 possible seats.That will give them a simple majority. Anecdotal evidence says that even the Orkney seat looks a legitimate target for the SNP. Should this all come to pass it is unlikely the SNP will win any seats in any regional lists. In 2016 they were on 45.6% in Constituency so with the gerrymandered voting system they achieved just 4 List seats for almost 1 million List Votes. Over 850,000 SNP List Votes did nothing else except elect Unionists and Ross Greer of the Greens who even managed to win a seat with just 17,000 from 9 Constituencies in West of Scotland. So my advice is keep watching the polls, and if SNP stay north of 50% in Constituency all regions are targets for an ISP or other Indy vote. SNP Votes will be wasted!
There was a website https://listvotescotland.com/scotland/0 where you could see the details of the 2016 List voting and calculate what the results may be if a certain number of votes went to a different independence party. Unfortunately it seems to have disappeared/moved and the ‘server not found’ message pops up.
Any idea where it went to, or if there is a similar site somewhere?
That is a corrupted site Willie set up by one of the main architects of GRA Cameron Archibald a real nasty piece of work. You will note in every single scenario he shows only SNP1 Greens 2 wins any seats. It is a dishonest set up exposed many times by many people and pundits. GRA is so corrupted they are prepared to lose a pro Indy super majority to ensure GRA becomes law. Do not be fooled.
“With the gerrymandered voting system they achieved just 4 List seats for almost 1 million List Votes.”
I am afraid that is an inaccurate characterisation, because it takes D’Hondt out of its proper context. That context is the whole of the election system, not just the list part. This is a PR system, where a party’s proportion of the List vote sets the proportion of the 130 seats that party will get.
Those 1 million list votes gave the SNP 63 seats in total, it is just that 59 of those seats were pre-allocated from the constituency vote, and since those seats count towards the total seats the party should get as its fair share, D’Hondt has to take them into account when calculating that total, and setting aside some of the list votes is how it does that.
The SNP’s share of the list vote of 41.7% should have provided them with ~42% of the 130 available, giving them 54 seats, but they actually ended up with 63 seats. That is ~48.5% of the seats, so the SNP are significantly overrepresented in the Parliament, not underrepresented!
This election system is unfair in some respects, is not robust or particularly accurate, but it’s not currently unfair to the SNP!
God Almighty I sometimes despair. Starters the D’Hondt/AMS abortion is not a PR system! The 57 seats,were won by means of good old fashioned FPTP voting. 4 seats were the result of the gerrymandered system. 850,000 List seat SNP Votes out of 953,000 SNP votes elected not a single SNP MSP. Please do not come on here spewing lies or idiocy. Wherever you ‘gkeaned’ this nonsense you just posted is just wrong. Please do not try to insult us on here again.
I might have been more tactful, perhaps, but nothing I said was wrong, untruthful, idiotic or insulting, I just pointed out an inaccuracy, and clarified the position.
You are not entitled to your own facts. D’Hondt/AMS really is well-known PR election system, used in several places across the world, but not one of the better ones as I clearly said. So are you really saying that, or did you just mean the Scottish one isn’t because Dewar and Blair tampered with it, hence the gerrymandering?
That gerrymandered system still added more seats to the SNP tally than they would otherwise have got from your good old FPTP system alone, and these extra seats were actually more than their list vote share justified, as 2016 demonstrated and I pointed out.
FPTP is well known for its inadequacies, and the D’Hondt/AMS subsystem is an attempt to correct it, by adjusting the seat proportions after the fact to something that more closely matches the vote share. That is why the combination is called a PR system, and is the entire point of the list vote. Even a non-gerrymandered D’Hondt/AMS would still need to take the seats allocated by the good old FPTP into account, by setting aside some of the list votes or by some other mechanism. Its real failure is that it cannot take seats away from the FPTP tally if the list vote share doesn’t justify all the seats from the FPTP bit.
I’m not saying, and didn’t before, that Dewar and Blair didn’t attempt to tweak the mechanism to favour the unionist parties, and especially unionist coalitions, and to try to prevent absolute majorities (which it failed), and it could and should be improved, but that doesn’t mean you get to claim the one we ended up with is a non-PR system, because compared to the real abortion that is good old FPTP, it really is far more PR than not.
One last point, I know this is your blog, and your rules are for you to set, and I have no issues with them. But your initial response to me was far more insulting and untruthful than my post was, and I don’t appreciate being called a liar in public. My post did not merit any of your accusations.
No you did not point out an inaccuracy you gave your point of view which was and remains inaccurate. It is not a PR system it is, indeed a gerrymandered voting system the unionist themselves admitted was introduced to stop SNP ever winning any kind of power. Another Union failure!
I agree with your voting intentions but yesterday there was some chat about the ISP not getting 6% vote and somehow this would damage the SNP. I can’t really see why but I would like this to be explained if possible by yourself or the ISP.
I’d not really describe it as intended to ensure that no single party gains a majority. It is intended to be a broadly proportional system, while preserving one attribute we tend to like, namely having a constituency representative. The one thing that could be argued over is if the list vote should be over the whole country, rather than over regions.
So from that perspective, I like it, and would prefer what we retain it. All it really requires is that people learn how to use it for their aims. Which really means how to use it while trying to achieve the aim of independence, and that has now been described.
Assuming independence is achieved, and people are then not trying to use it for a simple poll, it should ensure there is a good spread of views represented.
Lorna could you explain this
‘They know that there is not the slightest chance of winning a referendum’
Do you mean winning the right to have a referendum?
‘managerialism.’
Yes and look at the head manager.
When has independence ever been won by cowards or if that is too string a word, people who won’t fight. I feel ashamed when i see what the Catalan politicians have had to suffer.
I think that is one of the huge divides. People who want to fight have a hard time being ‘managed’ by people who think this can all be sorted by cups of tea. Managers are perfect for certain situations but they should never be leaders.
The last week has been tough; seeing so clearly how we have been betrayed and lied to.
The only consolation is knowing we are not alone.
I am still confused by the AMS system being any good for List only partys.
Can some one explain to me how ISP can take votes from Brit Parties in Scotland who are standing on both votes? A party will generally require between 5-6% of vote if no wins in constituency seats, so the Brit parties would have to do really badly for ISP to take seats from them? My area- Rutherglen can switch Labour SNP at WM. We have Clare Haughey…and Kelly for our sins! 😛 Galloway was threatening to stand in Margaret Ferriers’ seat, but I think he didn’t realise she is an MP & this is MSP Election 😛 For my area it’s dodgy ‘splitting’ the vote as I see it?
https://www.isp.scot/category/glasgow/
BarrheadBoy says. “ To give it even more credibility Mike Russell put his name to it, that for me was my biggest disappointment. I have always up till now admired that man so much.”
As have I….
And he I assume is one of the ones being referred to by many, in that there are STILL GOOD PEOPLE within the party..I know I would have taken him for one of the Good ones left. But when you see how he allowed himself to be USED in promoting this 11Point disaster. You can’t help but wonder just why are the SO called GOOD People not speaking up, within HR, they could have stopped this becoming such a mess for the party at least a couple of years ago, they could still STOP this now in plenty of time before the next election.
For me, the SNP are no longer a party of trust. We need a new party, we have one with the ISP, if only the ISP had formed a couple of years ago, when they were talking about forming a new Indy party, .. I still believe that there are too many rotten apples in the SNP in Constituency seats & that the ISP should stand against them in the Constituency if they can get some big hitter names..
And this brings me back to the GOOD PEOPLE still within the SNP, if those good people would make a stand &
Walk away from the SNP & join the ISP it would help us the voter & show the SNP they have real competition from another INDY Party, that is ready & willing to replace them..
Kate
You ask why are the so called good people not speaking up. Apart from one or two they are scared of the Sturgeon/Murrell axis. Look what they did to Mark MacDonald. Look at what happened to Margaret Ferrier when she also didn’t do what Sturgeon commanded her to do.
Bravehearts are few and far between.
‘But when you see how he allowed himself to be USED ‘
I don’t think he was used. I am sure he believes every part of it.
Surprised people are only now seeing that he is all talk and no trousers.
This gradualism might have some rational, if we had all the time in the world. We don’t:
1. Mini-trump is coming after our resources (the richest in Europe)
https://macalbasite.wordpress.com/2021/01/25/scotland-the-wealthiest-country-in-europe-truth-exposed/
They will try to weaken us to the point that we really do become a burden on England. Maybe then they will finally ‘allow us’ our freedom.
Mini-trump will try to destroy devolution or make it powerless.
2. Our position in the polls is a lot, if not all, down to bad luck (Johnson and covid), that can change quickly. Anyone would seem better than Fucko the clown, suddenly a man like Hunt who would have qualified as one of the most despised politicians ever, could very easily become like a knight in shining armour and the average voter could very easily get taken in, once again.
3. With time there is a danger people will get used to the new norm (trainspotting ‘It is shite being Scottish’)
4. In the mean time the poorest in society suffer. The rich can wait, can the poor?
5. If career politicians are bad now, what will they be like if we give them more time?
6. I am worried that time is only on the side of the capitalists who are getting into positions of power with a little help from NS. There won’t be a Scotland left if we wait too long, it will just be England Mark II. NS thinks Kissinger was a great bloke.
7. If we really care about the future of this country we need Indi now not in 10 or 20 years. What kind of independence supporter thinks in those kinds of terms?
Excellent article and I heartily agree that people less well off are the hardest hit by the austerity of Westminster and can’t afford to wait years for promised change.
I left the SNP in the middle of last year, after thinking about it for quite some time, for many of the reasons listed in the article. I know there are still good people in the party at ground level at least. People I know locally either councillors, involved in the local branch or just the people that turn up to meetings and I know there must be plenty of the same type of people in other branches and areas. But I have zero trust, faith or respect for the leadership and what they have done to the party I was once so passionate in supporting.
Sadly as I look on the likes of Facebook, I can see that even many of the good people I cite above and others I’ve went to marches and rallies with are still among those blind to the SNP’s faults and still believe all the “we’re so close don’t rock the boat” mantras. Sad to see such people I’ve joined on the train or in pubs at marches and rallies in the past will block people for even daring to make justifiable criticisms or express doubts about SNP policy or “strategy”. Sad to think that if I join them on the train to a march again, I’ll probably have to bite my tongue to respect friendship and the common cause or will else just end up arguing and falling out over needless divisions and splits that are wholly 100% down to the leadership corruption, incompetence and mismanagement.
The ongoing saga that engulfs the SNP reminds me of a scene in a fantasy film, Lord of the rings : The Two Towers, the SNP is the King of Rohan, King Theoden, Thw GRA Wokists are Grima Wormtongue, and the bloggers and ISP are collectively Gandalf The White, and it will take all the power needed to defeat Wormtongue so that the SNP get back to the day job I’d getting Independence done
For those that haven’t read the trilogy or watched the film, Grima Wormtongue whispered to Theoden that Rohan was to weak and little to stand a chance, it took the magic of Gandalf to break that hold, but when that dam broke, they became the warrior race they used to be