YOUR correspondent Jim Manclark provided a long letter in Thursday’s National headed “With both votes SNP, the regional list system is a Unionist’s dream”.

It is the same arguments we have heard so many times before. But it is all OPINIONS – I think the best way to counter this misunderstanding is with actual FACTS.

The author started by stating that there was no alternative to the SNP for independence votes in 2016. He may not have realized that the Greens, Solidarity and RISE all contested the 2016 election with varying degrees of success. The Greens achieved only 6.6% despite contesting Scottish Parliament elections for 21 years. Solidarity achieved only 0 .6% despite this being their second year contesting the election and RISE achieved only 0.5%.

Those who understand the system know that for a party to gain any seats in a region over 5% of the vote is required. These were independence supporting parties.

In fact Professor John Curtice neatly summed this up pointing out that Scottish voters do not favour new parties. The prospects for unknown new indy parties do look very dim.

In the same letter your correspondents talks about “wasted” votes – like he can accurately predict what the voting in 2021 will be. So let us look at the run-up to the 2016 election. Again these are FACTS.

The 30-day rolling average of all opinion polls at this time in the same election timetable had the SNP on 60% of the constituency vote and 54% of the list vote. Way above where the SNP are at the moment. By the time the Unionist media had worked their dark arts the SNP vote at the actual election was 46.5% in the constituency and 41.7% in the list. If readers recall – at that time there was the same – “don’t waste your second vote” call. As reported above – this resulted in tiny votes for other independence-supporting parties and in fact (yes FACTS again) the Green list vote lifted by only 2.2% while the SNP list vote fell by 2.3%, contributing to a loss of 12 SNP list seats and an overall majority.

Readers may draw their own conclusions as to the impact of what just that small number of list votes had on reducing the number of SNP MSPs – but should be aware that they were unlikely to come from Unionists and as a result the SNP were two seats short of a majority. Why does a majority matter? Well – more FACTS. In 2011 the SNP achieved an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament. This gave the SNP government the legitimacy to demand an independence referendum and made it close to impossible for David Cameron to refuse. As a result, we had a referendum in 2014.

READ MORE: Independence activists on why both votes SNP is the way ahead at the election

The list votes are never wasted. They are the insurance policy. In 2011 they were necessary to gain an SNP majority and therefore a referendum. The insurance paid off. To demand a referendum this government must have that legitimacy – it is not enough to have some kind of coalition of independence parties. We have that independence-supporting majority now and it doesn’t confer that political legitimacy. Imagine if there was a coalition of parties who had gamed or tricked this system. That would be even worse.

Under the very effective stewardship of Nicola Sturgeon the undecided voters and those who are persuadable are being won over to the SNP and to Scottish independence. We would be mad to risk this.
Tony Grahame
Edinburgh

I WOULD think it unlikely that any pro-independence party other than the SNP or Green Party could stand candidates in every list. These other parties should concentrate on areas where analysis of the previous Holyrood election results and current trends and poling will show the SNP are least likely to get a list candidate elected due to the number of constituency candidates. They should also take into account where they may not win constituency seats due to “a co-ordinated Unionist campaign of tactical voting” (Activists on why both votes SNP is the way ahead at the election, September 30) and where the Green party isn’t standing.

Individually the other parties should be able to identify which remaining constituencies their particular party is most likely to win list seats in and concentrate efforts on these. Why these parties doing what any sensible party does to gain seats should be considered “gerrymandering” or “playing the system” (Martin Hannan, September 30) makes no sense. By deciding not to stand against each other indiscriminately

then we could expect to maximise the numbers of SNP, Green MSPs and other pro-independence MSPs and also maximise the number of and percentage of pro-independence votes.

With Westminster giving no indication of it agreeing to a second independence referendum and a decline in UK democracy, in particular the power grab from the devolved governments with the Internal Market Bill, party manifestos should indicate clearly that a majority of pro-independence MSPs and a majority of votes for pro-independence parties at the Holyrood election will be taken as a vote to declare Scotland to be independent.

By avoiding unnecessarily working against each other the likely positive results, whether or not Westminster would like to ignore them, are likely to be recognised by the international community especially given the UK’s indicated willingness to break international law.
Jim Stamper
Bearsden

The SNP will be lucky to get ANY votes if they all they do about this illegal Brexit/devolution-destroying bill is rant a bit then do nothing as usual. At the very least they should withdraw their MPs from Westminster to make their rejection clear.
Dennis Nicholson
via thenational.scot