IN this Westminster election campaign we are in may respects through the looking glass. I’ve spoken to people who normally vote pro-independence/SNP who say they don’t know who to vote for, with some of them considering voting LibDem. I’ve seen people who are normally pro-NHS and anti-Tory now railing against Jeremy Corbyn and saying they’ll vote Conservative. The normal rules don’t seem to apply now.
The anti-Brexit vote will have a choice of three or four parties to vote for (depending how they perceive Labour’s stance on any given day). This does mean that if the Tories play strongly on delivering Brexit they could well take a significant amount of voters who would not otherwise be disposed towards them, a reversal of the usual Scottish situation where the Better Together parties are all fishing in the same barrel while the SNP have around half the electorate all to themselves.
READ MORE: ITV leaders’ debate will exclude SNP and LibDems, High Court hears
Looking at my local seat, Airdrie & Shotts, even if we were to write off the Tories it still leaves things too close to call, with the LibDems possibly taking soft SNP and Labour voters, but again still not enough to take the seat.
This is an election which the Greens could comfortably have sat out, but they have taken the decision to stand. Patrick Harvie has said that these decisions would be taken locally, but given the rather small membership of the Scottish Greens that decision will likely have been driven by the candidate, and if her participation draws votes from the SNP and is perceived to have lost them the seat then it won’t bode well for the Holyrood elections, and may be a costly vanity project which raises the candidate’s profile in the short term and damages it in the long term.
I’ve seen no local electoral material yet and as far as I’m aware no hustings will be taking place, so we haven’t exactly reached fever pitch. Locally the SNP dropped around 10,000 votes from 2015 to 2017 and that was primarily down to failure to motivate their core support.
Perhaps this was down to the downplaying of independence during the campaign, or maybe this was down to their voters having seen their previous mountainous majorities and assuming that their votes weren’t that important.
That mistake could be about to be replayed, with the media already shouting that the SNP are likely to oust all of Scotland’s Tories. There’s a hubristic sense of “job done” being displayed which could well be Kinnockian in scope, and if so that will be incredibly damaging.
As it stands it’s still too close to call though, and that’s the message that the SNP will have to shout from the rooftops if they are to entertain their hopes of giving the Unionist parties the bloody nose they hope to inflict; otherwise they may find their aim is off and they are left punch drunk on the canvas, wondering what hit them.
James Cassidy
Airdrie
IT was unsurprising to read that the UK Foreign Secretary was unable to confirm whether “foreign trawlers” would be given less or more access to UK waters following a post-Brexit trade deal (Tories are ready to ‘sell out’ our fishing, November 18).
The narrative of “control” remains sadly symptomatic of the low level of political debate about fishing, where all too frequently politicians seek scapegoats, rather than tackling the roots of overfishing: quasi-privatisation and concentration of quota rights, and the decades of managerial neglect that have undermined our vital inshore fisheries. Our fisheries should be managed in the public interest, not to appease vested ones.
READ MORE: Tories are ready to ‘sell out’ Scottish fishing in Brexit deal
Wherever the constitutional chips fall in the coming months, the question is whether Scottish politicians are collectively able to prioritise the interests of our fish and environment, upon which livelihoods and trade talks ultimately depend. Scotland’s west coast cod stock is still on its knees, whilst we sieve our seas for scampi. Our inshore waters employ the vast majority of Scotland’s fishermen, but they are struggling.
We advocate for a “sustainable six” where access to coastal waters six miles from shore is conditional on a fishing business’s activity being sustainable. This measure would regenerate our coastal fisheries and is already within the gift of the Scottish Parliament. When are politicians going to acknowledge the crisis and take some strong action to rebuild our degraded stocks?
Nick Underdown
Head of communications and campaigns, Open Seas
WHY are the Scotland players currently wearing strips with a red stripe on the sleeve? Along with the standard blue and white colours this adds up to red, white and blue, which we never had before.
Am I being paranoid or is this another step towards Unionist brainwashing?
Keith Mathieson
Kirriemuir
READERS of your letters page will be very familiar with Janet Cunningham, who was a very regular contributor, a great friend and a staunch campaigner for independence.
Sadly Janet died earlier this month after a very sudden but blessedly short illness. We say goodbye to her on Wednesday at Falkirk Crematorium.
Her last letter to The National was published on October 22 and I’ve quoted a little of it here – she was far more eloquent than I am.
READ MORE: Letters, October 22
“To quote from Ecclesiastes: ‘There is a season for everything ...’ By the end of this present chaotic period of intrigue, lies and power games, perhaps we shall witness the ‘time for uprooting what has been planted’. I hope to see the day!”
She won’t now see that day but perhaps we could carry her memory, with that of other friends and comrades lost, to celebrate that day in our hearts.
Ann Ballinger
Cumbernauld
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