AFTER a lengthy – and pandemic-disrupted – process, I was delighted to receive confirmation last week that I have passed vetting and am able to put myself forward to be the SNP candidate for Eastwood in next year’s elections.

SNP MSPs carry not only the hopes of a party but an entire political movement. Of course, other parties support independence and the movement reaches further than SNP supporters, but it will be the SNP which delivers the referendum and then independence, through government at Holyrood. So, SNP MSPs elected next year will carry a great responsibility, far beyond the five-year term of the parliament, but for the whole future of Scotland.

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That being the case, it is right that the party gives vetting the time it needs. As my assessor delighted in telling me, the party “turns supporters into members, members into activists and activists into elected members”. My own journey to this point has been even longer, however.

I arrived in Scotland in 1997, to go to university, but also simply looking for a way out of Belfast. I’d been raised there during some of the worst of the troubles; I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been evacuated from buildings due to bomb scares, even my own school. By the time I was 18 I was scunnered with the place and happily left it behind for Glasgow. There was no doubt in my mind who’d ruined Belfast: nationalists, on both sides of the divide, and I didn’t want anything to do with them.

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I was surprised to meet Scots who supported independence at first. None of them were the kind of bigot I was used to – they debated with patience and respect – and over time they won me over.

I can’t identify the point where I became an independence supporter because it was a slow process. I moved from opposition to ambivalence then cautious support and finally determination. By 2012, when I joined the SNP, I also knew independence wasn’t going to happen if I didn’t put a bit of work in. Since I moved to Eastwood in 2014, I’ve participated in every election campaign. I’ve chapped the doors of countless strangers, in every part of the constituency, to speak to them about the SNP and independence. I know the people of Eastwood and I know that Eastwood is a unique constituency. It’s one of the last places in Scotland with a population of wild Tories, which is why they currently hold the seat. But I know that we can win Eastwood from them and deal a fatal blow to the Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland in the process.

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Voters in Eastwood backed the Union strongly in 2014, but they backed the EU more enthusiastically in 2016. Now they have a choice to make, and I know that many Eastwood No voters are changing their minds about independence because they recognise the Tories’ Brexit for the disaster it will be. I know because I’ve spoken to hundreds of them, at the school gates, on the litter picks, in the pub and the shops, and also during years of door-knocking for the party here.

I have come to understand the hopes and fears of voters in this swing constituency where national trends often do not play out. In 2019 they backed the SNP by returning Kirsten Oswald with a bigger majority than in 2015, another sign that the tide is turning here. Eastwood is ready to join the independence movement, but it will take patience and understanding to help it complete that journey. My own experiences give me that patience and my history of activism here gives me that understanding. I can win Eastwood for the SNP and grow the independence movement here as I do it.

Members with questions can contact me at davidtammcdonald@protonmail.com. The pandemic restrictions make campaigning for selection more difficult than in previous elections, so I thank The National for giving prospective candidates this platform to help them reach supporters. I look forward to speaking with members on the phone or on Zoom during the selection process.

David Tam McDonald
via email

LIKE Mel Henshall of Melrose (Letters, September 25), I too am an English national living in Scotland. However, I have been here nigh on ten years now and feel virtually like a native (and very accepted) Scot. Very rarely do I think about Scotland not being my place of birth.

However, like Mel, I do think about the now 45% of residents in Scotland who still choose to remain umbilically linked to the Westminster government. Probably not all independence dissenters are Scots. Perhaps there are still a significant number of English people in Scotland who would still choose to “remain” under a UK government, or even a few nationals from other countries. But these would all be in the minority of the 45%.

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My conversion to Scottish independence wasn’t difficult after my first year. Scotland is in my blood anyway and my wife is a braw Glasgow girl whom I knew long before my move here.

So welcome to Scotland, Mel Henshall, and enjoy your retirement in this bonny country as indeed I have been doing.

Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife