CALLUM Towns (Letters, April 10) brings up a very crucial point, and I am at one with him on it. Because the Scottish elections are based on both first-past-the-post and proportional voting, they are now de facto plebiscites, whether the SNP likes it or not, whether Unionists like it or not, and it is in Scottish elections, for Holyrood, that independence will eventually be won or lost.

If several pro-independence parties are standing, and if independence is in all their manifestos – or in the case of the SNP, in their very existence as a party – and they demur on that, they will have to explain why they continue to masquerade as the party of independence.

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The total number of votes cast for them can, legitimately and democratically, be taken to be THE mandate to begin independence negotiations with Westminster, and not a mandate for another PRE-independence referendum that we can lose again. A ratifying referendum will be necessary to add democratic and legal legitimacy to independence, but AFTER the fact, and not before it.

The number of seats gained by all the pro-independence parties is very important, too, of course – and again, if they gain the majority between them, having stood on a platform for independence, that too is entirely legitimate to either stand on its own or to bolster THE mandate for independence – not a mandate for another referendum. That is logical and constitutional, legal and democratic – in either or both cases – and in no way negates another election or referendum on independence.

Another PRE-independence referendum is, ultimately, unnecessary, both in law (international and domestic) and in British constitutional terms. It is no more than yet another opportunity to delay independence, or far worse, to ensure it is lost on one day, in one vote, as it was in 2014.

When Unionists talk of unfairness and gaming the system, they forget that this is precisely what they did in 2014. When they speak about an assumed alliance of pro-independence parties not being cricket, they form their own alliance on each and every occasion of an election or referendum – even going so far, in elections, as to operate as one body, encouraging each other’s voters to vote for a different Unionist party if that gets the best result for Unionism, so let us do the same.

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The Electoral Commission has never stepped in to chastise them, not once. Yet Alba has been told it cannot use its logo because it was not placed in time. It is a joke – and a very dirty one, at that.

What about the 2014 Vow – never honoured – which breached the “purdah period”? Why about John McTernan (Labour) and Ruth Davidson (Tory) breaching the secrecy rules around the results of an election/referendum, when they both announced that No had won on the postal vote, before the close of poll on September 18 2014? In McTernan’s case, this was done on a public politics programme four days before the close of poll, and he suffered no penalty.

This will be our last chance for independence in many a long year, whatever the politicians say, and to vote tactically and wisely, utilising both the first-past-the-post and the list to achieve it. I have little doubt that the Unionists will try something twisted and desperate, as they always do, but this time do not be fooled.

We, the people, in an election, the primary source of our democracy, hold the power for once, as opposed to the politicians. We, the Scottish people, hold the power to change our lives. Don’t waste it. Please vote, and vote for pro-independence parties.

Lorna Campbell
via email