SNP 1&2 was always a better bet than voting for Alba

It is a view born of the arrogant belief that those who gave the SNP their vote in the election were the SNP’s to command and Alba’s to demand. The reality is that they were, and remain, neither.

People voted SNP because they wanted to. They did not vote Alba because they did not want to. That is the harsh reality that Alba’s supporters cannot understand, refuse to acknowledge and seek to blame others for in an attempt to soften the blow.

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The fact is, more than 200,000 people who voted SNP in the constituencies gave their list vote to another party. Had all those people voted SNP 1&2 as that party urged, or even just most of them, the SNP would have won a comfortable majority with up to seven list MSPs. Such are the margins in these calculations.

However, only a small fraction of these vote-splitters decided Alba was their preferred second choice. This was not because few people knew about them, as Salmond’s presence gave them a high profile most other parties, including the Greens, could only dream of.

It was not because the SNP were beastly in asking for SNP 1&2, as most reasonable people would acknowledge they could do nothing else if they wanted a majority, not to mention staying on the Electoral Commission’s good side. Considering much of Alba’s support and hierarchy has spent the last year or more describing the SNP as corrupt, calling for Sturgeon’s resignation and telling people not to vote for them, it’s a bit rich to then demand that they urge their support to vote for Alba on the list.

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It was certainly not because independence supporters are “imbeciles”, as one of the high-profile Alba-supporting bloggers – who recently flounced off the scene in a grand huff – described them on his blog. People did not vote for Alba because they are a brand new fringe party, made up of a hastily assembled mish-mash of the discontent led by the most unpopular major politician in Scotland.

SNP 1&2 did not cause Alba’s utter failure to make an impact on Holyrood. That failure was inevitable. The arrogant, entitled and delusional assumption that independence supporters would simply do as they were told led to unrealistic expectations among Alba’s support and, subsequently, a mass throwing of toys out of the pram when they were not realised.

SNP 1&2 was a better bet for SNP supporters than giving Alba their list vote as it would have delivered an SNP majority, and it is easier to persuade people to vote for a party they already support than gamble on one that is languishing in the polls and is openly hostile to your first-choice party.

Stuart Allan
Perth

CONCERNING some recent opinions about the use of civil disobedience in the fight to secure an indyref2, I add my own comment.

The chances of the SNP government or its party leadership initiating, promoting or encouraging civil disobedience at this moment in the campaign is a naive thought.

While not dismissing any future events of this nature as our struggle develops, at this stage of our fight should we be considering it as a positive tactic?

There are two forms of such activity: spontaneous and organised. The first is outwith a movement’s control. The second requires serious thinking and analysis. We witnessed the first on Kenmure Street for a different purpose, though I would prefer to use the term civic action.

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We could assume a less visual style of civil disobedience is happening at the moment, though we have no evidence or apparent campaign. That is a refusal by viewers to pay the TV licence because of BBC political bias.

In my past life I have participated in two civil disobedience campaigns. One was a withholding of a rent increase resulting from a Tory housing act (1970s) and the other was non-payment of the poll tax (1980s). In both instances, after the campaign ended I had to pay them.

Civil disobedience, whatever its form or nature, will arise in struggles of people, but if it is embarked upon in organised form it requires to be clearly defined as to its reason, purpose and aim to those who would participate, as well as good and sustained organisation.

Unemotional assessment as to whether it will advance, hinder or set back the struggle is vital, because the matter of independence is the most important issue Scotland has faced for a long time.

Bobby Brennan
Glasgow

WE know in the UK there are 14 million who live below the poverty line. We know the thousands of food banks have become an acceptable norm in our society. Yet the news concentrate on green and amber lists regarding foreign travel! Under Westminster rule we have become a selfish, uncaring society. The status quo has to change. Our children deserve better. The real news has to be broadcast and not buried.

Robin MacLean
Fort Augustus