LESLEY Riddoch (May 30) suggests the SNP will win more votes with policies tackling real issues. How much more wrong could she and her ilk be?

We shouldn’t even be in Westminster. It’s like the Ukrainians sitting in the Kremlin. Powerless and downtrodden. And that’s precisely why they are fighting fiercely at great human cost to preserve their independence.

We’ll never regain our independence through the influence we don’t enjoy on the green benches of Westminster; which the establishment parties know and which is why they humiliatingly laugh at us to remind us of their control over us.

READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: The SNP will win more votes with policies tackling real issues

The battle will be won through the Scottish Parliament opposing Westminster domination, through the hearts of Scots and on the streets. And what will galvanise opinion is a clear roadmap defining the tactics; we already know the strategy. We need to know the SNP is prepared to break the eggs to make the omelette.

Isn’t it time to stop shilly-shallying around pandering to the don’t-knows who merely feed off the lack of confidence displayed by this SNP leadership? Shouldn’t we stop pandering to indecisiveness and insecurities of the ditherers, both party and electorate, and drive home the confidence of the committed who have seriously considered the indy option and recognise it is the only way to a better future, free from the machinations of a British government that pays lip service to Scotland on one hand, while the other continually reaches into its pockets to bail out rUK?

Let’s be bold with our tactics, let’s think outside the box. Following Sun Tzu, sometimes it is necessary to tactically retreat to pull the opponent onto your favoured battleground.

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Now, we know the democracy-deficient establishment parties, recognising the importance of gaining seats in Scotland to play their control game, are doing all they can to exclude Westminster’s third-biggest party from the debate; establishment censorship.

So, why don’t we give them what they wish? Let all appointed indy-supporting candidates stand down from this election at the last moment, send the clearest message to Westminster we are no longer prepared to play their game which they and we both know we can never win. Ask every indy-supporting voter to spoil their paper by writing “Scotland demands independence” on it.

A Westminster without that huge Scottish input would have no political integrity. It would be flawed before the first ballot was cast.

And we in Scotland can proceed by all major contributors working together to make the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections the independence referendum that the democracy-denying UK is conspiring to deny us.

Lesley, it’s truly not about policies in this election, because those are UK policies we can have no control over. They are irrelevant to the indy cause, irrelevant to Scotland.

This election should be about how we can use it to our tactical advantage to advance the cause of independence for Scotland.

And nothing else.

Jim Taylor
Scotland

ANOTHER cracker from Lesley in Thursday’s article (Forget canvassing – the SNP will win more votes with policies tackling real issues). Without wishing to sound like a deranged super fan, this woman just makes so much sense that I fear she is not being heard, or listened to, by government policy-makers. In my humble opinion she should be their chief advisor. I know she is not party political. Me neither. All the more reason for the SNP to listen to her and step out of the party bubble. Bold government initiatives would enhance the canvassers’ job, undoubtedly motivating us all. Once again the dots must be joined and quickly. Time is running out.

Noirin Blackie
Haddington

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I TOTALLY agree with Lesley. Scotland’s chief civil servant has decreed that publication of the Scottish Government’s legislative agenda in June would be “ultra vires” but there is nothing stopping the SNP from floating what’s contained in their legislative agenda before publication, is there!

If Sunak can float his daft idea of a conscript army of 18-year-olds and if Starmer can make up policy on the hoof and then do an about turn within days, then there’s absolutely nothing to stop John Swinney from doing what Scotland’s chief civil servant warned against, which is to “risk influencing the outcome of the UK General Election.”

That is exactly what John Swinney should be doing!

Thom Muir
via thenational.scot

“PUT people-smugglers on the barge set for asylum seekers and ship the barge up to the north of Scotland.” The words of Labour’s Josh Simons. Sarwar said at the time he was not part of Labour. Well he is now – he is standing for the Labour in the General Election. Who will confront Sarwar on this? Certainly not the BBC, who are in full Labour campaigning mode.

Starmer was in Wales with campaign boards saying “Change” in English and Welsh with the Welsh dragon. Compare with Scotland – no Gaelic and no Saltire. What are they afraid of?

READ MORE: Scottish Labour defend MP hopeful Josh Simons despite past attacks

Labour are also purging the UK party of any left-leaning candidates and anyone who is not just a nodding head.

Starmer does not want to debate with either Swinney or Flynn – feart is the word. Starmer is no speaker and the media are happy to oblige and be just as anti-democratic, but leaving out the third-biggest party in parliament, the SNP, which also has the most seats in Holyrood? The debate with the four Scottish party leaders is a disgrace with not one of them standing in Westminster.

Winifred McCartney
Paisley