IT SEEMS OBVIOUS WHAT IS WRONG.

Regular columnist questions why the SNP are so reluctant to state a vote for the SNP is a vote for Independence.

As expected, it is left to Mr Salmond and his two Alba MPs to sort out the absurd mess Nicola Sturgeon has thrown us into for the last 7 years.

Johnson, May before him, and presumably whoever will be parachuted to PM by England’s tory members, only have a “veto” on Scotland’s democracy because Nicola Sturgeon and the three SNP MP majorities, have allowed those tories to keep exercising that veto. 

These are the words of Lord Foulkes of Cumnock during the House of Lords debate about Scotland’s independence on 24 June 2014. They recognise the importance of a majority of MPs:

“why did winning the Holyrood election, getting 44% of the vote, give the mandate to Alex Salmond to have the agreement with Cameron that there was going to be a referendum? We, the Labour Party, controlled the majority of Westminster seats in Scotland. It did not get 50% of the vote; he assumed that there was a mandate and Cameron accepted that. We all accepted it”

“We all accepted it”. He said. The labour party had at the time the majority of Scotland’s MPs, therefore they could have vetoed that decision. Why didn’t they? In my view, it might have been because to really exercise the power of veto they would have to threaten to recall the Scottish MPs from Westminster, which is a de facto suspension of the treaty. Labour is a staunch unionist party and would have never taken such a dangerous route, that is why, in my view, they had no choice other than accept the referendum. You can see on this how a very smart Mr Salmond might have got them exactly where he wanted them. 

But if this is true, what it means is that Sturgeon could have rendered May’s or Johnson’s veto’s worthless if only she had shown the teeth of those 3 SNP majorities. 

This line of thought appears corroborated by this quote from Lord Maxton also in the House of Lords debate on 24 June 2014:

“I also believe that, if Scotland votes no, a very long time must pass before we have another referendum on this issue. A 60:40 result is good enough. It should be enough to say, “No, no more, we are not going to have any more referendums on this issue. There is only one way that could occur, and it will not be from a vote in the Scottish Parliament. It could occur only if the SNP gained a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Then there might be a case for saying, “We will hold another referendum” ”

This is an interesting quote. Lord Maxton is clearly stating that there is only one circumstance under which they thought they could not stop Scotland having a referendum: if the SNP (or anti-union MPs) won a majority of the seats. My guess is they could not stop it because those MPs could potentially suspend the treaty and reconvene the old Scotland Parliament.

Excellent, so if less than a year after that debate we got a majority of SNP MPs, why haven’t we have our referendum?

Lord Maxton made that comment when Mr Salmond was in control of the SNP. At that time, a vote for the SNP was very much a vote for independence. But what happened the minute Sturgeon took control of the SNP? She removed the dentures of the party and have been trying ever since to decouple independence from voting for the SNP. 

These are the words of Mr Mundell in the House of Commons in reply to Patricia Gibson on 27 January 2020,a bit over a month after General election 2019:

“I hear what the hon. Lady is saying, but in my constituency and other constituencies in the week of the general election, SNP candidates told voters that the election was nothing to do with independence, but that they were to vote SNP if they were against Brexit or if they were against Boris”

These are the words of Mr Dave Doogan (SNP) on that same debate on 27 January 2020:

” Yes indeed, we did write to non-SNP supporting members of the Angus electorate, and I am sure we did that elsewhere in Scotland. It was to invite them, notwithstanding their views on the constitution, to take a view on a more progressive way forward for the country of Scotland, and that is exactly the view that they took and I am pleased that we did that.”

Stating that a vote for the SNP is not a vote for independence is a deliberate way to undermine both, your mandate for independence and how you can use the SNP majorities, as Douglas Ross in the same debate is quick to point out:

“I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman confirming in the House of Commons, so that it will be on the official record, that the SNP garnered votes at this most recent election on the pretence that it was nothing about independence—it was not supporting independence—but less than a month later we are here discussing constitutional issues, because it is all the SNP can bring forward”

Painful as it is for me to admit this, I think Ross was not far from the truth here, but for the opposite reason to what he had in mind. He clearly was trying to portray the scenario where the SNP’s mandate for independence/indyref is invalidated by the fact they were inviting union supporters to vote for them.In other words, for Ross, non independence supporters voting for the SNP is the proof they do not have a mandate. However, for somebody like me, who wants independence and not necessarily indyref, the problem with Sturgeon’s SNP is not how many non-independence supporters were endorsing them because of their good governance. That is totally irrelevant, as long as they stood on a clear stance for independence. I mean, when did the tories invalidated their own mandate if labour supporters voted for them?

The big problem for me here is that the SNP only talks about constitutional issues AFTER the election has passed and AFTER they ensured the constitutional matter and independence WERE NOT included in the manifesto so they could not be used, leaving the begging for the referendum as the only path. That union supporters voted for them is in fact blurring the real issue here, which is that the SNP is only acting as a pro independence party AFTER the election has passed and ONCE the tools to act as an independence party have been swiftly removed by Sturgeon.

The following exchange is from the debate that took place in the HoC on the 17 March 2021, just a few weeks before Holyrood election 2021:

T Perkins (Lab)
“The question I ask SNP Members is, how should someone vote this May if they want independence but think we should have a referendum in a few years’ time, rather than now?… and What about someone who thinks that the SNP is doing a good job and wants to carry on electing an SNP Government to run the Scottish Parliament but does not want independence? How should they vote?”

R. Thomson (SNP)
“The answer in both cases is surely to vote SNP, because the decision about independence is a separate one—for a separate referendum. It is to decouple the issues. That is why we support a referendum”

T. Perkins (Lab)
“I am grateful to the hon. Member for that point; it is a really important one. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) was saying earlier, “If they vote SNP, they know what they are voting for: they’re voting for an independence referendum”, but the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) is saying, “No, if they want an SNP Government, they should vote for us and the referendum is a question on another day.” The mandate that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East was claiming at the start is not actually a legitimate one because it will actually lead to exactly what has just been said. I am grateful for that clarification”

I mean, if this is not undermining your own mandate and handing the opposition an open goal, what is? And, by the way, giving Mr Thomson’s answer, those who voted SNP in 2021, what did they actually voted for? Anybody actually knows? And what mandate, if any, has Sturgeon actually got with this approach? This is madness.

What of course none of the representatives from colonial parties at the debate asked and indeed none of the SNP MPs present during the debate advanced at all is how someone like me should have voted in GE 2015, Holyrood 2016, GE 2017, GE2019, Holyrood 2021 and how they should vote in the next GE if they really want independence, they want it now and they do not want a referendum because after 7 wasted years, they clearly see the devolution route Sturgeon’s referendum take us through is clearly a folly and an excuse for it never to taking place? 

Sturgeon has been doing since 2015 this silly dance of actively removing the power from the SNP MP majorities before the elections and then transferring her responsibility for not delivering onto the tories while having the toothless (politically speaking) SNP MPs whining about the claim of right and Scotland’s right to choose against England MPs. She has done this at every single election ever since. You only do that when you have not intention whatsoever to deliver independence, but still pretend that you do. You do that when what you want is to disable your best weapon to ensure it cannot be used, and when you want to hand ammunition directly to our opponents. This is what we have had for 7 years. It is getting rather boring now.

That debate in June 2021 was a third party opposition day, therefore brought up in the HoC by the SNP. The title of the debate was “Scotland: General Election and Constitutional Future”

Predictably, at the end of the debate the resolution was: 

“That this House believes the priority of the Scottish people is to recover from the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, and that it would be irresponsible to hold a referendum at this time”

369 MPs voted in favour and 55 against.

The most puzzling thing of the whole debate is that some SNP MPs mentioned the claim of right and the right of the people of Scotland to choose their future. Yet, by the mere fact of bringing this debate to the HoC opening the door for over 500 England MPs to stick their nose in what is at all effects a matter for Scotland, and to give them an opportunity to bring all their grievances as to why Scotland, in their view, cannot/should not choose its future at this moment in time, they were actually negating that claim of right. They were inviting external MPs, not endorsed by a single vote from Scotland, to actually make a decision on Scotland’s future. In other words, they were giving them a veto by sharing our sovereignty in choosing our future with over 500 England MPs. Why Scotland’s constitutional future ever be discussed in that chamber is beyond me. Has England’s sovereignty ever been discussed in the House of Commons in this way?

Mr Wishart had an animated and eloquent speech on that debate. But in his speech he mentioned this “I always wonder what exactly the Scottish people think when they watch these debates and some of the curious views of Conservative Members—I am sure they find it all very amusing and bewildering. One of the reasons we bring these debates to the House is to allow the Scottish people a glimpse of the Westminster Tories’ thinking on our nation”

I don’t know how representative my views are in Scotland, but what I think when I watch these debates is what on earth is the SNP playing at? I do not find it amusing or bewildering. I find it insulting. I am not referring to the comments of labour or tories. I have stopped listening to any of them a long time ago. After denying repeatedly the legitimate right of the Scottish people to elect their future, I do no longer waste my time in listening to them. I tend to skip their boring lethanies of platitudes. My grievance is with the SNP. What right do they have to question our sovereignty, constitutional rights and right to choose by inviting over 500 England MPs to stick their nose in what is a matter for Scotland. If you really respect the Claim of Right and you really believe Scotland has every right to exercise its sovereignty and choose its own path, then you put at their disposal the means to do so. You do not open the door for that right to be questioned by bringing the matter to a foreign chamber inviting ten times more foreign MPs than you have. That is not upholding or respecting the Claim of Right. That is handing them an invitation to breach it.

Mr Wishart says that one of the reasons to bring these debates to the HoC is for the people of Scotland to see the Tories’ thinking. The problem with this approach is that we also see Sturgeon’s SNP thinking, and that is the odd one out. We all know the colonial views of tories, labour and libdems. Those have not changed in the last 7 years. What is troubling is watching and hearing in those debates how after 7 years in that chamber, the SNP keeps repeating the same platitudes, the same soundbites, and worse, despite having every majority it could possibly had need to deliver independence, even by Thatcher’s standards, they are progressively more and more entrenched in devolution and more determined on their (and our) subordination to England Mps and England’s government in such an unhealthy way that they are clearly no longer the party of independence, but rather the part of the permanent fight for the survival of meaningful devolution.

I must admit I am saddened to see Mr Salmond also playing Sturgeon’s game of dangling devolution as the only route to exit the union. I am very annoyed that this bogus referendum approach has, for 7 years, distracted us from the elephant in the room:

Nicola Sturgeon has done absolutely nothing to use 3 absolute majorities of anti-union MPs to terminate the Union. All what she has done is to distract us away from the real power of those majorities by keeping our focus on devolution and a path to independence that deliberately makes us subordinated to the UK gov and England mPs. 

I am glad to see that I am not the only one who has found Sturgeon’s strategy odd. This exchange took place between Alan Brown (SNP) and Toby Perkins (Lab) on the 17th March 2021, just a few weeks before the 2021 election:

A. Brown (SNP):
“If the hon. Member properly analyses the polls, he will see that they show that the majority of people do want a referendum in the next few years, so that is wrong. He rightly acknowledged that it is for the Scottish people to decide, so when does he think the Scottish people should be allowed to make that decision, as it were?”

T. Perkins (Labour):
“It is a matter for the UK Government. It would be one thing for the SNP to go into a general election campaign saying, “A vote for us is about independence,” but it is not the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament, so it is very odd for the SNP to ask people to re-elect it on that basis”

Mr Perkins brought up something I have been wondering since 2015: if you have in front of you a direct route to independence which is GE where a majority of MPs can terminate the union, why are you wasting your energy and mandates, and our time insisting on using a separate devolution route that is full of obstacles and that relies on Westminster consent

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