[SCOT goes POP!] Time to get real: if you're an independence supporter, you need to vote, and you need to vote for a pro-independence party

[ALBA-Bot]

Time to get real: if you're an independence supporter, you need to vote, and you need to vote for a pro-independence party

The independence movement is facing by far its most challenging election for a decade, and yet when I look at the comments section of this blog it's like stepping into Narnia, because it's full of apparently committed independence supporters debating whether they will somehow help the situation by staying at home on polling day, or by spoiling their ballot paper, or by voting tactically to oust their local SNP MP.  To state what ought to be the bleedin' obvious, no, you will not help by doing any of those things.  You will do tremendous harm.

Yes, I know all the arguments backwards: Pete Wishart is so comfortable in Westminster that he's referred to as "Slippers", John Nicolson is an identity politics extremist who is unacceptable to feminists, Stewart McDonald is (at best) a devolutionist who is infatuated with British militarism, etc, etc.  But all of that is totally irrelevant in the current context and I'll explain why.

What people are overlooking is the importance of momentum and story-telling.  Think back to the aftermath of the failure to pass the 40% threshold in the 1979 devolution referendum, and the SNP losing nine of their eleven seats a few weeks later at the general election.  That created a narrative that the Scottish people had slammed the door shut on devolution through lack of interest, and indeed a generation passed by before Home Rule became possible once again.  The media and London establishment are eagerly waiting to declare this election the decisive 1979-style turning-point at which voters put independence back in its box, where it can be safely ignored for the next twenty years.  Nobody will give a monkey's about the minutiae or nuances of the views of individual SNP MPs - if someone like Stewart McDonald loses his seat, it will be seen as confirming the narrative of a generational rejection of independence.  If he holds his seat, it will be seen as calling that narrative into question and keeping the flame of independence alive.  And that's our task for this election: simply to keep the flame alive so we can live to fight another day and hopefully press home for independence in 2026.  I very much doubt we'll have that opportunity if the SNP are routed in July.  The media will tell the public that they've moved on from the independence question, and the public will believe that about themselves.

If you can't bring yourself to vote SNP for whatever reason, there will be other pro-independence parties like Alba and the Greens to choose from in some seats.  But I make no bones about it: if the SNP are the only pro-independence party standing in your constituency, the logic points overwhelmingly towards voting SNP.  If you don't, you're either using your vote to do harm to the independence cause, or you're refraining from using your vote to do anything constructive.

Source: Time to get real: if you're an independence supporter, you need to vote, and you need to vote for a pro-independence party