[SCOT goes POP!] A crucial arithmetical point: the SNP on their own have more seats than all of the unionist parties combined

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A crucial arithmetical point: the SNP on their own have more seats than all of the unionist parties combined

SNP: 58 seats

All unionist parties: 56 seats

Greens: 15 seats

This hadn't occurred to me until I saw someone mention it on Twitter this morning, but from a psychological point of view it's absolutely vital.  Now, to be clear, I never thought the target of a single-party overall majority should have been set, I spoke out against it vociferously at the time, and I voted against it as a delegate at the SNP conference in Aberdeen.  In a proportional representation system, it shouldn't matter a damn whether you achieve the near-impossible feat of a majority.  But if unionists try to take advantage of the fact that the target was set, it's a massive problem for them that their combined forces in parliament are clearly outnumbered by the SNP as a single party.  The only way they can arithmetically claim that the SNP have been denied a mandate for an independence referendum is by actually counting the Greens on the unionist side, which is the sort of logical gymnastics that even our biased media would be likely to find too much of a stretch.  The Green manifesto, even though Andrew Neil apparently didn't bother checking it, baldly stated that "Scotland should be an independent country" and called for an independence referendum.

I also have very little time for unionist commentators (or for those who are, let me politely put it, adjacent to unionist commentators) who are trying to retrospectively claim that vote shares are more important than seats.  I'm no great enthusiast for the Additional Member System - I've called for years for a switch to a pure list system as has just happened in Wales, and failing that STV would probably be my second choice (although STV is actually a lot, lot less proportional than people assume).  But given that Westminster introduced our current voting system in the first place, the cheerleaders for Westminster rule really don't have a leg to stand on in saying that the result the system produced should not be respected.  Let me remind them of the way they reacted with incredulity two years ago when I pointed out, entirely accurately, that the SNP's result in the UK general election was nowhere near as bad as was being portrayed, because for every 7 votes Labour had received, the SNP had received 6.  "The system is the system!" they spluttered with entitled rage.  "You're in denial about a total wipeout for the SNP across the central belt!"

If unionists now want to claim the electoral system is a problem, get back to us when you're ready to introduce a voting system at Westminster that would have given the SNP their rightful six-sevenths of Labour's seats at the 2024 general election.

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Source: A crucial arithmetical point: the SNP on their own have more seats than all of the unionist parties combined