We don’t know when the next Scottish Parliament
Election will be. It might be in May as scheduled or it might be delayed. Polls
suggest that the SNP will win an overall majority.
Each of us gets two votes for the Scottish Parliament.
The first is for 73 constituencies elected by First Past the Post. The second
is for 8 regions elected by proportional representation by the Additional
Member System.
The last opinion poll I have seen puts the SNP on 52%
in the constituency vote and 46% in the regional list vote. If this stays the
same, then the SNP are projected to win 72 seats out of 129 which would give
them an overall majority.
If the SNP wins 52% of the constituency vote, they
will win nearly all of the constituencies. The only exceptions may be a Conservative
seat or two in the Borders and the Lib Dems winning Orkney and Shetland.
But the SNP will win very few list seats. The whole
point of the Additional Member System is that the number of seats a party gets
reflects its share of the vote. So, if the SNP won say 70 constituencies it
would not win 46% of the list because it would already have nearly its fair
share of seats.
This is why independence supporters might vote Scottish
Green because a vote for the SNP on the list seats may not lead to more SNP
seats. A Green nationalist is the same as a yellow nationalist. For which
reason Pro UK people who are concerned about the environment must never ever
vote for the Scottish Greens.
The main Scottish opposition parties are doing very
badly indeed.
Conservatives are on 20%
Labour are on 17% (16% on the list seats)
Lib Dems are on 6%.
Even if we add all these votes together it won’t be
enough to beat the SNP. But this makes the argument for cooperation between the
opposition parties unanswerable. If there are three Pro UK parties splitting
the vote in the constituencies, they will hardly be able to defeat the SNP
anywhere. But if there were only one Pro UK party standing where it had the
best chance to win it might be possible to win more than just 2 or 3 constituencies.
One party could at least compete.
The problem with the three main opposition parties is
that they do not wish to cooperate. They do not wish to stand only one Pro UK
candidate where he has the best chance.
Tactical voting campaigns rarely if ever work. It’s
only when parties stand down their candidates where they cannot win that there
is the possibility of defeating an opponent who is polling as well as the SNP.
It would be better still if there were only one Pro UK party with a variety of
political opinions from the Left to the Right. What could we call such a party?
All for Unity.
All for Unity is the new name for Alliance for Unity.
The Electoral Commission didn’t like the Alliance bit. But I much prefer All
for Unity anyway. All Pro UK people in Scotland must unite to defeat the SNP
and maintain the unity of the United Kingdom.
How bad does it have to get for Scottish Labour, the
Lib Dems and Conservatives, before they decide to work together? Unfortunately,
it is not bad enough yet. Career opposition politicians can rely on the list
system so that they keep their jobs. Perhaps if they were in danger of losing
their salaries they might think again.
The All for Unity strategy is simple.
1. Vote for whichever Pro UK candidate has the best
chance of winning the constituency where you live.
2. Vote for All for Unity in the list seats.
Imagine if All for Unity won 10% to 20% of the list
seats. This would mean that current Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem MSPs would
lose out. But it would not mean that there were fewer Pro UK MSPs. The method
of calculating list seats is designed to reflect each party’s share of the
vote. If Conservative, Lib Dems and Labour supporters switch to All for Unity in the list vote it
isn’t going to increase the vote share of the Scottish Greens or any other
separatist party, so it ought not if the system is fair increase the number of
Scottish Green seats or anyone else.
If a number of Pro UK sitting MSPs lost their seats to
All for Unity, it would do more than anything else could to stir the rest into
action. It might just make them see the benefit of their being only one Pro UK
party in Scotland.
The SNP are on 52% and the Pro UK parties nowhere,
because the Pro UK parties have been failing Scotland. MSPs are mainly
anonymous and they rarely have the talent or personality to make convincing
arguments against the SNP on television or in the press.
52% out of 100% is not a big lead, but already the Pro
UK opposition has given up on the constituencies and leading MSPs are seeking
safety on the lists. But they have given up because they are divided and
because they don’t want to work together.
Pro UK people in Scotland must put aside
party-political difference. If All for Unity makes progress, there will be an
example of people of different political perspectives working together for the
sake of our country. Only by overcoming the division between Labour, the
Conservatives and the Lib Dems, will we be able to overcome the division in
Scotland that is threatening to partition Britain.
Many people are complaining that All for Unity will
split the vote. But it doesn’t matter if the Pro UK cake is split four ways
rather than three. What matters is getting Pro UK MSPs who are willing to fight
the SNP rather than agree with them and who put the unity of our country before
party politics and career. Holyrood has become a cosy club. I have the
impression that many of the opposition wouldn’t mind that much if Scotland
became independent so long as they kept their jobs.
The choice is between remaining divided three ways which will just give us more of the same or trying something different that just might make a difference. All of us working together for unity is the same argument about everyone in Britain seeking unity rather than division. All for Unity is the Pro UK argument.
