SNP’s use-by date

Published on 09/08/2012 00:00

I’ve made the point before in your letters pages that it would be very strange for the SNP to continue to exist after independence.

There’s no French, German or American National Party in any of those countries’ legislatures, after all. However, Angus Robertson MP talks explicitly of an “SNP government in an independent Scotland” (your report, 8 August).

I think it’s about time the party decided its priority: independence for Scotland, and thus the creation of a sovereign parliament which will make its own decisions about Nato membership without the obsolete SNP, or the perpetuation of its own existence?

If it chooses the first, it will maximise support for independence from voters across the political spectrum, who will see the attraction of arguing their case in a new country which could shed its historical baggage and start afresh.

If it chooses the second, it will lose, for it will divide the electorate rather than uniting it.

That outcome would sell us all short: just as war is too important to be left to the generals, so independence is too important to be left to the SNP.

If the party does not have the vision to see this, then Brian Wilson’s (same issue) suggestion that the SNP prefers the status quo to the prospect of independence is a shrewd one.

If the party’s supporters can’t see my point, perhaps they should think about those currently winning Olympic gold. Would they have stood highest on their podiums if they’d been content to settle for second best?

Andrew Anderson

Granton Road

Edinburgh