Letter: SNP lifespan

IT’S good to have an SNP member confirming my suspicion that the party would not dissolve itself after independence. No doubt Ian Bayne (Letters, 30 March) is right about its 75-year-old social and economic policies, but its existence will not be enough to justify a fossilisation of pre-independence politics.

A crucial part of national sovereignty in a democracy is what might be called “normal politics”, without any hangover from the past.

There is no independence party in the US, for example, nor, to use a European example, is there one in the Baltic states.

By contrast, Ireland was held back for many years after its independence by its failure to move on from enmities arising from the civil war, which formed and froze the country’s political divisions.

No doubt many in the SNP will wish to continue their political activities, but I would respectfully suggest that they do not do that through membership of a movement which will have achieved its purpose.

Andrew Anderson

Granton Road

Edinburgh