Yes Mafia

UNTIL I read about it in Scotland on Sunday last week I had assumed that the republican-minded parts of the Yes campaign were practising an omerta of which the Mafia would be proud as a tactic to get them through the referendum.

Why did they not tell the SNP they did not speak for them when they asserted that Charles would be King of Scotland? They couldn’t have missed it. It was in all the papers. It was in the White Paper.

Apparently they have only decided now to speak up because plans are afoot to create an interim constitution which would include the continuation of the monarchy. So now everyone knows about the deep division in the Yes camp that they have kept hidden ever since its inception.

There are republicans who will vote No as well as those who will vote Yes. But both must realise that changing either Scotland alone or the UK to a republic will not happen any time soon. The present Queen enjoys a lot of support but not all her heirs and successors will. I personally believe that the whole idea of hereditary monarchy should be abandoned as it is the pinnacle of a class system that is incompatible with equality.

However, in a democracy people have to be won to an argument. And you may not win an argument if you speak up, but you will certainly not win it if you keep your lips sealed. That is why I found the silence of the left in the Yes camp inexplicable, unless it was like their silence on so many other things: tell people their dreams for the future of Scotland but don’t tell them how unlikely they are when it’s the SNP that calls the shots.

Maria Fyfe, Glasgow