A matter of conscience

New poll finds Scottish Labour ‘have greatest lead over SNP’ in decade

When I see headlines like this, my first reaction is something akin to panic. This is quickly overtaken by the now familiar frustration with the fickleness of voters and anger at the blinkered stupidity of the SNP leadership which is almost entirely responsible for this change of fortunes.

The instinctive panic is explained by the fact of Scotland's cause being so closely associated with the SNP. It is not unnatural to at least momentarily take a fall in support for the 'party of independence' as being a reduction in support for independence when so much of the media messaging works to create that association. For some, of course, the association is real. The SNP loyalists and apologists actually do consider polling for the SNP in a Westminster election to have implications for the fight to restore Scotland's independence. Others have ceased to think of the SNP as part of that fight. Or think the party now merely peripheral to Scotland's cause.

The panic evaporates with the realisation that it doesn't matter. It's a Westminster election. So, it's irrelevant as far as Scotland's cause is concerned. It makes absolutely no difference what the relative parliamentary strengths of the parties turns out to be. There is no outcome which benefits Scotland's cause. Every conceivable result is bad news for both the nation and the national cause.

Frustration with voters is surely justified. If, as Professor John Curtice opines, the poll "suggests Yes supporters are moving towards voting Labour" then mere frustration is a rather mild reaction to stupidity so profound. If you're a Yes supporter then voting for one of the British parties makes no sense. How can you be considered a Yes supporter when you vote for a Unionist party. It's as irrational and contradictory as a professed communist voting Tory. Or vice versa.

You may say that voting SNP doesn't help Scotland's cause either. And you'd be right! But at least you'd be voting for a party that is nominally pro-independence rather than a party which is avowedly pro-Union. It may not matter how you vote in terms of its practical effects. But it matters in terms of your own conscience. At least by voting SNP you are not voting against your own principles.

I do understand that it may be difficult for people to vote for the SNP. Their anger at the party's betrayal may be so great that they just can't bring themselves to put their cross next to the name of an SNP candidate. The anger is fully warranted. But it cannot explain a choice to vote for a party which represents the antithesis of the thing that the SNP leadership has so grievously betrayed. Doing so would be your own personal betrayal of Scotland's cause. It makes no sense.

It makes no sense for anybody to vote for British Labour in the hope or expectation of meaningful change when Sir Keir Starmer has put so much effort into aligning the party he leads with the party it supposedly opposes. If there is less than no reason for socialists to vote for British Labour, how much less sense does this choice make "for those o' independent mind", to borrow iScot Magazine's strapline?

Let me state my point once again as I'm confident more than a few people just won't get it. I'm not saying you should vote for the SNP in the coming UK general election because this will help Scotland's cause. It won't! It definitely won't! I'm saying a supporter of Scotland's cause should always choose a pro-independence party - even if only nominally - over a Unionist / British Nationalist party. They should always choose a Scottish party over a British one, even if only as a matter of personal conscience.

It should never even occur to a Yes supporter to vote for a British party. The fact that it apparently does is an indication of how much damage has been done to the Yes movement by the SNP leadership.