MacAskill tells Swinney to "get real" over Independence strategy
Alba Party Leader Kenny MacAskill has today (Wednesday) written to the First Minister and SNP Leader John Swinney urging him to "get real" over Independence and calling on him to make next year's Holyrood Election Scotland's Independence Election and to seek the mandate to achieve it. This follows his claim that the SNP will need to win a Holyrood majority to secure a second independence referendum. (Letter attached below).
In a statement Mr MacAskill stated:
"The SNP won an overall majority in 2011, under a system that was designed to prevent that ever happening. It did so because we were led by a statesman without rival in the Scottish Parliament at the head of a government which had demonstrated a level of competence and delivery in the NHS, education, local government, transport, inward investment and much else.
"It is well nigh impossible that the SNP will achieve an overall majority at the election. John Swinney is not a leader of the stature and calibre of Alex Salmond and his record and that of his predecessors in government, is frankly poor and does not stand comparison with what was delivered in the first five years of the SNP's term in office. I knew Alex Salmond, I worked closely with Alex Salmond and I am afraid Mr Swinney you are no Alex Salmond!
"John Swinney is taking SNP voters for fools, he is paying lip service to Independence and he is squandering the opportunity of the 2026 election to achieve it.
"Independence supporters will see this for what it is a tactic born of electoral expediency rather than political conviction. It is designed to bolster the SNP vote not to achieve independence.
"To be serious about independence you must first seek the democratic mandate to achieve it.
"That is why I am calling on each of the pro-independence parties to contain a clear and unambiguous commitment in their manifestos that if a majority of votes are cast on the list vote for pro-independence parties that will constitute the mandate for independence, not a second independence referendum.”
