A huge pro-indy majority is possible if list votes are cast for Alba

THE wisdom of voting Alba on the list grows daily, especially with every poll consistently showing that the SNP list votes will yield zero list MSPs for the SNP.

Yet, despite that reality, my old pal and friend Pete Wishart MP makes a puzzling, forlorn and illogical appeal for pro-independence voters to not only squander their list vote on the SNP, but inadvertently assist anti-independence parties such as Reform. While I trust that helping Nigel Farage was not the intention, it does remain the obvious consequence.

Therefore, it is important for the pro-independence voters to have their wits about them when it comes to the Scottish Parliament election and use their pro-independence list votes for Alba, to advance independence in the next few years.

Understanding the system is key. In the Scottish Parliament there are 73 MSP elected in the constituencies and 56 on the eight regional lists. Because the SNP do so well in the constituencies, their roughly 30% of list votes get thrown in the bin, not helping elect pro-independence MSPs.

Instead, the unavoidable reality is that wasted SNP list votes will help Reform and the other anti-independence parties gain more of the 56 list-seat MSPs, because the remaining percentage, not thrown in the bin, determines all the 56 seats.

If the wasted 30% of pro-independence list votes instead transfer to Alba, on current projections Reform would fail to win more than half of their expected list seats, meaning 10 fewer Reform MSPs. Labour would fail to win almost half, and the Tories and Liberals a smattering.

This would give about 22 to 26 pro-independence Alba list MSPs. All with no detriment to the SNP, who are projected to get zero of these list MSPs anyway. So with Alba we can maximise the use of our votes for independence.

The most compelling reason for this strategy is that, when John Swinney finds his referendum request inevitably refused – by whoever is the UK PM that week – Alba will have the numbers to help the SNP and call an extraordinary general election on the matter of independence.

History shows that since 1945, Westminster has accepted elections as a route to independence for all 19 countries that have pursued it.

Angus Brendan MacNeil

Lead ALBA Candidate for Highlands and Islands

[This letter was first published in The National in response to Pete Wishart's Article]