Any damage caused by a split vote at the general election will be the fault of *all* pro-indy parties - and it's the responsibility of all pro-indy parties to find a way of preventing that damage

My experiment with switching off pre-moderation in the comments section to allow for more free-flowing debate has been surprisingly successful so far (although give it time - it always goes wrong eventually!).  We've had genuine interaction from people across the different divides of the independence movement, which could make Scot Goes Pop one of the few forums where that actually happens. Generally people have become quite ghettoised on other blogs and in the various social media spaces.

One of the main points of difference on recent threads has been on the question of whether independence supporters need to unite behind the SNP at a general election conducted under first-past-the-post, or whether more can be achieved with Alba or ISP, or whether we'd all be better off abstaining or spoiling our ballots.

Let's start with the easy part - the latter would be a monumentally stupid thing to do.  Abstaining or spoiling your ballot has exactly the same effect - as an independence supporter you are ensuring that your view is not even recorded, thus indirectly boosting the unionist share of the vote and helping to take independence off the table.  Scrawling the word "INDEPENDENCE" across the ballot paper as the means of spoiling your ballot does not help in the slightest, because there will be no record that you did that - it'll just go down as a spoilt ballot like any other.

So of course we all should be voting and we should all be voting for a pro-independence party or candidate. But it's certainly true that first-past-the-post means that in an ideal world, there would be just one pro-indy candidate to unite behind in each constituency.  We should be maintaining our traditional precious advantage of the unionist vote being divided multiple ways while our own vote is united.  At the moment it looks like the complete opposite will happen, and that's actually everyone's fault - SNP, Green, Alba, ISP alike.  It's the SNP's fault for rejecting the Scotland United proposal out of hand, and for not even at the very least seeing the obvious sense that Angus MacNeil's vote must not be split in the Western Isles if Labour are to be stopped there.  It's Alba's fault for reacting to the rejection of Scotland United by indicating that a large number of candidates will be put up against the SNP in SNP-held seats, when it would have been far more constructive and strategically wise to concentrate all of Alba's resources on defending the two seats that are currently Alba-held.  It's the Greens' fault for bizarrely wanting to take on the SNP in more constituencies now that the two parties are in coalition with each other, rather than seizing what would seem to be an obvious opportunity for a sensible electoral pact.  And certainly ISP can be justly criticised for making such an early announcement on a widespread intervention in the general election, which probably made it harder for Alba not to follow suit.

As most of you know, I'm a member of Alba, and I accept the democratic decision of the party to stand in more than two seats, even though I doubt its wisdom, and if my own constituency has an Alba candidate I will of course vote Alba.  However I do think all parties need to step back from the brink before real damage is done by a split vote, because the priority in this election has to be to keep the independence cause alive.  I think the perception in Alba, at least in some quarters, is that there are other priorities, for example to put the option of independence genuinely on the ballot paper in circumstances where the SNP are refusing to say that a vote for themselves would lead to independence.  I'm not convinced by that line of argument, because when the results come in, the media and political establishment will not be making that distinction - seats the SNP hold will be seen as seats saved for the cause of independence, whereas seats the SNP lose, perhaps due to a split vote, will be interpreted as a sign that Scots are 'moving on' from the whole issue.

Potentially more convincing is the argument that large numbers of independence-supporting voters are moving across to Labour, and that they are not doing so exclusively as a crude impulse to "kick the Tories out" but also partly due to disillusionment with the SNP.  If there was a pro-indy party standing that was more attractive to those voters than the SNP, it might actually stop them drifting to Labour in the first place.  On that interpretation, the Greens and Alba would not be "splitting" the Yes vote by taking votes that would otherwise go to the SNP, but would be shoring up the overall combined pro-indy by taking votes that would otherwise harmfully drift to Labour.  I'm sceptical as to whether it would really work that way, but I accept that it's possible and we could probably do with a lot more opinion polling data to find out.

One absolutely crucial thing Alba have got to bear in mind, though, is the danger of a legend springing up that Labour only won certain seats because of Alba interventions.  If, say, there are three seats where Alba take 2% of the vote and where Labour's margin of victory is less than 2%, we'll hear a lot about Alba being "Labour's little helpers" and that will be a very difficult charge to defend against.  The real opportunity for Alba will arrive under proportional representation at the 2026 Holyrood election, and doing anything in the interim that tarnishes the party's standing with pro-indy voters would be very foolish.  Remember that Ralph Nader performed far more poorly in the 2004 US presidential election than he did in 2000, and. the overwhelming reason for that was the perception that he had helped George W Bush win in 2000.

Before we finish, a reminder that the Scot Goes Pop opinion poll fundraiser urgently needs a boost - let's not leave it in limbo for months.  It's important that not all Scottish opinion polling is commissioned by anti-independence clients - we need to make sure that occasionally questions are asked that Yes supporters want asked.  Donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE.

However if you have a Paypal account the best way to donate is via direct Paypal payment, because that can totally eliminate fees depending on which option you select, and payment usually comes through instantly.  My Paypal email address is:

jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk