Picture the scene:
It's May 2011 and 54 SNP MSPs have just been elected to Holyrood after a bumper election for the Nationalists. Labour has seen its tally dwindle to 38 MSPs while the Tories and Lib Dems are rooted on 13 MSPs each. The Greens have delivered an impressive 10 MSPs with climate change near the top of the agenda during the campaign.
The main topic however was an independence referendum. After the SNP was denied its preference of a November 2010 plebiscite, it took its claims of an injustice for Scotland to the Scottish people and were rewarded handsomely.
So one of the first calculations after all the votes were (finally) counted was, do the pro-referendum parties have enough MSPs to carry a Bill against the anti-referendum parties? And it's tight, very tight. SNP and the Greens have amassed 64 MSPs, equal to the unionist parties 64 MSPs.
All eyes then turn to the Glasgow MSP who scraped in as the 7th regional member. The unloved and unwanted BNP member of the Scottish Parliament.
If today's news in The Times is to be believed, this vote would go in favour of a referendum but would the SNP even want it? I think it's best to end the nightmare pontification there.
It is a worrying and not entirely infeasible prospect though, a BNP MSP holding the balance of power not just for an independence referendum but for many other devolved issues in the Parliament.
The BNP polled 4.4% of the vote in the Euro elections and the Greens only needed 5.2% of the vote in Glasgow to have Patrick Harvie elected as an MSP (the polar opposite of a BNP politician I hasten to add)
Hopefully it won't happen, hopefully the people of Glasgow in particular have enough sense to deny the fascists another foothold but there's no doubt that Nick Griffin will already be planning for this possible result. Well, maybe there is some doubt given that he didn't look like he'd even planned for his Question Time appearance last week.
It's just a relief that if the candidate for the Glasgow North East by-election is anything to go by (he apparently holds unpalatable views even for his own party) then the BNP won't be able to put up anyone even remotely electable enough to make a Scottish breakthrough.
And hey, I'm sure Tavish Scott will see sense and support an independence referendum this weekend anyway...
SNP Tax
1 minute ago
17 comments:
Alarming maybe, but unlikely - extrapolating Scottish elections from Euro ones is an unreliable science. The smaller parties always do much better in the Euro elections. And if the major campaigning theme is a referendum or not, it's hardly something a BNP vote would best address.
What a horrible thought - you should start writing thrillers, though. You're very good at building what seems like a credible scenario and scaring the life out of us all - a bit like the recent Torchwood, Children of Earth. Nobody actually believes that a Government would hand over 10% of our kids to a random druggie alien, but Russell T Davies cleverly wove current events into a storyline that we all found plausible.
Anyway, I don't think it will happepn, not least because the catalogue of SNP broken promises will be of war and peace proportions by then. You see, while they care about a referendum on independence almost to the exclusion of everyone else, people care about more pressing concerns like whether they're going to have a job at the end of the month, the quality of their kids' education and the health service.
The SNP will have to defend its record in 2011 and if it's managed to cut off the Kingdom of Fife by failing to come up with the money for the Forth Crossing, for example, it's not going to be ever so popular.
Also a footnote on the consultation session at our Conference this weekend - don't expect anything to change immediately. This is just part of Ross Finnie's review. I can't get to conference, but I'll certainly be putting my views forward to Ross. I've already said on my blog that I have no objection in principle to a referendum on independence - although I agree with Tavish that it's not a priority for most people. If it does happen, I'll be campaigning strongly against the independence option because I think home rule, with a Parliament in Edinburgh with extended powers whilst being part of the Union is a win-win situation for Scotland.
What a nightmare scenario, hypothetical yes but not unrealistic.
I have blogged about the BNP on several occasions but not once did i think about the impact they could have in the Scottish parliament.
I have always thought it was an English problem but now that you have pointed out that the Greens only needed 5% to win an MSP then it certainly boosts the prospect of the BNP winning a seat in Scotland.
And mind the did get elected through PR in the Euros (eek)
I think our saving grace is that in Scotland we have several small parties for people to choose from if they feel out of touch with the main parties but I'm not in anyway suggesting that any of them have the same polices as the BNP, just a thought.
Still i cant get over the fact that hypothetically the BNP could deliver Scottish independence.
Caron..
"Anyway, I don't think it will happepn, not least because the catalogue of SNP broken promises will be of war and peace proportions by then."
...
Are you sure that's not an Argos catalogue your loooking at?
So following your logic that the BNP could "deliver" Scottish Independence, why would any unionist party want to support a referedum and "deliver" Indepedence?
They wouldn't "deliver" it... only people voting yes in a referendum would.
Sometimes looking at actual voters is useful when you're talking about elections with radically different turnout. In all of Glasgow the BNP found 3,865 people willing to vote for them in 2007. They found 3,258 in 2009. They'd need to clear 10,000 in 2011. I just don't see it. Forget it and move on. This is the kind of attention-seeking on their part that shouldn't be rewarded.
What's truly astonishing is that the other unionists parties are to the right of the BNP on this matter, they seem to believe that denying the people a referendum is laudable.
As it was, Griffen's comment was hardly support for referendum, he merely acknowledged that the Scots might vote for parties which support it.....
“We will oppose it because we think overall it will be bad for Scotland and the United Kingdom. But if the Scots choose it then they are entitled to have it,”
Not quite the scenario that you paint Jeff.
If they had the casting vote, they'd vote a referendum down with the simple argument that the people of Scotland chose unionist parties which included the BNP.
UNIONISTS
BNP LABOUR LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE
NATIONALIST
SNP GREEN
I don't know BoT, the 2007 election regional result was: SNP - 31%, Lab - 29.2%, TOry - 13.9%, LD - 11.3%, Grn - 4%
The Euros was: SNP - 29%, Lab - 21%, Tory - 17%, LD - 11.5%, Grn - 7.3%
Agreed it's an unreliable science but there's clearly a strong correlation. And I'm just hypothesising, not predicting.
Anon, i'm not saying the BNP would deliver independence, not even close to it. Just suggesting there is a remote possibility they'd have the casting vote which would deliver a referendum and that would be an interesting basis for potential constitutional change.
Wardog, I agree that quote suggests the BNP are not really in favour of a referendum but both The Times and Scotsman are definitively stating that the BNP would be in favour of a referendum so I am taking that at face value and assuming there was another quote proving it. Otherwise it would be poor journalism.
Aswas,
fair points, particularly the forget it and move on sentiment.
But I was intent on blogging something and despite desperately scrabbling round for another topic, this was all I could think of!
I reckon this blog'll be a BNP free zone for a long while now.
What you need to bear in mind re the euros is that Labour did nothing. They had no campaign, they did not do a knock up, they did not even man the polling stations.
The BNP on the other hand were very active and able to spend a lot of money, where it came from is a question worth asking perhaps.
In addition the euros happened in the midst of the expenses scandal which was part of the reason Labour did no campaigning. The backlash was pretty fierce for the SNP: what Labour canvassers would have got on the doorstep is scarey to contemplate.
So altogether the euro campaign was like the perfect storm for the BNP. They could not have asked for better circumstances to make an electoral breakthrough and they will not be able to call on those circumstances again.
Jeff - going by the Greens (a fair comparison) they nearly doubled ther vote in the Euro elections compared to the 2007 vote. If the BNP got 4.4% in the Euro vote they're likely to get around half that. Nowhere near 5%.
I think for the BNP the 2009 euro elections will be similar to the 1989 ones, when the Green Party got 15% or something like that. A perfect storm, as someone said. They'll fall apart under any scrutiny. It says a lot that our mainstream parties seem frightened of them.
The backlash in the Euros was against *all* parties!
I was manning (personning?!) a polling station, and I had a women come up to me, say she knew it's not really my problem, but wanted to give me her two sons voting forms, since they'd torn them up!!
Tried to mollify her by suggesting that the SNP are not as bad as the London parties and she agreed, saying she'd voted for us because she didn't want to waste a vote, but her sons wanted nothing to do with the whole thing!
Come the next GE we could get well squeezed by the stupid "a vote for the SNP is a vote for the Tories" nonsense, but if we can avoid that, and I think Alex is winning the war on that score, we may well get those 20 MP's! That'd sway the balance of power, both in mindshare and in real terms, out on the streets, in the branches, further towards the SNP.
Sorry Jeff it was AMW's comment I was referring to...
"Still i cant get over the fact that hypothetically the BNP could deliver Scottish independence."
As I've said, it's going to be Scottish people voting for it that "delivers" independence not the BNP.
Anonymous said...
So following your logic that the BNP could "deliver" Scottish Independence, why would any unionist party want to support a referedum and "deliver" Indepedence?
They wouldn't "deliver" it... only people voting yes in a referendum would
.....
Anon..
I was only basing my assumption on Jeff's hypothetical article.
I would sooner give my last carrot to a fake Santa than have the BNP vote through Scottish independence.
Jeff said...
Aswas,
fair points, particularly the forget it and move on sentiment.
But I was intent on blogging something and despite desperately scrabbling round for another topic, this was all I could think of!
I reckon this blog'll be a BNP free zone for a long while now
..........
Jeff i think it was a very interesting article, highly unlikely it will happen but you may have woken a few us up to the real prospect that the BNP could easily be represented in the Scottish parliament.
As you said, it only takes around 5% and they are not far off that mark.
Glad to hear the BNP thing is nearly over. But before it goes just a note about what they are really like. I am a Scottish farmer (a real one not the glossy mag) married to an immigrant with mixed race kids. Before the nuptuals I had a rosy vision of my fellow Scots "nae racism here". Boy did I learn the hard way. A good chunk of ordinary folk are racist (maybe the 5%), mostly it is just sullen hostility (looks of disgust from some when I am at a roup or market) but 2 or 3 time a year it is hate mail, vandalism, threats, abuse on the street or blatant refusal to do things right.(not just a rural thing either) Latest was when the kids school woodwork payments kept going missing, poor kid had 3 shots at it before I gave up and took it in. I got roundly abused for doing it too (one person office no witnesses handy for her) The BNP give these people support and legitimacy. Boo Hoo some say you married a "p***" you should stop being so sensitive, (other farmers mostly) but when the BNP talks about "them" they really mean me and my 2 year old daughter. (it was her brother who does the woodwork just in case you ask)
Post a Comment