I guess we should have seen it coming

[Bill McDicken]

Last years debate on independence has waned somewhat on the pleasant island of Seil, but not elsewhere apparently.

Others in our Bonny Land appear to be 'upping the ante' as they feel the SNP have dropped the ball with regard to seeking independence.
Are they right?
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/t ... -1-3854660
or,
http://scottishindependence.com/2015/08 ... party-sip/

Oh! Aye, an a' ne'er forgot............

[jimcee]

Bill - you are like a dog with a bone.
This must rank among the daftest of political ideas for a long time.
With the SNP riding high at the moment (at the moment) in the polls, some hothead members conjure up the idea of a splinter group to stand against them - and possibly in a few cases split the vote and let an outsider (dirty word) in. Where did this half baked idea originate?
Just given that there might be a bit of grass roots support for the idea and they may be able to drum up a few candidates willing to back it for £500. What is the platform, apart from Independence? in the last referendum there were a lot of ancilliary questions which had to be addressed, and the answers to some of these was instrumental in the defeat of the YES vote. Where is there going to be cohesion on policy for other considerations beside pure independence, among a disparate collection of candidates who'se only common denominator is the ability to risk £500 of their own money?
If this were seriously to take off the ground, I suspect that it would be a bit like UKIP - Nigel Farage welcomed everyone on board who was willing to help him out, and then had a high old time weeding out all the ones who blotted the UKIP copybook.

[Bill McDicken]

Bill - you are like a dog with a bone.

Why? it wasn't my idea, just read it in the news , thought it worth mentioning as it could result in a Great Scottish Political Schism.
i.e. split the SNP? divide and conquer? Unionists might see the potential and join in. Very dangerous for Independence as the SNP still represent the best vehicle for achieving that goal.

I am however extremely pleased that you agree Jim.

[NickB]

.
There are two SIPs - the original one started by Paul Clarkson, website at http://www.scottishindependenceparty.net and the 'new' one just announced which seems to be a chimera. It did have a free Wix websitefor a while,. but that has since disappeared.

I suspect it is just another utterly fake 'grassroots' organisation similar to the NoBorders group that reared its head during the referendum campaign.

Neither the 'old' or the 'new' SIP pose any threat to the SNP vote in next year's Holyrood election. The latest poll suggests an SNP landslide with an increased overall majority. Support in the constituency vote is running at 62%.

There will be all sorts of attempts to split the SNP vote, and I predict they will all fail as miserably as the 'tactical voting' campaign in the recent general election. (which resulted in 56 out of 59 seats returning SNP MPs, just in case anyone forgot).