It seems clear to me that the 1 million free newspapers project has been a major misstep by The National and Business for Scotland as it has divided Yes supporters and led to Stewart Ward of the National having to be given the “long letter” feature to reply directly to the letter by John Milligan – not something I would expect in response to an isolated point of view. That would lead me to think that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the arrangement.I’m sure I’m not alone in recalling the SNP’s pledge in 2019 to deliver a pro-independence newspaper to every household in Scotland, a pledge that was never kept. I am left to wonder if this is an attempt to make an effort to appear to deliver on that unfulfilled promise – using other people’s resources and efforts in the absence of the ringfenced funding which should have been available but isn’t.
I am an organiser with a number of cross-party/all-party/unaffiliated independence groups, and have worked with numerous others, and across the board the consensus is that we do not distribute party branded material – full stop.On many occasions I have had to endure a long-winded and often expletive ridden rant about the SNP, only to then respond that “I’m sorry, but I think you have confused us with someone else. We aren’t the SNP”. Suddenly the wind is taken from their sails and we are able to discuss the facts and myths surrounding Scottish independence without the baggage of having to defend positions or policies which some of us may ourselves disagree with. We are able to have conversations with people who otherwise wouldn’t listen. There’s an immense sense of satisfaction (and a touch of the bizarre) about sending an angry Orange Order supporter away with a Yes badge…We recently collaborated with Business for Scotland to distribute their books and newspapers, and these have been a huge asset to us, but I have been approached by some of our activists to say that on this occasion they are not willing to get involved, and if the SNP & Greens are to be solely represented within this newspaper then it must fall solely to the SNP & Greens to shoulder the burden and ensure they are delivered.
Finally, in response to Frieda Burns, I agree, all independence groups should be working together, and perhaps if they had, and produced a newspaper which could be endorsed by the Scottish Socialists, by the Alba Party, by Solidarity, by AFI – basically by any pro-independence group, then we could work together.But this is simply not possible when it viewed by a significant proportion of the Yes movement as representing only a section of the movement, primarily for their advantage in the run up to local authority elections in 2022. To paraphrase Frieda Burns, it’s more a case of “ye can only play wi’ ma ba” than “yer nae playin’ wi’ ma ba”. One should be minded not to burst the ball in the process…
(Letter submitted to The National, 18/11/21)
An Independent Scotsman 