By Rab Bruce’s Spider

Stuart Campbell of Wings Over Scotland has created quite a stooshie with some recent posts, and it must be said that his timing could have been better. To be fair, though, a lot of people are very concerned that the SNP is in serious danger of being hijacked by a group of activists for whom independence is, at best, a secondary objective, and who see influencing the Party of power as a way to achieve their own aims. It should also be said that others, including this site and Robin McAlpine of Common Weal, have claimed that the SNP has no plan to achieve independence. Some have drawn the conclusion that this is because those at the top of the Party are quite happy having well paid jobs in positions where they can blame Westminster for any of their own failings.

The thing is, whether you subscribe to these views or not really should make no difference when it comes to voting on Thursday. In reality, the only possible chance we have of ever becoming a normal country is to vote SNP. There is no alternative. All we can do is give them yet another mandate and hope that, this time, they actually act on it and achieve something tangible. All other considerations must be put aside. Independence is not an end in itself; it is the goal which will allow us to achieve whatever ends we then wish to strive for. We can argue about healthcare, policing, gender reform, the environment and everything else, and we can vote for Parties which best represent our beliefs. But we can’t do any of that unless we become a normal country. Like it or not, the SNP is the only vehicle by which that can be achieved.