General election won’t split the SNP’S vote as the indy ship has truly sailed

Sir, – I don’t understand Pete Wishart being concerned about the pro-independence vote being split in the upcoming Westminster election (“Split fears over nationalist vote”, Courier, April 15).

As far as I can see, there is no independence campaign at the moment, nor is there likely to be.

The SNP give us the odd hint that they might still be interested but, really, the Supreme Court case decision in 2022 put a stop to that, and the whole thing came apart at that point. The proof is the number of senior SNP politicians who have bailed out since, withdrawing from frontline roles or declining to stand again at the next election.

They know independence is not going to happen.

There is no plan, and no appetite for it, among neither senior Nationalists nor their supporters – nor the general public.

The indy ship has sailed, and it is only the die-hard supporters who have not noticed. When the next vote comes, people will be more concerned with the problems in their everyday lives.

Environmental issues will feature to some extent, and we can also now all see that we can no longer take national security for granted any more, either.

The SNP cannot contribute to any of this.

The problem that Mr Wishart has is that his party’s track record on delivering for people is so poor that it is pointless considering them for a vote.

They can’t deliver for their own supporters either. If SNP voters don’t want the Tories to be elected, they would be better off voting for Labour as they will surely form the government.

There is no point in Mr Wishart banging the indy drum as only a minority of his potential constituents voted for that in 2014, and most of those people will have other concerns now.

And it is not as if he has an outstanding personal record to fall back on, either. Writing this letter, I have been trying to think of something he has done for Perthshire in the last 20 years.

Nope, can’t think of anything at all.

Time for the public to give a five-year contract to someone else.

The agenda has changed. Pete Wishart has not noticed.

Victor Clements. Aberfeldy.