Party plans

Former MSP David Thompson has announced he will quit the SNP after 55 years to form a new Scottish independence party. He will be launching the new party, Alliance for Independence, for the 2021 Holyrood elections and hopes to win 24 seats

I hope Westminster will start to realise that this is not the purpose of devolution.

WR

All parties that have been in power for too long rip themselves apart, familiar pattern of sleaze and internal bickering. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.

Raymond Kerr Not entirely surprised. Sturgeon has shown herself to be ultra-cautious and there seems to have been no fresh thinking since 2014 with all the big questions (currency etc) still unanswered. The “fundamentalists” want to push ahead anyway but internal squabbles won’t help the independence movement.

Peter Lewis I’m a member of the Labour Party and have been thinking that perhaps Labour should adopt a policy of committing to another independence referendum to be held on 18 September 2039 with the slogan, “Keeping the SNP’S promise”.

Remain UK UK Keep it together, folks! Scotland needs to separate from the Westminster bubble and that is best achieved by a concentrated effort! Now is not the time to divide! That will inevitably happen after independence, but we need to achieve independence first!

John B Macdonald

No! It’s time to unite and speak with one voice. This strategy is a divide and conquer routine along the same lines as the Brexit Party.

Marie-claire Rackham-mann

In a democracy no electorate can tie the hands of a future electorate. The right to Scottish self-determination is not time-limited to one day in 2014.

James Kirk

Yes, after the virus is under wraps... and not before. Scotland is doing good – sit tight Scotland.

Louisa Anna Harvey

I wonder what treatment the rank and file of SNP membership will dole out to such an apostate as this?

Anna Mosspaul

Naw, they would have us all bankrupt if Covid comes back in the winter; we will all be doomed. But bring it on. See how the vote would go – the majority of people in

Greens?

Gary Lindsay But the SNP said they were going to be different. What happened to the “new kind of politics” they promised to introduce?

Lux (Not Ron) Polls suggest that they are different.

John Brownlie Nobody in Scotland believes the polls; that includes

I say holiday in your own country, it needs your help. I would love to holiday around more of Scotland –