The SNP has postponed a meeting due to be held today (Saturday 21 Apr 2017) to select the party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for the Edinburgh West seat.
Mark R Whittet, Leader of Scotland’s Independence Referendum Party (SIRP) – who is also the SIRP candidate for Edinburgh West – said today:
“After the scandal involving allegations of business impropriety over Michelle Thomson – who won the seat as MP for the SNP – the SNP is a now a ‘soiled brand’ in Edinburgh West.
“If the SNP decide to put up a candidate in Edinburgh West against Scotland’s Independence Referendum Party they will succeed only in splitting the vote in favour of Scottish Independence – meaning the pro-Unionist Liberals will sneak back in.
“Because of the particular circumstances relating to the Edinburgh West general election seat – the SNP (which won the seat from the Liberals in 2015) is now a ‘toxic political brand’ as a result of the ex-SNP MP Michelle Thomson being reported to prosecutors after a police investigation into allegations of mortgage fraud.
“The SNP cannot win Edinburgh West, so we have asked Sturgeon to not split the Scottish Independence and to not put up a candidate – thereby enabling Scotland’s Independence Referendum Party maximise the chances of the seat still being represented by a party which has the same primary aim as the SNP – ie Scottish Independence.”
Scotland’s Independence Referendum Party has also asked the SNP to join with the SIRP in a ‘progressive alliance’ to maximise the Scottish Independence vote.
SIRP leader Mark R. Whittet has written to his SNP counterpart, Nicola Sturgeon, with proposals for both parties to collaborate in both the forthcoming British general election and also the next Holyrood general election.
This is because of the thousands of ‘wasted’ SNP second preference votes in the proportional representation system used to elect MSPs to Scotland’s Parliament.
As a result of the SNP’s dominant lead in the first-preference vote, the party won most of the constituency seats in Holyrood in 2015. But at the same time, virtually all of the thousands of SNP-second preference votes were then dis-regarded and went to waste, with staunchly Unionist political parties picking up ‘list-seats’ on the second votes.