Can’t make it simpler

Gordon Harmer still insists that one option for the referendum vote on September 18 is for Alex Salmond and the SNP.

Far be it from me to disabuse him of this concept but I think he will find on referendum day that this option is not on the ballot paper. It’s a referendum, Gordon, on an alternative form of governance other than from Westminster.

Who eventually leads that governance will be decided by a majority Yes vote in the referendum and by a proportionally representative vote in Scottish elections in 2016. That is when it will be decided if it is Alex Salmond and the SNP, or some other political grouping or coalition, that leads Scotland’s government.

It is called democracy, Gordon, and is the same process that elected the SNP, led by Alex Salmond, by a widely unpredicted landslide majority vote of the Scottish electorate, as the government of Scotland.

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That is why he will lead a coalition of other political, and non-political, representatives to engage in negotiations on the terms of independence with the Westminster government, whoever they might be, starting immediately after the referendum majority Yes vote. I hope that is clear, Gordon. I can’t make it any simpler.

Geordie Pottinger

Hamnavoe