Tactical Voting

The SNP are a MINORITY party that wins because the anti-Nationalist opposition vote is split three ways. Of the 73 constituency seats in the Scottish Parliament Elections, 59 are currently held by the SNP. That’s an astonishing 81% of seats from just 46.5% of the vote. 

Talk about not getting the government you vote for!

But how will tactical voting help? First we need to discard the two sets of seats where tactical voting won't make a difference. The first set is the 28 seats where the combined anti-Nationalist vote is still less than the SNP vote. Even if 100% of the anti-Nationalist vote swung to the second-place candidate, the seat would still remain in the hands of the SNP. In these seats the priority must be to increase the anti-Nationalist vote share.

Commentators on Scottish politics have tribal allegiances, just like the rest of us. They tend to be very dismissive of any new parties threatening to muscle in on the comfortable three-party opposition at Holyrood.

They cling to the dream that their preferred leader, Douglas Ross or Richard Leonard, is going to lead the long-awaited recovery in the Conservative or Labour vote and sweep the Nationalists from power, or that Willie Rennie will become kingmaker in any coalition.

Commentary by Jill Stephenson

First a couple of definitions.

‘We’ are the good, solid people of Scotland who voted to remain in the UK in 2014. 

‘We’ were relieved, rather than triumphalist, about having won the referendum. 

‘We’ didn’t rub the losers’ noses in it but tried to appease them. 

‘We’ sat back and let the UK government make concessions to the side that had lost. 

‘We’ believed Salmond and Sturgeon when they repeatedly told us that the referendum was a ‘once in a generation’, ‘once in a lifetime’ event.