This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
Scottish pro-independence parties and groups divided yesterday over how to build on the 1.6 million Yes votes in Thursday’s referendum.
A group of SNP MSPs suggested that a “Yes Alliance” could be formed to contest the Westminster election in May, as it emerged that as many as 12,200 new members had joined the Greens, the SNP and the Scottish Socialist Party since Thursday.
But the Scottish Greens have not ruled out a Holyrood coalition with Labour, despite campaigning on different sides of last week’s divisive referendum.
In an email to SNP colleagues published by the Sunday Herald, Edinburgh Pentlands MSP Gordon MacDonald suggested: “What about getting agreement with Greens, SSP, etc and stand as Yes Alliance? The unionist vote would split between Labour, Tory and Lib Dem.”
SNP South of Scotland MSP Joan McAlpine agreed: “We have some very talented people who could stand, such as Richard Arkless of Business for Scotland.”
The party said yesterday that over 8,000 new members had joined since the referendum.
Scottish Greens election co-ordinator Ross Greer said that his party’s 2,000 extra members would help the party realise polls that predict an extra 11 seats at the 2016 Holyrood elections.
“It certainly looks like we could hold quite a significant position of power in the next couple of election cycles,” he told the Star.
“I don’t think the referendum would necessarily change our position on a coalition with Labour.”
Meanwhile, the Radical Independence Coalition (RIC) claimed that more than 4,000 people had signed up to attend its conference in November.
“It was working-class people in the Labour heartlands who voted Yes. Ideas about socialism, justice and democracy won working-class people,” trade union activist and RIC campaigner Cat Boyd told the Star.
“I think, and personally I hope, there can be a new left party for all working-class people who voted Yes in the referendum, one which is democratic, vibrant and accountable to the movement from which it emerged.”
However, Communist Party of Britain Scottish secretary Tommy Morrison warned that “Yes and No campaigners should seek to put class before nation.”
