The thought of the forthcoming Scottish parliamentary elections leaves me in despair. My conviction in the need for Scottish independence is as strong as ever, but I can’t vote for any of the pro-Indy parties anymore.

I have not felt this politically disenfranchised since the days of the communist hegemony back in Czechoslovakia before the Iron Curtain fell in ’89, and that’s a high bar to meet.

I have been a loyal SNP voter for some two decades now, since the retirement of Dennis Canavan. But to say the least, the party has took its eye of the independence ball so long ago, that I am not sure they even know what it looks like, never mind where it is. Their shenanigans set the cause back likely for another generation, making it nigh certain now it will not happen in my lifetime. (As for the Scottish Greens, they are incompetent fools; what can be said of the SNP with regard to independence applies to the Greens with regard to the environment.)

Whether I like it or not, that changes things. And so my priorities for the forthcoming elections are:

  1. Keep Reform out of the parliament as much as possible,
  2. Keep the SNP and/or Greens from forming a government,

In that order, though to be honest, their relative importance to me is about the thickness of a bit of IZAL stuck between the cheeks.

I’ll be watching the forthcoming campaigning closely, but as things stand, I am most likely to give both of my votes to Labour. It would require holding my nose very firmly (though I am well practiced in that by now voting the SNP), for it ultimately means propping up Starmer, who is sorely short of ability, principle and charisma (but given Cameron / May / Johnson / Truss / Sunak, perhaps I just don’t value mediocrity enough).

Not voting at all is tempting, and I fully understand, and will not judge, anyone who chooses not to. But my priority no. 1 makes that, for now at least, the worst available option, for as much as I am resigned to knowing that no choice I can make will make Scotland a better place, it doesn’t mean things can’t get worse.