One thing everyone agrees is going to happen on May 7th, if nothing else: the SNP are going to do bloody ace. Even if they fare much worse than predicted, say 30 seats, that would still mean they’ve quintupled their Westminster representation. Whatever you think of their weird brand of nationalism, their Tartan Toryism wrapped up in a Green poncho – a Glasgow kiss disguised as a snog as it were, you have to give them the fact that they are finding political success in an era where such a thing seems more elusive than being able to find any SNP policies that are genuinely socialist.
Problem for the Nats is this: if your whole raison d’etre revolves around Scottish nationalism and you’ve already captured every seat in Scotland, then you’ve pretty much reached the ceiling. Nowhere else to go but downhill, and that’s not a nice thing to contemplate in politics – because gravity almost inevitably kicks in. But I’ve got a suggestion that I think just may help them avoid the slope in the parabola they seem to be approaching.
Obviously the SNP can’t run candidates in England and Wales, but they can do the next best thing: set up franchises. Have a talk to some of their lovely counterparts in England, those being the English nationalists (UKIP could make some recommendations, I’m sure), and see if they’re interested in the SNP’s indelible brand of the stuff. After all, it does come with the plus of actually having worked, something English nationalism has never been able to really achieve.
Wales would be an even easier sell in many ways. Yes, there already is a Welsh nationalist party, I know, but Plaid Cymru are totally rubbish: Leanne Wood was given prime time on national television, for Christ’s sake, and they’re still like, fifth in Wales, behind the Socialist Agitation Wales Party. The WNP could clean up if run with Sturgeon-Salmond like efficiency. Forget about the fact that about four people in all of Wales actually want the place to be an independent nation – most Scots don’t want independence either (as a recent poll involving 84% of the nation’s citizens attested to), but that hasn’t stopped the Nats march to democratic domination up there.
Yeah, but what’s in it for the SNP? Easy. If the ENP and the WNP manage to be as successful as their Scottish prototype, then there will be independence movements with large parliamentary wings in every nation of the Union. Who knows, maybe the ENP can secure an English independence referendum and convince the English to vote for independence, and then the WNP can do the same, and voila: the SNP will have secured Scottish independence from the Union without even having to have another referendum on account of their franchises having destroyed the country anyway.
Then everything will be brilliant, won’t it?
I think that would be a “great” process to start.
Here’s to our glorious ENP founder and chief political analyst, Nicholas Tyrone.
Whilst not being entirely serious, such a Party would garner a fair proportion of votes, including a chunk of Tory voters and “little Englanders”
Mebyon Kernow, Wessex Regionalists, Yorkshire First and the North East Party have been banging on about their alliance with SNP and Plaid – vote Green elsewhere. Not a strategy likely to go anywhere but lost deposits and whether Mebyon finishes 6th or 7th in Cornwall.