AVOID SNP SPONSORED FATALISM-HARD FACT, A SUBSTANTIAL MAJORITY OF SCOTS DON’T WANT TO SEPARATE SCOTLAND FROM THE REST OF THE UK
Written by Stephen Bailey.
It is a fact of UK Constitutional Law that no party can receive a mandate for separating one part of the UK from the rest of the country at a devolved election as the Constitution (the heading under which ‘independence’ falls) is a reserved matter and so is for the sole consideration of the House of Commons. Only the HoC can debate, draft, and pass laws on these matters into the Statute Book. The devolved legislatures (Holyrood, the Welsh ‘Senedd’ and Stormont) have no remit to consider these matters. It is only possible to receive a mandate for matters contained within the legislature’s devolved remit, nothing else. That’s the bottom line.
However, ignoring this, it is a hard, objective, and verifiable fact that the SNP has never received a majority of votes from the total Scottish electorate, even less so when considering their vote percentage in terms of the total Scottish population.
These are the hard facts:
– 2015 (Westminster): SNP: 1,454,436 total votes. This was the high-water mark of the SNP’s success and it represented 36% of the total Westminster Parliament electorate in Scotland at the time of 4,035,400. Total Scottish population: 5,373,000.
– 2016 (Holyrood): SNP: 1,059,898 total votes over all constituencies. 953,587 over all regions. The average of both votes is 1,006,743, which is 25% of the total registered electorate for the Holyrood election of 4,030,000. Total Scottish population: 5,374,900.
– 2017 (Westminster): SNP: 977,569 total votes. This was a drop of 476,867 from the 2015 election for the separatists. This represented 24.9% of the total Westminster Parliament electorate in Scotland at the time of 3,930,000. Total Scottish population: 5,424,800.
– 2019 (Westminster): SNP: 1,242,380 of the popular vote. This represented 30.65% of the total Westminster Parliament electorate in Scotland at the time of 4,053,100. Total Scottish population: 5,414,400.
– 2021 (Holyrood): SNP: The SNP got 1,291,204 votes at the constituency level, and 1,094,374 votes over all the regions. The average of both votes is 1,192,789 which is 27.9% of the total registered electorate for the Holyrood election of 4,280,923. This is far less than a third of the eligible electorate and even less of the total Scottish population of 5.48 million.
– 2024 (Westminster): The SNP received 724,758 votes, 30% of the total number of votes. Total Scottish population: 5,546,900.
The SNP has NO mandate for ‘independence’ by ANY metric or definition-the bottom line is that they simply can’t receive one under UK Constitutional Law, but ignoring this they have no mandate in terms of total number of votes received at Westminster, Holyrood or local council elections, opinion polls or surveys.
Its victories at Holyrood, Westminster and local council elections represent nothing more than the triumph of a small, vociferous minority (never higher than 36% of the total electorate’s vote and even less of the total Scottish population) of activists running around and shouting the loudest, drowning out the voice of the overwhelming majority who oppose breaking up the UK.
It only proves that a small and determined group of obsessed, loud and active zealots and extremists can force their will on the rest of the population, completely skewing the genuine will of the majority of the overall population.
Winning seats doesn’t give the SNP any mandate for separation when they only represent around a third of the total registered electorate (even less of the total Scottish population) AND the vast majority of opinion polls on separating Scotland from the rest of the UK in Scotland continue to show a majority of Scots want Scotland to stay in the Union. Added to the above, in EVERY devolved election (I.e. to Holyrood) since the beginning of the devolution era (the last 26 years), the total combined vote of the pro-UK parties is considerably higher than that of the combined pro-‘independence’ parties (click here for the full datasets on this: https://www.parliament.scot/msps/elections). All considerations taken into account, there is NO mandate by any metric to break up the UK.
Click on the following link to see a table of opinion polls on ‘independence’ in Scotland: https://ballotbox.scot/independence/
The fact of UK Constitutional Law is that the SNP (or any other anti-UK separatist party in Scotland or any other devolved part of the UK) simply cannot receive a mandate for ‘independence’ from a devolved election, as the Constitution is a reserved matter.
The winning party can only receive a mandate to form an administration at the devolved legislature to look after the day-to-day matters that are within their remit for that part of the UK, but that’s all.
Even ignoring the facts of constitutional law, the SNP has no democratic mandate for separating Scotland from the rest of the UK, as the objective, verifiable election statistics above prove.
Beware fatalism
The idea that something is going to happen no matter what or which course of action is taken to avoid it is an extremely dangerous and misguided belief.
The election results listed above show that the SNP does not represent the will of the Scottish people. It shows that ‘independence’ is not inevitable. All these beliefs are erroneous and based upon specious thinking.
To fall for that is toxic and no good will come of it. It will only aid the continuance of anti-UK separatist rule and give them undeserved confidence that they can force separation from the rest of the UK on an unwilling public. Those who oppose the UK are ruthless and monomaniacal and will just keep pathologically ploughing on manufacturing one false excuse after another until they get the result they want in their pursuit of breaking it up, and they will just manipulate such a defeatist attitude for their own purposes.
Don’t aid anti-UK separatism. There is NOTHING inevitable about ‘independence’. The 2024 General Election proved that. The SNP just want people to believe this so they’ll give up opposing their separatist agenda. The trends in public opinion are still strongly in favour of the Union as most opinion polls and surveys also continue to show.
A majority of Scots, a vastly substantial majority of the Welsh and a majority of citizens of Ulster support their part of the country staying in the UK.
The arguments for keeping the UK together are vastly stronger than those of the anti-UK separatists, who have demonstrated time and time again that they have no viable plans for independence. For example, Dublin control of Ulster would be a recipe for disaster, financially, politically and culturally.
Don’t let them win. Those who want to maintain the Union have by far the better arguments, the people are behind them, NOT the separatists (as the 2024 General Election proved beyond a shadow of a doubt).
Onwards and upwards all those who want to maintain the Union. With a strong will, the empty falsehoods and fallacies of anti-UK separatism can be defeated and a strong, mutually beneficial Union can exist in perpetuity.
SOURCES AND NOTE:
Electorate figures are those found via the Office for National Statistics by clicking HERE:
Note: Electorate figures are calculated on 1st December each year, and released in the following year. That means if we want to know the electorate figures for, say, the Holyrood election in May 2016, then we need to consult the ‘Electoral statistics, UK: 2015’ which were calculated on 1st December 2015 and released in February 2016. The electorate figures for the Westminster Election in Scotland, and the electorate for the Holyrood/Local Elections, are different figures because the franchise is wider for the latter, and includes EU citizens, and since 2016 inclusive, 16-year-olds.
Population data: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/publications/mid-2024-population-estimates/
© 2017-2025 Stephen Bailey
