andrewducker | (Reply)

From:

Ah. There's certainly a non-trivial number of SNP voters who voted for Brexit and a small number of the SNP leadership (for want of a better word to describe Jim Sillars).

I am uncertain whether for most independence minded Leave voters which constitutional question is most important. Would they prefer Scotland to be independent of the UK or for Scotland to not be in the EU if they could have only one? I think most of them would prefer Scottish independence or have enough misplaced hope that they can have everything they want that they would continue to vote for a policy Scottish independence within the EU believing they can persuade the nation to not be part of the EU afterwards. But I am uncertain of this. I guess we'll get some indication of that over the next two months.

There's also the long-standing and quite deep hatred of the Tory party in large section of the Scottish electorate. In some ways the rise of the SNP is due to them successfully positioning themselves as the Not-Tory social democratics in Scotland in place of the Labour Party. I think there is a stripe of the electorate who are Unionists but struggle to vote for the Tories and find themselves struggling also to vote for a hapless Labour Party. Is effectively Unionism or effective Non-Toryness most important to these people. Again, I don't know.

So, whilst, yes, there are quite a few Brexit supporting SNP voters there are also quite a few significant slivers of the population who might not be able to vote for the Tories or Scottish Labour and there are probably a few Unionists for whom remaining part of the EU is more important than remaining part of the UK.

The salience and valance of the issues is unclear to me.

(Not sure what the word is for the group of people who have influence within and over an organisation without formal authority.)