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Martin J Keatings

27 Mar, 10 tweets, 2 min read

@KennyMacAskill

Im actually quite disappointed in SNP elected members commenting on @KennyMacAskill moving to #Albaparty. If it's the right of the electorate to vote based on their conscience, surely parliamentarians have the same right to do the same if they believe...

...that such a thing would increase the likelihood of delivering the very thing they stood for elected office in the first place. I.e. Independence.

Kenny hasn't abandoned the yes movement. He's simply moved to another part of it.

He's still a pro-independence MP, he's still going to champion our cause, he's still going to represent his constituents. If he'd gone libdem, tory or labour, that'd be different. But he's not...

...he has identified a way in order to deliver a supermajority to enhance our position in the fight for independence - the very thing that yes supporters elected him to do.

If Kenny had been AFI and decided to switch. We'd have said to him, we're sorry to see you go, but we've got your back on anything that enhances the cause for independence because we're all in the same fight.

And the reason I know that is because the entirety of AFI stood down from the election for exactly this reason. What's best for the movement, what has the greater chance of success.

I dunno, is it just me? (and I am not just talking about the SNP here) but do you sometimes want to take the politicians and bang their heads together and yell: "Please! Just stop with the partisan politics and be supportative of the fact, that while...

...someone might not think the same way as you in the party political sense, they are trying to cover every base to deliver our shared goal!"

I am genuinely getting tired of politicians acting like 4 years old complaining to the teacher....he said she said. Just stop it!

We live in Scotland - the people are sovereign. Politicians work for the people - that's what it is supposed to be. But all too often, the intercourse I am seeing is politicians talking about "power", "getting into power", the "party in power"....

No! In Scotland the people are sovereign. Sovereignty literally means "where power is derived". Politicians elected in Scotland are not "in power", they're supposed to be in a position of "representation".

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More from @MartinJKeatings

Martin J Keatings

@MartinJKeatings

29 Mar

@Lovingi79716481

@Lovingi79716481 I can explain it for you now if you like. It's actually more simple than the politicians make out.

@Lovingi79716481

@Lovingi79716481 First thing - stop thinking of it as d'hondt, because it's not. Sorry, but it really annoys me people call it that - it's the additional member system. Now for this example I am going to use my region mid Scotland and fife.

@Lovingi79716481

@Lovingi79716481 So! We have the region MSF (mid-scotland fife). It has 9 constituencies in it. The 9 constituencies form the region. First we have the constituency ballot where you vote for the person. In MSF 120,000 people vote SNP.

Read 23 tweets

Martin J Keatings

@MartinJKeatings

29 Mar

The question is not about SNP or ALBA on the regional ballot. The question is do we want to let unionists in the back door by default? That makes this a mathematical decision, not one of the heart or feeling or intuition or bias or dislike of a single candidate.

This is one of the most amazing moments in Scottish History, a clear mathematical certainty that will lead to our independence. It's like the 2014 independence referendum. The future of your country is in your hands. You can embrace it or throw it away.

The are those saying they wont vote SNP on the constituency ballot because of a political difference, and I would say fair enough to that. But then I would also say to you, what is the primary reason that person you dislike keeps getting re-elected?

Read 33 tweets

Martin J Keatings

@MartinJKeatings

29 Mar

You'll note that I have deleted the tweet about the Alba list likely being full. I did so because the intention was to simply show that's likely the case. It wasn't so some people could take it and twist it and use it as a stick to beat other yes supporters with.

Let me be clear. The screenshot was from an AFI meeting, not one of ALBA. Also, all it said was list full and no approaches had been made by ALBA.

AFI candidates stood down to clear the way for ALBA knowing we'd be floating and WITHOUT EXPECTATION OF BEING ADOPTED.

Would the adoption of some of the candidates from AFI by ALBA have been cool, well yeah. But there was no expectation of such and trying to insinuate that ALBA conveyed such sentiments is simply not true. Correlation is not causation!

Read 5 tweets

Martin J Keatings

@MartinJKeatings

28 Mar

I'm going to do something, (not approved by AFI btw), but I think it important to show you all the candidates the AFI actually had. No less than 4 in each region. These are the graphics that I had prepared to put out when circumstances overtook that announcement.

Here's why AFI candidates stood aside:

And here's the AFI candidates that you would have got.

Read 12 tweets

Martin J Keatings

@MartinJKeatings

27 Mar

Here's one to warp your mind. Did you know technically when people say SNP 1, they are actually not correct. Because although a constituency candidate might me a party member, you're actually voting for the person not the party in the constituency. True story.

As for voting for a different party on the list. This is not "cheating" nor is it "gaming" anything. You're given two ballots for a reason - to make a choice. It was specifically designed to give you the option of voting for a person on the constituency and a party on the list.

The choice is yours on whichever you vote for, even if different. So voting for a person (who also happens to be a member of the SNP) on the constituency, then for a different party on the list, isn't gaming, it isn't cheating - It's called VOTING.

Read 4 tweets

Martin J Keatings

@MartinJKeatings

27 Mar

Look! I understand people can't get it, namely, why on one hand do you express your disappointment that the announcement of alba may cause issues for you, but on the other hand step down to clear the way and then join them?

It's simple. The two are mutually exclusive. I've tried time and time again to explain that I don't make my decisions based on emotion, I make them based on empirical data and what's best for Scotland.

Now would it be good to be offered the opportunity to stand with ALBA now that there's no longer candidates standing for AFI - sure it would. But I very much doubt that would happen.

Read 20 tweets

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