Your editorial is correct to point out that John Swinney is not the new broom that Scotland or the Scottish National party need, and that he faces policy problems, many of them of his party’s own making (The Guardian view on John Swinney’s Scotland: a new start but also more of the same, 9 May). But Mr Swinney’s main difficulty is not in policy or delivery, it is the fact that, as the last 10 years have shown, there is no intellectual or evidence-based case for independence.
We had the 2013 white paper on independence, Scotland’s Future. We had the Sustainable Growth Commission report, swiftly dumped because its truths were unpalatable. And we have had the 13 Building a New Scotland discussion papers, which have not collectively or individually moved the case for independence forward.
As polls in Scotland show the SNP losing support, Swinney might yet find an appealing policy platform. His party might yet find a hitherto undetected competence in delivering those policies. But the unfortunate fact for the first minister and the SNP is that their raison d’être of independence is dead in the water, and until they can construct a reasoned and evidenced case for their one and only real policy, voters won’t buy it and the SNP’s support will wither away.
Alex Gallagher
Largs, Ayrshire
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