The agreeable Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, Willie Rennie, has made a logical political statement – that, depending on the outcome of the 2016 Scottish Election, the Scottish Lib Dems could work with the SNP.\I saying this, Mr Rennie drew a correct distinction between the Scottish Parliament situation and that at Westminster.
Scotland – independent or a continuing member of the United Kingdom – has its own parliament and within that parliament, parties will make their own compositions in the interests of Scotland
At Westminster, constituency parties will also make their own compositions in the interests of the United Kingdom.
But the break up of the Union by the departure of its second most powerful member – even if that second is a long way behind the much larger first one – can never be in the interests of the United Kingdom.
Therefor there can be no sustainable argument for amy party at Westminster entering into a compact of convenience with the SNP; whereas at Holyrood, Mr Rennie is quite right that the situation is centrally different.
However, Mr Rennie’s happy vision of a hung parliament in Scotland in 2016 – where his Lib Dems might tuck in with the SNP – is risible.
He will be very lucky if , without tactical voting, there is a Lib Dem presence in Holyrood at all after the May 2016 election. If there is, it will be as peripheral as it gets – back to Orkney and Shetland out in the Atlantic in the far north and, not inconceivably, Orkney alone.
