16/4/2016
It is an odd position to be in, declaring oneself as part of a cross party organisation, then backing one candidate for election, its a little odd and I thought I owed our members an explanation of why we have reached this decision.
Wir Shetland is not a political party, we have grown quickly from our launch last October , but even so, the committee is still the one elected at our first meeting when the membership was counted in tens rather than hundreds. The committee still numbers less than ten, and most of us have full time jobs to contend with. we have not got a campaign office stuffed with staff, nor have we yet had time to organise an army of volunteers to help with campaigning.
This will have to change over the coming months, we need to expand the committee, expand the membership and start to think about the council elections in 2017. The Scottish Government elections to be held this May were simply too close to our launch date for us to be able to field a candidate. The reality of the 2016 May elections is that there are two candidates capable of winning the seat for Shetland. Danus Skeen for the SNP and Tavish Scott for the Liberal Democrats.
The Wir Shetland committee could have refrained from commenting on this election, but on reviewing the options, we decided that allowing the Shetland seat to fall to the SNP would the the worst possible outcome for Shetland. The SNP’s history in government is clear, they have given our council the largest cut in funding compared to any other council in Scotland while receiving a cash increase in the grant from Westminster, they have cut funding for our lifeline ferry service to the mainland whilst refusing to aid the council to fund the inter island ferries. In the mean time Road equivalent tariff has been introduced in the western isles, ensuring that all ferries are funded with an increase of over 40% over the last 3 years. Emergency services call centres have been centralised to the extent that operators don’t even realise the caller is in Shetland, never mind understand the local accent or geography. Last year the SNP were publicising the fact that NHS Shetland had met it’s budget while Tavish Scott was warning of gross under funding. This year we hear that NHS Shetland has failed to meet it’s budget. Oh and by the way, NHS Shetland and Orkney have been sharing a chief executive this year, more centralisation is on it’s way here unless we do something to stop it. NHS Shetland and Orkney are on the way to being incorporated in NHS highland.
Meanwhile Tavish Scott has been calling for a reversal of the damaging centralisation, has backed the aims of Wir Shetland, and has called for Shetland to be given it’s own referendum on autonomy in the case of a second indyref. Of course Wir Shetland want that referendum irrespective of any future Scottish referendum, but while the local SNP have not issued a statement on the idea of Shetland Autonomy, they have been vociferous with their opposition to our position on social media.
Some comment has been made about Tavish Scott’s approach to the upcoming Europe referendum. It is a clear policy of Wir Shetland that we are better off out of the EU. The Common fisheries policy is hugely damaging to our economic interests, and we see no prospect of Shetland retaining full control of our own waters while remaining in the EU. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrat view is that the UK should remain in the EU. There are two key points to note here.
- Wir Shetland is not endorsing the Liberal Democratic Party, we are quite specifically endorsing the man rather than the party.
- The reality is that Tavish Scott is a member of the Liberal Democratic party, and the Lib Dem position is that the UK should remain part of the EU.
Please note, that the question in the upcoming referendum is not whether an autonomous Shetland should remain part of the EU, but whether the UK as a whole should be part of the EU. It is quite valid to believe that the best thing for the UK as a whole is to stay in when quite clearly, the best think for Shetland is to leave. This is just another illustration of how our needs differ to the rest of the UK.
The Wir Shetland Committee took the decision to back Tavish for election as our MSP this May without reference to our membership, that is a position that is not tenable in the longer term. We need to start holding “Party” conferences to set policy, the committee needs to be enacting the wishes of the membership, not enforcing policy from on high. I for one want to see us do things better, but am realistic about the resources we currently have. The next step is to expand the committee and the membership, We shall be conducting road-shows around the local halls now that the Up Helly Aa season is out of the way, and will be visible at numerous events over the summer season. We have to do better with our communication, a lot of what goes on is on the Facebook pages, but we are acutely aware that there is a large proportion of the electorate out there who do not engage with Facebook. Physical meetings and postal updates must be introduced.
James Titcomb
16th April 2016
