SNP 'should stop thinking about Labour' and focus on independence, veteran MP claims

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The SNP "should stop thinking about Labour" and focus on independence, one of its longest-serving MPs has said.Angus MacNeil said the party should drop Humza Yousaf's strategy of starting negotiations with Westminster if it wins the most seats in Scotland at the general election next year.The independent MP - who quit the Nationalists in the summer - said the tactic was "ill-thought through".He wants to see a cross-party approach focused on winning more than 50 per cent of the votes cast at the general election.Speaking to the Record, MacNeil shrugged off the electoral threat posed by a revitalised Labour party despite last week's Rutherglen by-election defeat."The message of independence is a bigger change than anything Labour can promise," he said. "Labour's change is a change of colour, from blue to red. "The SNP should stop thinking about Labour and should start thinking about independence.

And if they are to do that, they should change to a majority of votes and work with others."MacNeil tried and failed in 2019 to pass a motion at SNP conference calling on the party to use a general election rather than a referendum to achieve independence.He was expelled from the Nationalists in August after he refused to rejoin the SNP Group at Westminster following a row with chief whip Brendan O'Hara.MacNeil, who was first elected an MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar in 2005, dismissed a motion endorsed by Yousaf which will be debated at this weekend's SNP conference.It states that if the party wins the most seats, the Scottish Government will be "empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK Government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country".MacNeil said: "They have got a motion which is