Fresh water lochs suffer in the cause of aquaculture

There's a current application to legitimise the smolt growing facility at Loch Tralaig, under reference 21/02612/CLAWU. I have written to our politicians as follows:

Good Morning, MSPs and Councillors

This message concerns a current planning application in respect of Loch Tralaig, a small fresh water loch in mid Argyll near to Kilmelford, where I live, but it raises issues that should concern all of us with an interest in the environment.

In 1991 Kames Fish Farming Limited, then a fairly new company, obtained planning consent to operate smolt growing facilities in three lochs, Tralaig, Losgain Mor and Avich. A copy of the consent for Loch Tralaig is annexed and you will see that it was limited to a period of six years, after which it was envisaged that a further consent might be granted, after an environmental assessment had been made. The same condition appeared in the other consents.

Officials at Argyll & Bute Council failed to notice the expiry of the period in 1997, nor did Kames bring it to their attention. The result was that smolt growing has continued in the three lochs, more or less continuously, for the period to date, thirtyone years. There are indications that cages may even have been in position prior to 1991.

For confirmation of the error I quote from an email I received from the Council in 2020:

“In eventuality, and for reasons I have not been able to establish – all of the involved persons having long left the employment of Argyll and Bute Council – this planning condition was not acted upon when it was first breached in November 1997. In fact, this breach did not come to light until at some point in late 2019 by which time the operations had likely gained ‘immunity’ from any planning enforcement action the Council may have wished to take. Nevertheless, the planning authority took this matter up with the operator of the fish farm as soon as the breach of condition was realised. The subsequent application was made in order to support a claim by Kames Fish Farming Limited that their operations were, by that point in time, lawful.”

Having operated on the three sites for more than ten years Kames had applied in 2020 for a certificate of lawful use in respect of Loch na Losgain Mor. Being fully aware of the position the Council found itself in, basically that in law they had no option but to grant the certificate, I wrote to them asking them to request Kames to agree to carry out the environmental test that they had, after all, agreed to in 1991. The Argyll & Bute planners did not agree to make this simple request and went ahead to grant the consent.

Thus a provision that was designed to enable householders to legitimise things like garden sheds was used to avoid an environmental assessment.

To those of us who know and love these lochs this was a troubling development. I do not fish, but understand anecdotally that none of the three lochs now supports the range and numbers of wild fish that formerly grew there. That would of course have become clear had there been an assessment.

Worse by far was the possibility that in three decades of the constant dropping of fish faeces and uneaten food the loch beds may have become irrecoverably polluted by waste. Two of the lochs, Losgain Mor and Tralaig, feature hydro electric schemes. The former is now privately owned by the landowner, who lives in Cornwall, and is still in use, providing him with no doubt welcome income. I believe the one at Loch Tralaig is, along with part of the alveus and adjoining land, owned by SSE. It is no longer in use, but the dam is still in position, seriously restricting flushing.

Accordingly, in April of last year some concerned friends and I decided to visit Loch Tralaig and carry out an inspection using an underwater camera. The resulting film can be viewed here:

A dead loch

This was filmed near to the edge of one of the cages. You will see that the bed is covered in what appears to be inert, anoxic waste to some depth.

A separate environmental issue is the considerable use of Formaldehyde in recent years. Formaldehyde is a highly toxic chemical with a history of use in disinfection and serious industrial cleaning. It is a carcinogen and industry guidance for its use requires operatives to wear protective clothing. In recent years operators of fish farms have been experimenting with its use in dealing with saprolegnia, a fungal condition which typically affects fish kept in fresh water, such as aquariums and in their case cages in our fresh water lochs, where salmon smolts are grown for eventual transmission into open cages in the sea.

No doubt as a result of industry lobbying the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency decided to allow its use, with companies having an obligation to disclose how much they were using. The figures reported by the various companies operating in Scotland owned up to a total of 22.4 tonnes of poison being poured into ten Scottish fresh water lochs between April and December 2019. I am unable to get detailed, recent figures due to the collapse of the SEPA database but no doubt the applicants will be able to inform you of the quantities used.

In May The Ferret drew attention to the issue in a clear, hard hitting article that can be accessed here:

Formaldehyde in fresh water lochs

My purpose in writing is to ask you to write to Argyll & Bute Council quoting reference 21/02612/CLAWU, asking that they consider asking Kames to comply with what they agreed to in 1991, not out of legal obligation, but simply out of the concern that everyone of us should have for our natural environment.

Marine Scotland Consultation on Marine Litter

 

The link to the Consultation is here:

https://www.gov.scot/.../marine-litter-strategy-scotland.../

My response:

In general it is difficult to disagree with the aspirations outlined in the section entitled Planned New Actions up to 2027. My concern is that the timescales identified are simply too long. There are some issues that can, I suggest, be easily dealt with now, without waiting for the results of monitoring and, no doubt, further consultations on specific aspects.

I annex for reference the text of the response I received to my FOI request FO190551 in June 2019. The first section shows that instead of things starting in 2022 and ending with ideas by 2027 the governmental ambition was to have plans in place by 2016 and to have things under control by 2020. The last twenty years have seen a massive increase in all types of pollution and the environment cannot wait any longer.

This response is confined to three specific types of marine waste, (a) large, easily identifiable items, such as pieces of fishing equipment, net, creels, bottom gear and components of fish farm cages and supporting equipment, (b) microplastics, specifically from aquaculture and (c) items which by their nature cannot be identified, such as sections of plastic rope and twine.

Large Items

From coastal excursions over the years I can confirm that our remote island beaches are littered with large fish farm components. I annex a photograph taken on Luing a few years ago as an illustration. In August 2019 I saw, on the shore at the Westmost end of Ulva, a section of pipe about twenty metres long, utterly impossible to remove without mechanical help and/or a suitable vessel. As we all know, such items once beached become the responsibility of the local landowner to remove, a completely unjustifiable burden when the source is invariably one of the hugely profitable foreign companies who are allowed into our coastal waters.

The very obvious solution to this is for there to be a requirement that all such items have an identifier attached, perhaps in the nature of a barcode, so that the cost of removal can be met by the polluter. The industry itself accepts this in respect of the retail products in our supermarkets. The requirement would not require to wait for legislation, as, for example, it could easily be made a condition of planning consent or a SEPA CAR licence.

Microplastics

These are the most insidious of all, as we are constantly and credibly informed by the media that they are everywhere. The use of plastic feeding pipes started only quite recently. Fish farm workers were still seen feeding fish manually from sacks of pellets in the early years of saveseilsound, when we were gathering evidence for our campaign.

We are all, the Scottish public, Marine Scotland and SEPA included, being treated with extreme cynicism by the aquaculture industry, who know that the standard process adopted to replace workers on site inevitably puts microplastic into the water column, not to speak of the salmon they are rearing. This practice is entirely deliberate and in principle no different from the fly tipping, which your report rightly treats very seriously. Fish farm companies should be told to stop forthwith under threat of prosecution.

Other waste

For centuries the fishing industry has dumped waste deliberately, in the form for example of small offcuts of rope or accidentally when fishing gear has been lost, but until very recently that materials were more or less biodegradable. This has only become a pressing issue in the recent past, when it has migrated totally to the use of plastics. Particularly insidious is the practice of using cheap inferior quality plastic line for such purposes as temporary ties. I can affirm that in a short walk along the shore here one will see dozens of such scraps.

The most obvious solution to this is to ban the use of plastics as much as possible, just as land based industries are being encouraged or forced to do. I appreciate that this will require further consultation and eventually, legislation. It will no doubt be met with the standard response that our “indigenous” fishermen know best, despite their choice of materials being anything but.

Conclusion

In relation to two of these categories of waste Marine Scotland can and should act now. Please do so!

Annex:

SEPA FOI dated 18 June 2019 ref: F0190551 - Information regarding the dumping of plastics and microplastics on our West coast.

Question 1 Many of our coastal inlets and skerries are becoming littered with debris from fish farms, for example discarded black plastic feeding tubes and fish cage components, some as large as 80 metres in length, image of an example from Mull annexed. Does SEPA have any responsibility for pollution of this sort, as opposed to pollution from microplastics, which I assume are central to your functions?

Under the terms of Regulation 9 of the EIRs, SEPA has a duty to provide advice and assistance. We advise the larger items of waste referred to fall to the local authority to regulate, as part of planning applications process, the applicant would be required to submit a waste/litter minimisation and management plan to ensure the safe disposal of waste material and debris associated with the operation of the development.

In relation to fish farms the introduction of the technical standard for Scottish finfish aquaculture will have helped to reduce the amount of equipment that is lost to sea. Though primarily designed to prevent escapes of finfish due to technical failure, the secondary effect is that there is also a reduction in the loss of equipment during storm events. This is due to the Standard covering the design, construction, materials, manufacture, installation, maintenance and size of equipment; taking into account the site specific environmental conditions e.g. wave height, wind and current speeds.

However, once lost from a site it is often difficult to attribute an item to a particular site or company, and the item would essentially become ‘marine litter’. Marine litter is one of the descriptors of ‘good environmental status’ (GES) under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), which requires all member states to have put in place a programme of measures by 2016 to ensure that ‘properties and quantities of marine litter do not cause harm to the coastal and marine environment’ by 2020. Concerns such as marine litter have become more broadly recognised and will be addressed through the operational response to the MSFD. Marine Scotland has published a Marine Litter Strategy as part of its overall approach to marine planning and management which provides guidance on managing the adverse impacts of marine litter. In supporting the Scottish Government’s commitment to achieve GES as part of the MSFD, regional marine plans should raise awareness of the problems associated with marine litter and encourage marine users and developers to dispose of litter in ways which do not harm the marine environment.

Though not directly within our remit, SEPA does have a direct involvement in ensuring that these wastes are stored, transported and disposed of appropriately.

SEPA will on occasions refer cases where marine litter from fish farms has become apparent to companies operating in the vicinity of the litter and this frequently results in the waste being uplifted from the shore and properly disposed. We may also advise the Crown Estate or Local Authority of such incidents.

Regarding micro-plastics, these are now known to be present everywhere in the water environment where water comes into contact with plastic. We currently do not regulate the discharge of micro-plastics however, we recognise the concerns around micro-plastics, and we are in discussions at UK and EU level to develop our understanding of any impact, and how they can be most appropriately regulated.

Question 2 In recent years, in order to reduce their labour force, fish farms have replaced the feeding of stock manually with systems involved the pumping of fish pellets through plastic tubes similar to the one in the annexed image. Doing this necessarily abrades the insides of the tubes and creates microfibres, which enter the marine environment either directly or after being consumed by the salmon in the cages. The companies concerned know that this happens, monitor the thickness of the tube walls and replace them when they are too thin. Research in Norway has recently suggested that in their industry this causes about 325 tonnes of microplastic waste to enter the water column each year, see

https://www.fishybusiness.co.uk/blog.

If we assume that the Norwegian industry is about 5 times the size of the Scottish one it would appear that perhaps 65 tonnes is entering our environment. Is SEPA aware of this source of pollution? And If so, what action is SEPA taking? As referred to in response to question 1 we currently do not regulate the discharge of micro-plastics however, we recognise the concerns around micro-plastics, and we are in discussions at UK and EU level to develop our understanding of any impact, and how they can be most appropriately regulated.

0

People reached

0

Engagements

–

Distribution score

Boost post

Like

Comment

Share

0

Who owns the Kirkella?

I had not intended not to write further on the vexed subject of fish quota, mainly because I felt that the subject had been talked to death and that rather than engaging in arguments with hard line Brexiters it would be better just to wait for the alleged “benefits” to start kicking in. Quota isn’t mainly a West coast issue, but my interest had been fired up some years ago, following a conversation with a fellow who had been on one of the supertrawlers and told me, to my astonishment, that the ship had caught her entire year's share of quota in just three lucky weeks. He assured me that the ship spent the rest of the year out of action, something I found hard to believe. Surely, with an investment of millions, you would simply sail off to another corner of the World?

The piece that appeared on the BBC website the other day changed my mind, so here goes with my last contribution of 2021. The story starts:

“The owners of the UK's biggest trawler have described a new government deal to win back fishing rights following Brexit as "too little, too late".

Hull-based Kirkella has been mothballed since December 2020 after the UK lost the right to fish in Norwegian waters.

UK Fisheries said they were "absolutely devastated for the crew" as the new quotas offered just one week's work.

The government said the deal, announced earlier, struck a "strong balance" for the UK and Norwegian fleets.

The fishing access will see fleets from both countries be able to fish up to 30,000 tonnes of cod, haddock and hake in respective waters in the North Sea, the government stated.

Kirkella has been moored for a year at Hull Docks with the crew unable to work while post-Brexit negotiations have been ongoing.”

Comment: Those with reasonable memories will remember Liz Truss a year or so ago expressing her great joy that she had concluded a deal with Norway. I spent some time looking unsuccessfully online for the text, rather than mere puff. I then contacted Mike Russell, who informed me that the Scottish Government had not been involved and did not have a copy. The BBC piece confirms that one important point had not been agreed, the actual quantities that UK vessels would be allowed to catch in Norway’s (nonEU) waters! Before Brexit, of course, the UK was covered by what the EU, with the massive muscle of a giant trading bloc, had negotiated with Norway on our behalf.

The piece continues:

“The self-employed, 30-strong crew of the 81m (266ft) freezer trawler were paid per trip and have been ‘sold down the road’, according to first mate Charlie Waddy.

‘I feel for the men,’ he said. ‘Their lives have been fishing since they left school. All they wanted to do was come fishing. They loved the job.’

Mr Waddy said he felt the government had encouraged fishermen to back Brexit, but he was now worried for the future of the industry.”

Comment: That the crew are/were all self employed is utterly scandalous in the modern world. This means that they presumably have no entitlement whatever to any of the normal employee protections that our law, to date in line with the EU, provides, things like sick pay, redundancy and pensions. It’s a traditional model that worked fine in small fishing communities, but should have no place whatever in an industry that is otherwise very modern and industrialised.

The article then finishes:

“Jane Sandell from UK Fisheries, which claimed Kirkella supplied between 8-12% of all fish sold in UK fish and chip shops, said the latest deal had left the company ‘more than disappointed’.

She believed the new fishing deal offered just one week's work for the Hull-based crew.

‘We're absolutely devastated for the crew. The government was fully aware of what we need to operate a viable business and frankly these kind words were just platitudes.’

The government said the deal would see UK fishing vessels be allowed to fish more than 7,000 tonnes of cod in the arctic - an increase of 1,500 tonnes compared with 2021.

Fisheries Minister Victoria Prentis said the arrangements ensured a strong balance, that would benefit the fishing industry and ‘the protection of the marine environment’.”

I have in the past researched the ownership structures of some of the principal vessels involved in what is described as the UK fishing fleet. Frequently the results show only the most marginal connection. The Kirkella seems to be no exception, despite the message painted on her bow

The Kirkella is the property of her own dedicated limited company, Kirkella Limited, registered in England and Wales and based at the Orangery in West Yorkshire. The company is financed by a Dutch bank. The directors of the company are:

Diederik Parveliet (“ Mr P”), a Dutchman.

Jane Sandell (“Ms S”) an Englishwoman.

Balvin Thorsteinsson (“Mr T”) an Icelander.

Jan Cornelis Van Der Plas )”Mr VdP”) a Dutchman.

But who owns Kirkella Limited?

The sole shareholder is J Marr Fishing Limited, another English company. Its directors are Mr P, Ms S, Mr T and Mr VdP.

And who owns J Marr Fishing Limited?

The sole shareholder is UK Fisheries Limited, another English company. Its directors are, surprise, surprise, Mr P, Ms S, Mr T and Mr VdP.

So, who owns UK Fisheries Limited?

The shareholders are Onward Fishing Company Limited, 50% and

B V Tory, 50%

You can search until the fish come home, or Brexit delivers a bonus, before you will find anything more about B V Tory, although one suspects it may be a Dutch registered entity, because from now on Mr VdP drops out of the story.

Re Onward Fishing Company Limited, the directors are Mr T plus a new Icelander, Gustav Baldvinsson.

This company belongs entirely to Samherji HF, which looks suspiciously like an Icelandic registered entity. Again, finding which actual people are the ultimate beneficiaries is impossible.

To conclude on a not very happy note, Liz Truss and Victoria Prentis have been fighting the corner on behalf of a gigantic supertrawler that ultimately belongs to what appear to be Dutch and Icelandic entities, fishes UK quota and uses the services of a crew who, if they are British residents, are presumably currently being looked after by UK taxpayers while their services are not required.

Images from the BBC website.

The Brexit Challenge Webinar

On Wednesday evening I watched a webinar hosted by Trinity College Dublin entitled “The Brexit Challenge for Ireland and the United Kingdom”, which proved to be utterly fascinating and highly informative. I hope that a recording will be posted online in due course, but in the meantime here are some brief notes on the main points discussed.

There was no main speaker from Scotland, but the event celebrated a recent book on Brexit with the same title and Professor Aileen McHarg, one of the editors, made a short contribution after the main talks.

The first speaker was Paul Gallagher QC, the Attorney General for Ireland, and thus the principal legal adviser to the Republic. His main points were that Brexit has what he described as of “sub-constitutional” significance, by which I think he meant the departure of the UK did not in itself breach the terms of the Irish Constitution and the Article 50 procedure was something already legislated for in the EU treaties. Despite that of course Brexit has enormous unwanted legal effects, almost none of which was envisaged on the British side, let alone provided for. This has placed the Republic under gigantic strain.

He was followed by Dame Brenda King QC, the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, who was constrained in what she could say because of the total political and sectarian split, so her address was somewhat formal and one had to read between the lines. This was made up for later by Professor Christopher McCrudden QC, who made a comment, see below.

The event became very interesting with the next speaker, Mick Antoniw, the Attorney General for Wales, who delivered a prerecorded talk. He did not share Dame Brenda’s reticence at all and spoke about the absolute disgust felt in Wales at the total absence of consultation by the UK negotiators with any of the devolved administrations, the use of Brexit as a device to remove powers from the Welsh Assembly and the fact that Wales has been deprived of most of the funding that previously came from the EU. He also explained how the Welsh have been working tirelessly to develop good working relations with the Republic in the hope of minimising the disaster that is unfolding.

Given that he, like the other two A-Gs, is technically an impartial adviser and that Wales, unlike Scotland and NI, voted to leave, one has to assume that for him to take such a political line would have been done with the approval of the Welsh administration. At times he sounded inches away from declaring full support for Welsh independence. I was left feeling sad that we don’t have an equivalent major legal government figure in Scotland doing the same.

Sir Jonathan Jones QC came next. He had been the Head of the UK Government Legal Services through the Cameron and May years and had resigned at the end of 2020, presumably because he could no longer stomach the disregard of the Johnson regime for both UK constitutional law and International law.

He said that while he could not reveal confidential information he was in fact pretty free to express his views as matters were all in the public domain anyway.

He started by reminding us that the document that the Cameron government sent to every house in the UK failed to mention the consequences for Ireland if the UK left the EU. He went on to say, if I heard correctly, that they had not commissioned any work on the legal consequences of a leave vote. That is so significant, that I would like to check from a transcript or recording; it simply beggars belief. What was 100% clear was his conviction that nobody in Downing Street in 2015/16 had a clue about those effects.

He then stressed that having torn up the May deal and cobbled up their own version, Johnson and Frost denied the UK Parliament of the chance of any meaningful discussion by insisting on forcing the whole thing through in one evening after barely allowing anyone who wanted to have time physically to read, let alone analyse it. My comment - such is the new reality of “taking back control” and “parliamentary sovereignty”.

He also made the point that, while the May administration had been hobbled by being dependent on the DUP, Johnson with his huge majority had no such limitation. While he did not say so in terms, it seems very likely that the extreme form of Brexit inflicted on these islands did not involve anything resembling a proper analysis of legal issues, economic consequences or costs and most important of all the social and political implications.

During questions Professor McCrudden didn't hold back. He emphasised the extremely subtle and nuanced nature of the Good Friday Agreement, that fact that it had worked well, in fact perhaps better than might have been predicted and that it now remains to be seen how much damage has been done. In particular the current escalation of sectarian violence suggests that Stormont may not remain possible for much longer. The reintroduction of direct rule would be a nightmare and a disaster socially and economically, absolutely the opposite of what the population wanted when they voted strongly to remain.

Professor McHarg made very brief reference to the consequences for Scottish independence in all this, but was rather guarded.

There was brief reference to whether or not triggering Article 16 could be done by Johnson and Frost as an executive act not requiring parliamentary approval, with the view that it could. Again not exactly “taking back control”.

To summarise all this, the blunt fact is that having rejected the May deal, which was messy but could have worked, Johnson has opted for a situation that is unsustainable and that should have been foreseen as such. My ghastly suspicion is that he, or more likely Frost, has woken up to that and that stimulating fights everywhere, with the EU and internally in NI, is an exercise in deflection that will have utterly dreadful consequences for all of us, presumably in the hope we’ll all think that “a bad boy done it and ran away”.

Battle is Joined!

Last week we learned, via a press release from MOWI, the largest industrial fish farmer in Scotland, that it has started court action against the well known environmental campaigner Don Staniford, aimed at putting an exclusion zone of fifteen metres around all of their fish farms on our West coast. If they are successful in persuading a court to do this there’s no doubt that other companies will follow suit and that anyone who sails or paddles near a fish farm is likely to be threatened with a writ.

As matters are in court I’ll not be commenting further at this stage, apart from to say that it seems unwise for the Scottish boss of MOWI, Ben Hadfield, to declare:

“This person’s behaviours and actions that we have borne witness to over the past two years gives cause for great concern, and is not something that our staff should have to endure whilst going about their daily work. Everyone should be able to go to work and expect their workplace to be free of harassment and intimidation.”

Without clear evidence to back it up this statement would appear on the face of it to be highly defamatory. From what I’ve seen of the images posted online by Don Staniford he, understandably, seems to work at times when workers are not present. The covert gathering of evidence of abuse is light years away from the openly and deliberately disruptive activities that are features of mass protest. Indeed when workboats and employees have turned up it’s not been obvious that they have been the victims.

MOWI in action at Loch Alsh

The Election and the Environment

 

Anyone with an interest in the environment, but who also wants to free Scotland from London rule that we haven’t voted for for over half a century has until now been in something of a conflict. If you supported the SNP in an attempt to achieve the former you were at the same time supporting a government that has committed itself to the massive expansion of industrial aquaculture in our inshore waters, despite the advice from two Parliamentary committees that doing so carries gigantic risks to the marine environment.

Time and again in Scotland we’ve seen wonderful, miracle solutions to our problems forced on us by, no doubt well-meaning, politicians with pretty disastrous results. It goes back well before modern politics too. The very Clearances resulted from external and internal landowners bringing in new ways of doing things, replacing the black cattle with sheep, with dreadful longer term economic consequences and a cultural catastrophe.

Industries have come and gone. Ulva was once sustained by kelp, until ships brought in cheaper Chilean guano. Aluminum came to Fort William. Some are still here, just. Oil in Aberdeen, how much longer? Miracle solutions arrive, outsiders get rich, take the money and go.

In my childhood the Firth of Clyde supported lots of thriving sea angling businesses, catering for thousands of industrial workers at weekends, supporting trades, local cafes and restaurants. Then the neo-liberals lifted the Three Mile Limit, an emergency Victorian measure that has been proved, with hindsight, to have been well grounded in science.

With foreign holidays soon to be distant memories, what can we do to restore our coastal towns and landscapes to attract visitors and their cash? Building gigantic industrial silos, such as we see when coming off the Skye Bridge, may not be the best idea.

From early this Century we in mid Argyll have seen a merciless expansion of industrial aquaculture, forced forward by an industry that is almost entirely owned and is certainly entirely controlled by entrepreneurs from outside Scotland. Investors include oligarchs from former Soviet countries and folk like the extraordinary Jon Fredricksen. Supposedly “local” companies trade on their “family owned” image to get permissions, but truly work very closely with the big fellows, a bit like industrial lumpsuckers. Over the last twenty years we have seen sealice bred in the cages reduce the wild fish populations to such an extent that wild Scottish salmon are endangered.

I have campaigned against all this for about ten years now. The trigger was the utterly deranged attempt to expand salmon farming at Ardmaddy, something a very senior fellow at Marine Scotland (now MOWI) told me they would never consider (but that was before his Norwegian chiefs bought the units there). Then Marine Harvest found 83,000 dead fish on their site and many of us woke up to the true horror, hundreds of tonnes of fish wasted and going to landfill (or worse?). But that was just the beginning; our roads are now busy with tankers of dead fish going into a new biofuel industry. What a breathtakingly stupid way to generate power!

Tragically, the SNP has supported all this. I have occasionally spoken to individual MSPs, who expressed concerns, but there is no doubt that the party in government has pushed the industry forward, perhaps even more than the saner company executives would have wished. Marine Scotland scientists have been bullied by Ministers into retiring, older scientists have told me about fears for their pensions, evidence being suppressed, the big money East coast salmon rivers protected. The Tories couldn’t have done a better job and we would all have been screaming!

So, with just under five days until make your mind up time, what are the options?

Going on the latest figures today (Panelbase, Sunday Times), the SNP are set to get 48% in the constituencies, resulting in all existing seats being held plus probably two more. With less than a week to go that seems a pretty definite prediction. If you support Independence that’s a no-brainer for your constituency vote.

The List Vote gives us all choices. The result is, I suggest, totally unpredictable, for several related reasons.

First, the emergence of the Alba Party has forced a lot of us, myself included, to look at the arithmetic behind the D’Hondt voting system that Scotland was lumbered with, thanks to Tony Blair and Donald Dewar. The main reason for their choice was the desire to ensure that Labour would always control Scotland, but it’s been suggested that they also wanted a system so opaque and unpopular that nobody would want to introduce anything similar in England.

The result has been that in Scotland we’ve got four different ways of counting votes, for the UK, Scottish (two systems), local (and until recently a fifth for the EU). I’m sure that I’ve not been alone in having to remind myself each time of the niceties; for example how many of us don’t realise that with Single Transferable Voting you MUST vote for all your preferred choices to exclude those you absolutely don’t want (the system used and then abused in the recent SNP list selection, by the way).

To summarise for the forthcoming election, the first constituency vote is simply counted on “First Past the Post” and list votes are then discounted depending on how well your party has done.

In Highlands and Islands let’s assume that the SNP hold their existing six constituencies. They did this last time with a vote share of only 41.46%, against today’s national poll of 48%. D’Hondt then provides that their list vote will be divided by seven (seats won plus one). In 2016 this meant that 81,600 list votes counted for 11,657 and got the strong, competent Maree Todd elected on the sixth round of counting. This time the SNP are fielding someone who was patently not the first choice of members, rocketed to the top because of her diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (google it!). If only a few people are troubled by this and decide to stay at home, all the SNP list votes will be wasted.

In 2016 the Libdems won two seats, Shetland and Orkney, for a total of only 14,536 votes and D’Hondt ensured that all their 27,223 list votes were wasted. This time the SNP have two very strong candidates in Tom Wills and Robert Leslie, but friends who know those places are sure that the old Liberal tradition will prevail once more. Will those 27,000+ voters educate themselves on D’Hondt and look elsewhere?

Labour also got two seats in 2016, both list ones, and will probably do so again. They are hugely supportive of aquaculture and of course the Union, so they’re not getting my vote.

If you both favour Independence and want to save the environment, what are the options?

Alba presents voters for the first time with a serious, independence-focused list party, fronted by a number of well-known personalities. The same Panelbase poll puts them on 4%, an apparent drop from a couple of weeks earlier, which still suggests that they will win two seats. I suspect that they will do much better. The almost total media blackout on the party should concern all of us, whether or not we buy into the various narratives that are being spread about. Beneath the pollster’s radar, massive on the ground canvassing is going on for Alba, much of it by former SNP activists who know their territories. I saw a lot of this at close quarters in Glasgow in 2014, when hundreds of people unaffiliated to any parties were chapping doors on housing estates and getting people out. There is a very strong contingent of former Women for Independence supporters now supporting Alba.

But, what do Alba say in their manifesto about the environment? Almost nothing.

The Greens have Ariane Burgess at the top of their list. In 2016 they got one seat, for John Finnie, with quite a healthy 14,781 votes, which of course wasn’t discounted. She’s a strong, well balanced person, with business experience and a good environmental track record, unlike some of her comrades who come from rather urban backgrounds and seem distracted by other issues. I’m uncomfortable personally with some features of her party, but it looks as if her vote will hold up without mine.

Finally, we’ve got Andy Wightman, probably Scotland’s foremost land issue campaigner and a man of great knowledge of legal history and land ownership. Google him and buy his book “The Poor had no Lawyers”. Someone commented on social media that he would scare the daylights out of the landowners. He also happens to have actual, on the ground, experience of working in forestry, lives locally and has political experience. And he will vote for Independence. I’m giving him a chance.

Like

Comment

Share

0