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Highland Lib Dem vows to vote Yes

Majority of England voters reject a currency union.
Majority of England voters reject a currency union.

A leading Liberal Democrat in the Highlands has revealed he is planning to vote Yes to Scottish independence.

Alan MacRae, who stood in the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency at the 2011 Holyrood elections, said he “can’t think of a single good reason to vote No”.

He told the Press and Journal that Yes was the “more outward looking stance” as he criticised the tactics of the No campaign, and his own party’s leadership, while insisting he remained “anti-SNP”.

The 43-year-old Portree High School teacher’s remarks represent a blow to the Lib Dems in the backyard of former leader Charles Kennedy and Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander.

Mr MacRae lost the 2011 election to the SNP’s David Thompson.

Ironically, his bid to become an MSP was hampered when the man he succeeded – John Farquhar Munro – publicly endorsed the SNP’s Alex Salmond.

Mr MacRae insisted he had no desire to return to front-line politics when he was contacted by the Press and Journal.

But he said: “To be honest, I’ve always been an independence supporter.

“I was always more comfortable with Yes than No. I do think it is the more outward looking stance to take.

“I was into federalism, proper full on federalism, but that was never really been on the table, even for my own party who have suddenly just started mentioning it.

“A lot of it is to do with the No campaign to be honest, it has been so bad. I can’t think of a single good reason to vote No.”

Mr MacRae branded the Westminster system “lazy”, and said he found the anti-Europe feeling in southern England “quite distasteful”.

Despite his comments, he insisted a Yes vote was far from a vote of confidence in the SNP.

“I’m very anti-SNP. I’m anti-Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon,” he said.

“They are utterly central belt. They centralise everything.”

The maths teacher also criticised his own party, but said he would not necessarily quit the Lib Dems.

“The notion of going into a coalition with a right-of-centre party isn’t that big a deal, but politically they handled it pretty badly,” he said.

A Lib Dem spokeswoman said: “Whilst the vast majority of Scottish Liberal Democrats support our long held aspirations of home rule for Scotland as part of a federal UK, we respect Alan MacRae’s right to support a different approach.

“We agree with Alan MacRae that the SNP are utterly focussed on the central belt, which is why we believe our plans for full federalism offer the best opportunities for democracy to be unlocked in every local community.”