I HAVE known Chris McEleny since he was a boy and I count him as a friend and fellow Greenock Morton supporter. I also endorsed him publicly to be the preferred SNP candidate for the Holyrood election for our constituency. That is why I was a little disappointed that he could not have given me a heads up, in complete confidence, that he was moving to Alba. However, I fully respect Chris’s decision to leave the SNP, and that will make no difference to me remaining as his friend. I wish him all the best. However, I must pick up one of the things that he said in his article in The National (The is why I left the SNP to join Alba, April 5). He says that “a lot of our fellow citizens voted No not because they were against Scottish independence, but because they didn’t support what was being offered by the Scottish Government.”