Gina Miller has decided that the SNP will not benefit from the financial support from the anti hard brexit fundraising campaign she has organised. Funding will go to candidates who are best placed to take on Tory MPs (expect not in Scotland where the only Tory MP David Mundell has a small majority) because Miller doesn’t like the idea of the SNP or independence.

I have nothing against Gina Miller personally but it’s frustrating she can’t see the wood for the trees. If she is against Scottish independence then she’s entitled to her opinion. But! This decision is bad for her anti hard brexit campaign as I will explain below.

Due to the SNP landslide in 2015 there are simply far fewer opportunities for soft brexit/pro EU parties to make gains in Scotland. At present the SNP, who are pro EU, are defending 56 constituencies. Indeed at the last election there was only one hard brexit supporting MP, Conservative David Mundell, who (logically!) Gina Miller should want to lose their seat to the SNP challenger.

Let’s look at some scenarios for increasing/decreasing the number of pro EU MPs in Scotland:

• There may be two or three seats that go from the SNP to the Lib Dems (this creates no greater number of pro EU MPs)

• There may be a couple of SNP seats that go to Labour (again, no increase of pro EU MPs.)

• The SNP may win the seat of Tory David Mundell (gain of a pro EU MP! ie what Gina Miller wants! Yaldie!)

What other changes are possible then?

• The Tories (who are want a hard Brexit and who Gina Miller wants to kick out in England and Wales) gain from the SNP.

I do think their come back is overblown and indeed it seems mostly very pro union Labour voters moving to Conservatives rather than anything else. But unless Gina Miller helps the SNP, she will be helping Tories across Scotland and will increase the number of pro Brexit MPs. Which is the opposite of what she wants to achieve in the rest of the UK!

I realise that some people have doubts about Scottish independence. That’s fine. But to help the Tories and hurt the campaign against a hard brexit is myopic in the extreme.