The New SNP/Green Deal: Now With Added Nuts

After all the dust has settled, it seems that through sheer lack of unwillingness by any other SNP politician, John Swinney will become leader of the SNP and in the process will become First Minister of Scotland. I’m sure that many within the SNP will be breathing a sigh of relief that there will be a swift  and seamless transition of power, with no need for a contest which will reveal any splits within the party. At first glance this might seem like a good thing, but will it be viewed like that by many members of the party, and more importantly, the voting public?

Given that the Sturgeon era was brought to a halt by controversy upon controversy, one might think that a reboot of the party might send out the message that the party leadership wanted to put clear blue water between that old regime and the new one. That they were not to be tainted by events which are soon to be revealed in court. They have chosen not to do so, and by choosing John Swinney, their seamless transition to fresh government instead becomes a seamless join with a running sore that continues to damage the SNP. From Sturgeon, to Yousaf, to Swinney. As Eric Morecambe used to say: “You can’t see the join!”

In depriving the membership of the party a say in selecting who their leader should be, they have continued in the vein of Nicola Sturgeon, centralising decision making to as few people as possible. Humza Yousaf was to the SNP what Liz Truss was to the Tories, and he has now been replaced by their equivalent of John Major. Mr Swinney is undoubtedly Scotland’s dullest and least inspiring politician, and for those of us who remember his last spell as leader, he brings with him an expectation of loss. With an impending Westminster election and a Holyrood election soon after, I can think of no worse choice that the SNP leadership could have imposed on the party. On BBC Debate Night, Neil Gray MSP, campaign manager for Humza Yousaf, said he had endorsed Humza Yousaf because he was the right man for the job, and in his opinion had been a good First Minister. He then went on to say that in his opinion Mr Swinney was the right man for the job. Fool me twice, shame on me as they say.

The whole process in which Humza Yousaf departed office raises more questions than it answers. Surely I can’t be alone in thinking that the decision to end the Bute House Agreement with the Greens was not a decision made my Mr Yousaf alone, above the heads of his cabinet, and without their endorsement? If Neil Gray, as he said, worked hard to convince him to stay as First Minister, why was he railroaded out by the rest of the cabinet? One vote from Alba would have saved him and the Scottish Government from the votes of no confidence they faced, yet the SNP made it clear that they would refuse to countenance such an offer. One has to remember that probably 95% of the Alba Party membership are former SNP members, and while they are disappointed in the party’s failure to progress independence, they recognise that the SNP are at present still the major party of independence, and as such will support them to achieve that goal. I find it bizarre that Scotland’s second largest independence party’s offer of help was rejected outright, in order to cut a back room deal with the Greens, who the SNP, not Humza Yousaf alone, threw out of government. Clearly there has been a recognition at some level that a continued joint government was not in their interest, and the rejection of Alba over the Greens again indicates no change in direction from the party. It’s akin to when Marathon rebranded to Snickers. The label changed but the nuts remain.

When the Greens asked that Labour withdrew their vote of no confidence it was quite clear to every man and his dog that a deal had been done, and that the Scottish Government was safe. The vote was, by that point, pointless. Knowing that the government was safe, Ash Regan of Alba then knew that she could cast her vote of no confidence without actually ending up being the scapegoat for bringing them down. Unfortunately this was manna from heaven for those on the more tinfoil-hatted wing of the SNP, who saw this as evidence that ALBA are an MI5 construct, and all the members are secret British Nationalists. These members are, of course, the same folk who used to attend branch meetings and conferences alongside them, and who chapped doors and delivered leaflets in all weathers with them. A more sensible approach from Ms Regan would have been to abstain, sending the message that she could not endorse them, but ultimately neither would she bring down a Scottish Nationalist government in favour of a British Nationalist one. That opportunity has been lost, and it may now be harder for ALBA to reach across to the SNP membership, something that they need to do in the next Holyrood election.

 There is more that unites us than divides us, and as someone who has not forgotten that independence is our ultimate goal, which I want to see sooner, not later, I must ask all our independence supporting politicians to focus on that goal in every act that they do. All our politicians have fallen into the trap of focussing on election cycles, when what we need to do is break the electoral system. We are being told by London that we cannot have a referendum. Good governance brings the confidence to take more responsibility, and we can bypass any referendum by having all independence parties stating, clear and simple that a vote for them is a vote to declare independence, not to seek permission which will always be refused. It’s time to put country before career. 

Some people think that a spell out of office is required to refocus, regroup and reorganise. This is akin to football supporters facing relegation, who convince themselves that after a season in the lower leagues they will come back bigger and stronger. This is seldom the case, and for many teams, that season becomes an extended period in the wilderness. We can only hope that Mr Swinney can salvage something in time for the elections, because the Yes movement cannot afford a loss in any way, shape or form.  Relegation is not an option.

Letter to The National. 03/05/24

SNP: Relegation Awaits

With the kind of flair he is renowned for, Alex Salmond managed to move the Alba Party Conference from something of interest to members and political hacks, to one of the main items on every news bulletin, with his announcement that Ash Regan MSP had left the SNP and joined the Alba Party. This sent another shockwave through the SNP, who hot on the heels of losing Lisa Cameron MP to the Tories, have now lost someone who only recently ran for leadership of the party. To lose one is careless, to lose two must be concerning.

Not so, according to Humza Yousaf, who made himself look very small when he said that it was “no great loss” to the party. What exactly does that say to the general public? Any reasonable person must ask how many others have been elected who are “no great loss” either. Mr Yousaf’s soor grapes chimed with many SNP members who claimed to have heaved a collective sigh of relief now that this “agent provocateur was now gone, while others began sharpening their long knives as they seek to rid themselves of others who are dissatisfied with the direction of the party, such as Fergus Ewing.

A few weeks ago it was claimed that the SNP were losing voters who were switching to Labour, but it appears that committed independence supporters, such as Ash Regan aren’t being seduced by by Sir Keir’s menu of continued Brexit topped with the magic beans of your choice, but are switching to other independence parties, Alba being one. The old saying of “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me” is uppermost in many of their minds, and it seems to concern no-one in the SNP that MPs, MSPs, Councillors, members and voters are all bailing out. When is it going to register that the SNP in its current state is rendering itself unelectable? Nothing seems to register anymore, and every defeat or injury is written off without thought.

The SNP as a collective, from top to bottom have now reached a point where they are acting like the fans of a once successful football team who are now facing a relegation dogfight, and either refuse to accept it can happen or are consoling themselves that they will soon be rid of all the under-achievers and hangers on. As a supporter of a team which has experienced relegation, the proverbial “season in the lower league” doesn’t always pay off and more often leads to an extended stay, a loss of fans and occasionally oblivion. The SNP are on the verge of taking Celtic and turning them into Albion Rovers. The season is not over though, and with many fixtures still to play they can turn things round. They need to accept that the new manager is a dud, and they need to change things now if they want to stop losing their best and brightest to the opposition. Otherwise it’s goodbye San Siro, hello San Giro…

All Aboard The Hypocrisy Bus…

I couldn’t help but put my head in my hands and groan when I started to the see social media come alive with angry SNP members and groups demanding that Lisa Cameron immediately resign and trigger a by-election for jumping ship and defecting to the Tories, and by the time Humza Yousaf himself called on her to do “the honourable thing” I could almost hear the ‘Hypocrisy Bus’ reversing out of the garage.

In February 2023 the Scottish Government rejected a petition which would have made it a mandatory requirement for elected representatives to stand down in the event they no longer represented the party ticket they were elected on. Not one SNP MSP supported this, so we have to ask, if this is not good enough for Scotland’s parliament, why should we demand it of the Westminster one? Had the SNP supported such a move then I’d be at the head of the line demanding she resign, but they didn’t, and as such they will just have to suck it up and deal with the fallout.

The current bin-fire which engulfs the SNP is one of the most disheartening events we, as a broad church independence movement could bear witness to. The SNP, as the de-facto head of the Yes camp very nearly took us to victory in 2014. So to see this, the latest in a long line of self-inflicted disasters, does none of us any good. At every point in recent years where the SNP have had the chance to take the right path, they have gone up cul-de-sacs and taken wrong turns until they have become completely lost, to themselves and to the voters. They have suffered so many injuries that they now remind me of “The Black Knight” in Monty Python, and I can only imagine that at the next Westminster election their campaign slogan will along the lines of “we’ll bite your legs off”.

The party membership must take their fair share of the blame, but many appear to have adopted the same self-deluding attitude as the party leadership, having lost the ability to “see themselves as ithers see us”. Unless there is a serious change within the SNP in the immediate future then I am no doubt that the SNP will lose many seats at Westminster next year, and while that may be a personal disaster for the party, it will be a bitter blow to the wider Yes movement.

In 2014 there was one party with independence as it’s raison d’etre. Now there are at least another two, while others are independence supporting, such as the Greens and the Scottish Socialists. After the Rutherglen by-election, Labour made the claim that the SNP voters were deserting them to go to Labour. Committed independence supporters may be leaving the SNP, but there is no evidence they are going to Labour, indeed all evidence points to them moving to other independence parties, and very few go full on Lisa Cameron and jump to a British Nationalist extremist party.

I fear that without a change in leadership and direction from the SNP, in the short term, the campaign for Scottish independence will come to a halt. Should Labour win the next UK general election, there may from some quarters be a sigh of relief that the Tories are gone. All that will have been achieved in such a case is a brief respite in which we can await their return to government, but what will really change in the interim anyway? Labour are moving so far to the right to ape the Tories, that we may as well not bother in the first place. The only long term solution for Scotland is independence from the basket case UK. The SNP cannot be allowed to put that at risk. To any SNP member who will be attending your conference, the Yes movement reminds you: “Carpe Diem”. Make your voices heard and stop the rot now. Otherwise we all suffer for your actions.

(Letter to The National, 13/10/23)

The SNP : Rotten from the head down.

Colour me unsurprised to see the cold dead hand of Ian McCann still at work as SNP Compliance Officer. Once upon a time I thought this role was about maintaining standards within the SNP. I’ve now come to believe this post is instead designed to gather up all the dirt on individuals within the party, and find how best to cover it up while simultaneously hanging it over the heads of the miscreants to keep them on a short leash and in line. What we have here in one office is an Aegean Stables worth of internal party sleaze, thrown into one massive bucket and suspended by a single wire, over which the Sword of Damocles hangs. Unfortunately for the cabal who were in charge, that sword has fallen, and the contents are beginning to tip out.
The election of the continuity candidate Humza Yousaf may well delay the spillage, but to be honest the damage is done.
I’m also unsurprised to see Neil Gray mentioned as part of Mr Yousaf’s campaign team. May of the shenanigans I observed in Airdrie under Mr Gray and Alex Neil are now saw writ large on the national stage. I recall the 2015 Westminster selection process for the Airdrie & Shotts seat which saw a plethora of anonymous complaints to SNP HQ about Mr Grays opponents. Candidates such as Craig Murray failed vetting, while others were removed from the short list at the last second to leave a two-horse race in which one candidate was illegally endorsed by office bearers and complaints of GDPR breaches were sent to Nicola Sturgeon, Peter Murrell, Ian McCann and Scott Martin – where they were quietly ignored.
There are a few new faces in the list of names calling on the SNP to sort it’s act out in North Lanarkshire in relation to the Jordan Linden scandal – but they are asking the wrong people for help. Asking Ian McCann for help here is like asking Fred West for tips on laying a new patio. The SNP membership need to finally grow a pair and demand action from their leadership to create the fair, open and honest party we were promised – and stop sitting back, eyes glazed after consuming too many carrots, pretending all is well because they are being told all is well. It’s almost fucked beyond repair, and if they don’t act soon then “Once in a generation” will be the best we can hope for.

Scotland’s Stupidest Elections

Tory Airdrie Central candidate Trevor Douglas- campaigning anywhere but Airdrie.

It’s that time again, when the elections which have the most effect on your day to day living are voted on by an underwhelming amount of the electorate. At the last local authority election in 2017 only 46% of the electorate voted across Scotland. In Airdrie Central the turnout was a miserable 39%, and saw the election of Tory councillor Trevor Douglas on a mere 793 First Preference (FP) votes who has turned out to be Airdrie’s version of the invisible man: no mean feat. In this election Mr Douglas hasn’t been seen locally, although he has been pictured campaigning closer to home, in Motherwell.

At the time of writing, only two days before polling opens, I’ve received no SNP leaflets, a local leaflet for Jim Logue and Chris Costello, a leaflet for local Alba candidate Julie Marshall, and a generic “Stop the SNP” leaflet from the Tories.

In the last election Jim Logue ran with Michael McBride as his second, and while Mr Logue picked up 1336 FP votes, Mr McBride picked up a paltry 341 votes, which paved the way for Councillor Douglas to take his seat, and his £18,000 annual paycheck. His total outlay on election expenses? Wait for it… £67.64.

Yes, Scottish democracy really is that cheap.

The 2017 election in North Lanarkshire saw the SNP shade it in terms of seats won, but they were unable to form an administration. Labour were able to do so however, and joined with the Tories to form a Unionist coalition. Given the calibre of many of the SNP councillors I view this as a lucky escape anyway, as many were there not on merit or ability, and would have harmed the SNP and by extension the independence movement. Incidentally the Tories, who claim to be the best placed party to beat the SNP based on by-election results lost every by-election in North Lanarkshire between 2017 and today – as did the SNP.

There has been some effort by shady unionist groups to get unionists in Airdrie to vote Tory as their first preference, despite Labour fielding two hardline Orange Order candidates, and this could throw up some interesting results if voters vote on constitutional lines.

Of course this isn’t a constitutional election. It’s about who delivers local services, yet you wouldn’t think it. All the main parties appear to be campaigning for or against independence, when in reality it’s about bins, roads, education, local health services, housing – it’s about our communities. In Glasgow Anas Sarwar is promising an end to the additional uplift fees for rubbish due to Glasgow’s rat problem. Yet in Labour run North Lanarkshire there’s no such undertaking – despite OUR streets being awash with rubbish and NLC having to scrap pest control fees due to rat infestation! They must think we are mugs – and to a great extent we are because we accept this garbage!

At the 2017 election the SNP ran a highly inept campaign which delivered two ineffective councillors. So bad was their campaign that the incumbent David Stocks came second to his own running partner who was No2 on their election literature! Having received no SNP material I am in the dark as to the qualities of their new candidates – as will be the case for most people in the area.

Local elections should be about local issues, and should be fought on local, not national lines. North Lanarkshire Council, like most other Scottish local authorities is too big and too remote from the people it represents. The present system needs scrapped and we should return to smaller local councils, drawn from the communities, responsible to the people who they see on the street and live alongside. If people are stupid enough to vote for paper candidates who aren’t from or interested in their community then frankly they deserve the inept and out of touch local government they get.

What I feel the system should be has no bearing on the reality of the situation. In Airdrie Central we have 6 candidates, 2 Labour, 2 SNP, 1 Alba and 1 Tory, and they are what matters on Thursday. On the basis of traditional low turnout, misunderstanding of the ranking system, and voting on national rather than local issues, I think that Thursday’s outcome could see a surprise. Whether that is the invisible Tory creeping in on the Orange Order vote, or the Alba candidate taking a seat at the expense of either Labour’s relatively unknown 2nd candidate or either one of the SNP’s unknown candidates I do not know. With most of the SNP’s experienced activists switching to Alba there’s a chance that they might just make it.

With all that in mind, remember to vote until you boak, and rank the Tory last. On Thursday, let’s make Tories history.

The SNP’s Latest Pyramid Scheme

Extract from the “How Scotland Decides How Scotland Recovers” “leaflet”.

Today’s National’s front page exclusive is that Mike Russell will update the SNP NEC on the creation of a “leaflet” entitled “How Scotland Decides How Scotland Recovers” which is available on the Yes.Scot website.

Let’s get one thing straight. Until it has been run off in print form it is not a “leaflet” and I suspect it never will be run off in any case. Even at that it’s still not that impressive, in fact the Scottish Independence Foundation (SIF) recently published their own booklet, Scotland & Independence, which is far more detailed and far more impressive – and is actually available right now on actual paper.

Rather than simply run a puff piece on a pdf file, The National could have asked a few probing and relevant questions which their readers might have been interested in.:

1. How many leaflets are being printed?
2. How are these leaflets going to find their way into every household in Scotland?
3. When will this exercise be complete?
4. How much will it cost to distribute these leaflets to every household in Scotland?
5. Where is the money coming from to carry this out?

Neither the article nor the Yes.scot website explain how these points are to be achieved – indeed the SNP’s preferred method of sharing is that we each share it to five people online, who share it to another five people, who share it to another five, in some kind of pyramid scheme., something which the SNP has already engaged in with its “ring-fenced” fundraiser and which has ultimately left them without the resources to put this meagre offering into paper form. The gullible will lap this up. As for those who are a tad more questioning, this appears to be an exercise in deception.

Unity in the Independence Movement Does Not Mean Blind Obedience to the SNP

Since the election in May I’ve seen much talk online regarding the Alba Party from SNP officials, members and supporters. Indeed, in the immediate wake of the election we saw the rather disgusting sight of senior SNP officials cheering at what they thought was the death of another wing of the independence movement. Since then we have heard the incessant drip, drip, drip from SNP fundamentalists demanding that people who voted Alba should now return to the fold and unite as one, abandoning their concerns and principles in the process. I’m afraid that ship has sailed and there’s as much chance of that happening as there is of the Yes movement heeding calls from British Nationalists to abandon independence because they won the referendum in 2014.

Gordon McIntyre Kemp hit the nail on the head in his column in The National on Thursday when he said that the SNP are highly successful as a political party but not as a part of the Yes movement. The unity of the 2014 campaign came from the atmosphere generated by the movement, the feeling that everyone had something to contribute and something to gain, and that although we all desired the same aim in one respect we were not of one hive mind.

Bearing that in mind, perhaps it is not the Yes movement which must surrender to the SNP, but the other way around. Many eyes have been opened to the internal chicanery of the SNP, and when you see that kind of behaviour laid bare and take a principled stand against it, then it is highly unlikely you can stuff that particular genie back in the bottle. The shadow of careerists, bottom-feeders and carpet-baggers, along with kangaroo courts, police investigations and missing “ring-fenced” money looms large and long, and perhaps in those circumstances the best we can hope for from the SNP is that it becomes more transparent and honest internally, while at the same time holding out an olive branch to the Yes movement and learning to work with its allies in the independence movement, not against them. Instead of running lemming-like towards a cliff the SNP must now pause and take stock or fall into the abyss. Should they do so they will take the independence movement with them, and that must not be allowed to happen.

Martin Hannan – Thank You

I read Martin Hannan’s letter describing his reasons for leaving the SNP and thought that I would register my thanks to him in the face of the bitter and childish criticism that he received from some quarters on social media which unfortunately bore out his comments that the SNP was more and more becoming a cult. His reasons for resigning struck a chord with me on a personal level. I joined the SNP in the aftermath of the 2014 referendum, and quickly saw practices and attitudes which were entirely unacceptable, and which as far as I could see went all the way from a rotten branch right up the tree to SNP headquarters. What I saw at a local level has been replicated and magnified many times at national level, and for those who tried to pretend that our branch was an exception, only now are they seeing that it was just a part of a bigger, cancerous whole. I left the SNP as quickly as I joined and I believe, like Martin now does, that you cannot stay in and fix this from the inside, for that means getting down in the sewer with your opponents and joining them, and who with any modicum of self-respect wants to do that?As an activist with more than one independence group, Martin has been a great friend to us in our efforts to grow and promote our activities. You only have to read his articles to see that he lives and breathes independence; his credentials as a supporter of independence cannot be called into question. That’s why people across the independence movement and especially within the SNP should be sitting up and taking notice. They cannot afford to lose good people like that – yet they are, hand over fist. Membership numbers have fallen drastically recently, and those who claimed credit for the 2014 rise seem unwilling to accept responsibility for the 2021 crash. Many of those members were once folk who would go out and chap doors for nothing more that the thought that they were helping achieve something better, and were let go with nothing but a thank you email from Peter Murrell, not the heartfelt, unscripted video which a select few received from Nicola Sturgeon. Some of the most dedicated supporters are becoming demoralised, and how do you motivate people to chap doors when the best they can offer is to tell you to keep your eyes on the prize and hold your nose while you vote for the SNP? In 2014 we were offered “hope over fear”. Now we are being offered Westminster corruption with a tartan paint job. As an independence supporter and activist, I cannot take that message onto the streets. I know that we are far beyond the point where the internal differences of the SNP can be resolved over a handshake. We can now only sit back and wait to see what we can salvage from the wreckage, before regrouping to fight again. In Scotland some things never change. 

The Danger of Creating Icons

Simpler times…

For us mere bystanders who were relying on the SNP to lead the independence movement to victory, their recent behaviour has been a bin fire which has spread to a nearby skip and now threatens to burn down the house, and which the SNP insist on trying to put out with petrol! The idea of leaving petty differences aside until after independence is one which the SNP high-heidyins should have noted a long time ago: before they conspired to send an innocent man to jail, and before setting the hounds on non-compliant journalists. We have to deal with reality here, however uncomfortable, and it is dismaying to see so many people still labouring under the impression that these matters could still be set aside.

That ship has sailed. That bridge has been burned. As the French say: the carrots are cooked.
If this was a movie it would be dismissed as being too far-fetched: A political conspiracy to destroy the reputation of their former boss, to ensure that he can never come back to politics with senior elected SNP members leaking internal information to the press and the Crown Office leaking details of prosecutions to the press. Malicious reports to the police by seedy politicians to put pressure on their enemies, and silencing journalists who support the victim of the conspiracy by threatening them with going to jail. Sounds too far fetched? Why not throw in the loss of around £600,000 in ring-fenced campaign funds, and just to top that off, why not sack one of the most able front bench MP’s in order to to satisfy the bloodlust of a small but vocal group of trans-rights extremists? If any thinks that this genie can be put back in the bottle they are utterly delusional.
Many people think that Nicola Sturgeon has done a fantastic job managing the coronavirus pandemic in Scotland and are willing to turn a blind eye to the current shenanigans because of their support for independence. That’s just wrong. That’s like turning a blind eye to the abuse carried out by Jimmy Saville because he did a lot of work for charity.

There is every possibility that, despite her popularity in the polls, Nicola Sturgeon will possibly not be SNP leader come May. A good leader, like Alex Salmond did, would be trying to prepare the ground for such a possibility. Instead Nicola Sturgeon appears to be implementing a scorched earth policy, ensuring that many people who are competent and capable are taken off the board. Her decision to remove Joanna Cherry from the field and replace her with Anne McLaughlin is akin to substituting Kenny Dalglish in a vital qualifier and replacing him with Wayne Biggins! Apologies to Wayne Biggins…

It’s time the independence woke up and smelled the coffee. Crying “Leave oor Nicola alone” is not a viable line of defence, and to build her up to an infallible icon is a sure road to disappointment, and goodness knows we’ve had enough of that. I’m sure that after the axe has swung there will be others just as capable of managing to govern Scotland AND campaign for independence, perhaps more so.
Whoever that leader is they must go back to first principles, the ones which united us all in 2014. An end to dirty politics. Transparency and honesty must be their watchwords, otherwise all we can look forward to upon independence is a Little Westminster in Edinburgh.

Death By 1,000 Cu(*)ts

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more bizarre, the SNP decide to shoot their other foot off!

Remember when the Labour Party were imploding many years ago with this sort of garbage? The SNP have now proved that they have fully adopted the mantle they took over in 2007 with a party split between careerists and entryism – all of whom have forgotten what they were supposed to be fighting for.

A few days ago in the wake of the mass trans-resignation, Nicola Sturgeon came out on social media to beg the malcontents to come back. This group of people have as much interest in independence as I have of going to the Last Night of the Proms. Had the Labour Party still been in power these same folk would have gone there instead. Whatever has the best chance of furthering their own personal agendas.

Only a few days later they have gone full on Loony-Left Labour with a bizarre (and again legally dubious) plan to shoehorn in minority interest groups to the top of the Regional Lists, ahead of others who might have expected to be there on merit.

I’ve already petitioned Holyrood about the abuse of the list system. They are just trolling us now.

More news on this at: Wings Over Scotland : The Death Wish