The SNP is not a normal party. It is this that
explains recent events and also events in the recent past. The SNP is the means
by which Scottish nationalists hope to achieve independence. This explains
everything.
Of course, there are other Scottish nationalist
parties. Alba, the Scottish Greens, some small far left socialist parties. Not
every independence supporter likes the SNP. Some hate it. But still the SNP is
the only party that has any chance of delivering independence. Without it,
Alba, the Scottish Greens etc can achieve nothing whatsoever.
Whereas Labour may have the goal of creating social
democracy or even socialism and the Conservatives may have the goal of making
Britain wealthier, the SNP’s goal has nothing whatsoever to do with ordinary
politics. Its goal is for Scotland to leave the UK and everything else is subordinate
to that goal. This too explains everything.
There are SNP gradualists and fundamentalists. There
are those who want to go slowly and those who want to go quickly. There is some
subterfuge about whether, for example, Nicola Sturgeon wanted each or any of
the referendums she proposed would happen always next year, but I think there
is no doubt that she genuinely wanted Scottish independence in 2014 and was
willing to do what was necessary to achieve that goal.
Alex Salmond achieved two things that Nicola Sturgeon
never came close to achieving. He was given a legal referendum and he increased
support for independence by around 15 to 20%. The trajectory suggests that if
the referendum in 2014 had been held in 2015 the SNP would have won.
Independence supporters won more than 50% at the General Election in 2015.
But we now know that in Bute House there were already
in 2014 serious allegations against Salmond. When eventually these allegations
came to trial Salmond was acquitted with one verdict of not proven. But this
does not change the fact that women civil servants and party members were allegedly
warned not to be alone with Salmond and that nine or ten women testified
against him.
Voters in 2014 knew nothing whatsoever about these
allegations. But it has always stretched credibility that SNP insiders knew nothing.
Why didn’t any of the women who accused Salmond in 2020 go to the police in
2014? The answer is that it would have damaged both the SNP and the chances of
Yes winning the referendum in 2014.
In 2017 the Scottish Government began to receive
complaints about Salmond. Nicola Sturgeon the successor as First Minister
apparently was not involved in the gathering of evidence, though her husband
Peter Murrell was discovered to have sent text messages such as
“Folk should be asking the police questions"
"Good time to be pressurising them.”
"The more fronts he is having to firefight on the
better."
But Nicola Sturgeon supposedly knew nothing about this,
and she too was essentially acquitted by the Committee on the Scottish
Government Handling of Harassment Complaints. She continued after its verdict
just like before as if nothing had happened.
The problem with this verdict was that it was
political. Those members who opposed Scottish independence clearly differed in
their questioning and their assessment of Sturgeon’s guilt. Again, we have the
same pattern emerging. Whatever helps the cause of Scottish independence is
justified. It justifies what would normally be called immorality, perhaps even
illegality.
When Salmond might have led Scotland to independence
there is silence about his alleged misbehaviour, when he is no longer useful
and perhaps a hindrance to the cause suddenly there are witnesses. But there
are no witnesses to Sturgeon knowing anything in 2014 and no one to convict her
of any misbehaviour because that would damage the cause.
The root of the SNP’s present problems is the same
root as its past problems. It is a secretive organisation and both politicians
and supporters are willing to do anything for the sake of the party’s goal.
Let’s look at recent events, being careful to presume
that those who have been investigated by the police and talked to by the police
are innocent.
Nicola Sturgeon resigned because she reached a moment
when she thought it was time to go, she was drained, although only a little earlier
she had been fine.
It may be that the reasons Sturgeon gave for resigning
are true. But there have been a strange set of subsequent coincidences.
1 Liz Lloyd Sturgeon’s chief advisor resigns after
apparently helping Humza Yousaf’s campaign.
2 Murray Foote SNP Chief of Communications resigns
because he was misled about SNP membership figures.
3 Peter Murrell resigns because he accepts
responsibility for misleading the public about the membership figures.
4 John Swinney resigns as Deputy First Minister after
16 years.
5 Peter Murrell is arrested and interviewed by the
police and released without charge,
6 The SNP appoint a white-collar crime expert lawyer,
though Humza Yousaf says, “no current staff members are under any suspicion of
wrongdoing.”
7 The SNP’s auditors quit.
But all these dominoes falling apparently have nothing
whatsoever to do with Sturgeon resigning. It’s all just a coincidence.
But something clearly did happen when Sturgeon resigned.
We have had a brutal leadership contest. There have been suggestions that the
contest should be rerun because if SNP members knew what they do now they would
vote differently. Continuity doesn’t look quite as attractive as it did when
Sturgeon resigned. Change looks more needed.
What we need to know is if Sturgeon knew when she
resigned that there might be a problem with the party’s membership figures. Did
Humza Yousaf know about these issues too? Why did Liz Lloyd and apparently the
whole SNP establishment support Humza Yousaf? Why were they so keen that Kate
Forbes lost that they were willing to attack her in the most extraordinary way?
Could it have been because she wanted to reform the SNP, to delve into all the
SNP’s secrets both financial and otherwise and to clean it all up? Was that the
reason for the rather obvious Stop Kate campaign, which only just succeeded?
So, we have an SNP leader Humza Yousaf who probably would
have lost if the SNP members knew what they do now. We have a lack of clarity over
the SNP’s finances and even how many members there really are.
But worse than all of this we know really nothing
about what has been going on inside the SNP for about ten years. SNP insiders
won’t tell us, because it will damage the cause of independence, much of
Scottish society won’t investigate or report or convict, because it knows that
its future and its funding depends on not upsetting the SNP.
This is the root of all of the scandals that we know
about and those that we don’t. So, we don’t have much in the way of
investigative journalism. We don’t have crusading campaigners for justice
willing to dig and fight to find out the truth.
We don’t have any of these things because SNP supporters
and politicians were willing to keep silent, look the other way and do nothing
that might damage the cause of independence. This is the root of the problem. Nationalism
is the at the rotten heart of Scottish politics.
But something did happen that I think caused the first
log to break free from the log jam and which brought the whole pile of logs
down with it.
Last year we were told by the Supreme Court not merely
that the Scottish Government could not hold an independence referendum on its
own authority, but also and perhaps worse than this that Scotland did not have
a right to self-determination at all, because Scotland is not a colony but
rather a part of a western liberal democracy. It destroyed the whole SNP
argument.
The prospect of independence receded into the distance.
So, if there was no great cause, there was also no reason to keep secrets for
the sake of the SNP, no reason to hide whatever the SNP wanted hidden, no
reason to look the other way and no reason really to fear Sturgeon. As her
power drained away, we reached a point where she no longer controlled either
her party, events or whichever secrets were kept hidden by all those who departed
after she did.
It is this that gave us civil war during the
leadership contest, and it is this that is behind each and ever new revelation.
It is the Saturday after Good Friday. The SNP has
descended into Hell, but tomorrow when we roll away the stone, we will find
merely a rotting corpse that has lost its reason to enforce silence and has
begun to smell of something worse than rotten fish.
