A guest post by Campbell Martin first published in the Scottish Left Review.
Campbell Martin unravels the continuing battle for the soul of the SNP.
A former SNP MSP (2003-2007), Campbell Martin is now broadcast journalist and factual programme director. He is not a member of any political party.
In years to come, students of Scottish politics will look back on this time as ‘The Great SNP Enigma’. They will try to unravel how the SNP and party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, could have been achieving record-high support in opinion polls, yet a large section of independence supporters was calling for the leader to be replaced. Looking back on today from the vantage point of a future independent Scotland, will students and others understand why so many on her own side turned on the leader of the SNP?
As First Minister of Scotland, Sturgeon has been outstanding: so impressive has she been during an unprecedented global pandemic that only partisan, political opponents would attempt to contrive criticism of her performance. If Scotland was already an independent country, few candidates could come close to matching Nicola Sturgeon as an ideal First Minister. However, we are not, yet, independent, and the current SNP leadership’s ‘gradualist’ approach to restoring to Scotland the sovereign powers of a normal, independent country is what generates the criticism of Sturgeon and those in her leadership-bubble.
My membership of the SNP came to an end 16-years-ago; a decision made by the party, not me. At the time, I was an SNP MSP and I spoke-out against the ‘leadership’ of John Swinney, who had replaced Alex Salmond as National Convener in 2000. I was a ‘fundamentalist’, generally described as people who want independence, and want it ‘now’. Swinney and the small clique around his ‘leadership’ were ‘gradualists’. Essentially, ‘gradualists’ were prepared to ‘park independence’ and, instead, they sought to gradually – and very slowly – build the powers of the devolved parliament in Edinburgh. Swinney once told me he was impressed with what Tony Blair had done with the Labour Party – creating ‘new’ Labour and turning the former party of the working class into a clone of the Tory Party. His vision was the creation of a ‘new’ SNP, and under his ‘leadership’ the party moved from its traditional moderate, centre-left position to a moderate, centre-right position.
Under Swinney’s ‘leadership’, party members on the left were marginalised and found themselves attacked by anonymous party spokespeople. It became a trait of the ‘gradualists’ that, despite being frightened to fight unionists, they did not hold back in putting the boot into fellow SNP members of the left. In 2004, shortly after I was expelled for calling on Swinney to resign and for Alex Salmond to return as leader, Swinney resigned and Alex Salmond returned as leader. The purge of ‘fundamentalists’ and the left was ended as Alex Salmond re-united the SNP and transformed it into a party of government.
Sadly, today, under Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership, the ‘gradualists’ are once again in positions of power within the SNP. Criticism of the leader and her advisors stems from a perceived lack of urgency, on their part, in delivering independence. There appears to be no plan to take Scotland forward, other than asking a Tory Prime Minister in London to give his permission for the Scottish Government to hold an independence referendum. Theresa May and Boris Johnson have both refused such permission and, given majority support for independence in opinion polls, why would a Conservative and Unionist Prime Minister change their mind? Why does the party that styles itself ‘the party of independence’ have no clear-cut plan to actually deliver independence?
Against this background, in the Sturgeon-led SNP, prominent party activists on the left of the party are, once again, being marginalised and attacked, even blocked from standing as party candidates. The difference, this time, is that much of the often vicious attacks come from young, sycophantic, leadership acolytes using social media.
The SNP’s new ‘gradualists’ are clearly being manipulated and used by some of the old guard who still advocate the parking of independence and slowly building the powers of the devolved parliament. What the young members have added to this mantra is placing ‘identity’ issues ahead of delivering an independent Scotland. The young ‘new’ SNP activists place greater emphasis on self-identity in relation to gender, than on delivering a better, fairer, more equitable Scotland for all the people who live here. Their gender obsession could be delivered by an SNP Government in a limited, devolved parliament, but a better, fairer, more equitable country for all Scots requires independence, so they appear willing to settle for running devolution.
In addition to the new ‘gradualists’ down-paying independence, and putting the boot into ‘fundamentalists’ and the left, today’s SNP also has to contend with the possibility that some around the Sturgeon leadership may have colluded to try and jail former SNP leader, Alex Salmond. Serious charges relating to sexual offences were presented against Salmond, but a jury at Scotland’s High Court in Edinburgh listened to the evidence and acquitted him of all charges. Still, though, concerns remain that some senior SNP members might have played a part in trying to jail Salmond. Information that could split the SNP wide-open may emerge as a Scottish Parliament Inquiry into the Scottish Government’s handling of actions against Alex Salmond takes its course.
However, much of this has played-out below the general public’s radar, which is why we have the apparent enigma of soaring support for a popular First Minister, her party and independence, while criticism is levelled by those in the SNP and wider movement who are aware of what is happening.
A former SNP MSP (2003-2007), Campbell Martin is now broadcast journalist and factual programme director. He is not a member of any political party.
I guess I am in the fundamentalist camp.
Put out of Strathtay Branch for wanting activism protests, now in Stanley branch of SNP but not allowed to hold a officer bearer post. (It was put in a polite way)
Committed to yes movement and working within SNP another year to see if we can get fundamentalists on to NEC and in key posts.
I was always concerned that the SNP could morph into New Labour. The attitude of who else can they vote for brings an attitude of arrogance. I thought Sturgeon would be the one it’s all looking rather shoogly from where I’m standing. I know people will reply I’m off my nut as support for indy rises but I think that really has more to do with the Tories and Brexit than anything the SNP is doing at the moment. I understand its a broad church and all that but just because you have different visions of what indy looks like you should still be hell bent on achieving it
Good stuff, BB and Mr Martin. When Alex Salmond took over leadership of the SNP, he was also a ‘gradualist’, but not in the same way that the new ‘gradualists’ are ‘gradualist’. He did sense a need to establish that the SNP was capable of governing, but his ‘gradualism’, with which I very much agreed at the time, was always going to lead to independence. That is the difference between the ‘gradualism’ of common sense and the ‘gradualism’ of foot-dragging inertia, and the former was aimed at persuading the Scottish electorate to vote YES in the coming referendum; the latter reeks of party privilege and hegemony – and a willingness to contemplate a Faustian bargain between the SNP leadership and the Mephistophelian British State.
The pseudo ‘woke’ faction is of the left, too, but not the SNP left. Yes, there is a difference there, too. The new left is allied to the right insofar as policy is concerned. I think what has happened is that the right (epitomised by Mr Swinney and others of the old guard) is facilitating the promotion of ultra left extremism in the form of the GRA reform and the ‘hate crime’ legislation, the latter designed specially to deal with any fall-out from the former, and, therefore, coupled with it (think Labour Militant) in order that a right-wing neoliberal economy may be created for an independent Scotland or just for a continuing devolved administration/British State absorption forever and a day, and all under the radar.
Both right and left here are authoritarian and relying on each other to push through their favourite policies, regardless of the membership (and GRA, wherever it has colonized, has been linked to big Tech and Big Pharma in The States, corporatist interests, so, ultimately right-wing, too, albeit part of it is a misogynistic backlash against women’s advances, and, by far, the biggest part is swathed in fetishist behaviour that owes little to body dysphoria/gender dysphoria).
It is naive and stupid to believe that Nicola Sturgeon has nothing to do with this; she has everything to do with it; and the roll-out of the vaccine might just strip away the perceptions that many still have about her commitment to independence, as she is forced, for the first time in a year, to confront the political reality in Scotland. If she remains intransigent and actually uses a SNP victory in 2021 to push through these unpopular policies, the SNP will pay the price. The argument against several small pro independence parties muddying the water will no longer stand, as, if it is ‘manyana, manyana’ and jam tomorrow yet again, time-wise there will be nothing to choose between the SNP and another party.
That is where the estimable and old warrior, Peter A. Bell’s theory falls apart: yes, for now, we do need the SNP to bring forward independence; but, if they are not going to do that or cannot be persuaded or cajoled into doing that, the wider independence movement has nothing to lose by backing another horse in the race.
If Nicola Sturgeon brings the Manifesto forward to the end of this year or the beginning of next year, we will have a good idea of which way she is going to go in May, 2021: whether it is just another commitment to independence or a wholehearted declaration that independence will follow a big win. If not, we will know that she is waiting till the last moment to spring a Manifesto on us that has little to do with independence and everything to do with pseudo ‘woke’ societal experimentation on an unwilling public, and SNP hegemony well into the 21st century, abandoning the party’s very raison d’être against a backdrop of rising polls in favour of independence, an international treaty that has been consistently breached by Westminster and the UN Charter on Self-Determination, not to mention our Scottish sovereignty.
Campbell your highlighting of the centre left faction being ostracised and marginalised in favour of centre right policies is becoming more open and obvious , the inclusion and appointment of former and current economic advisors to WM being promoted to the SG
The awarding of various positions within Scottish Water and the deliberate separation of a commercial entity has very serious implications for OUR NATIONALISED Scottish Water Company which may be heading for privatisation by stealth
The proposed sale by a quango and unopposed by the SG to sell part of OUR Loch Lomond national park to a tory donor English company to facilitate a gaudy nature destroying amusement park
Also the views aired by Mike Russell within his book relating to the Scottish National Health Service where he opines that on Scotland becoming independent serious consideration must be given to the affordability of the current situation where inclusion of the private health sector would have to be looked at and considered, I am paraphrasing but IMO that is not the views of someone I would consider to be left leaning
I like many others BELIEVE EMPHATICALLY in OUR SNHS and Scottish Water and will fight endlessly to keep them out of private enterprise