I WOULD love to congratulate Joanna Cherry especially but also the Common Weal and all those SNP grassroute members who took back control of the SNP from that radical minority. Also to the great article and support from Kevin McKenna in (No room for bullies in the SNP? Why I’m not sure, December 1).
What has been going on the last wee while had the possibility of actually derailing our independence. So it is fantastic news this has now been stopped in its tracks, although as a great supporter, I am really disappointed in Nicola Sturgeon’s lack of support of Joanna Cherry and also in her lack of control in regard to these sexist ideas, crazy ideas.
READ MORE: Kevin McKenna: Joanna Cherry needs to examine 'Trumpian' behaviours in the SNP
The huge majority don’t have any issues with gay or lesbian people but this whole ideology thing was getting well out of hand and was building to be a major thorn for ordinary voters.
During this pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon has, due to her cool and compassionate presentation and leadership, brought many new indy supporters on side. She may just see Joanna Cherry as a rival and that may well be true, but its a shame too – they are both great and we are stronger with them both, so it shouldn’t be a choice. Hopefully, Joanna’s job will go soon and we will get her back home to help us run our new country.
What we need now is a big push to the next election, then a Plan B, then independence in 2021. Bring it on.
Colin McGinnis
Dundee
ALYN Smith’s outrage at not being elected to the position of policy development convener has blinded him to glaring inconsistencies in his column on Wednesday (OK. So you defeated me. Now it’s time to deliver”, December 2).
He claims to dislike factions and yet says “we were out-organised this time, it is our responsibility to dig in and organise better for next time.” This “we” can only refer to a faction to which he himself belongs. The fact that it’s a faction currently favoured by the party establishment doesn’t make it less of a faction.
Significantly, he lists his loyalty credentials in this order: “to the leadership, to party policy and to the cause of independence.”
READ MORE: Alyn Smith: OK. So you defeated me. Now it’s time to deliver
Patronisingly, he cites having “encouraged 130-plus motions from branches” without mentioning that all of them were binned by the allegedly non-existent faction to which he belongs.
Insidiously, he fulminates against “the fact that members of our party have been allowed to openly undermine and dissent from our agreed policy and collective discipline” and finds it “incredible that there is no apparent consequence to such disloyalty”.
Like many other long-time SNP activists I used to hold Alyn Smith in the highest regard. In the wake of the EU referendum, his gesture in holding up the map to the European Parliament with Scotland coloured uniformly yellow, his eloquence in begging the parliament to “Keep a light on for Scotland” are images which placed Scotland firmly above the radar in Europe and in the world.
This self-pitying, self-centred rant shows him in a different light. Here’s hoping that the new batch of party office-holders owe their loyalty to ideals such as nuclear disarmament, land ownership reform and independence rather than to themselves and their friends.
Mary McCabe
Glasgow
KEVIN McKenna’s article about internal problems in the SNP (The SNP’s woke team have been defeated – here’s what that means, December 2) certainly gives supporters of independence food for thought. However, as usual, he spoils it with “asides” which have nothing to do with the main article.
READ MORE: Kevin McKenna: The SNP’s woke team have been defeated – here’s what that means
He says “our national police force has been reduced to a private army of the Scottish Government: always eager to harass working-class football fans”. Where is the evidence of this? I’m a regular attendee at football matches – both club and international – and I regard myself as working-class. I’ve never been harassed by the police and I don’t know any football fan who has. (Incidentally, I wonder if he has an opinion on those Celtic fans who harassed the police on Sunday at Celtic Park by throwing things at them, breaking Covid regulations at the same time.)
Mr McKenna also suggests that the police have little interest in finding those “who issue threats against women on social media”. He also informs us that Joanna Cherry was offered 24-hour police protection following what they (the police) regarded as credible death threats. His opinion and his description of the police response seem to be contradictory.
Douglas Morton
Lanark
OH my lord. If anyone felt hard done by when losing in an election, it’s Alyn Smith. His whole-page contribution to The National was just one big defeated moan.
He is obviously no supporter of people power politics. The inevitable change of membership of the National Executive Committee (NEC) was foreseen, given its recent attack on SNP MSP candidates who already hold down a job, particularly those who are MPs in Westminster.
The election outcomes might well have been determined from the comfort of a sofa, but equally they would have been selected from the denizens of a SNP conference building in Glasgow or Aberdeen.
Indeed, Alyn Smith, you did not have the support for re-election. But I think you have a nerve to think you can remain influential in how the new NEC might carry out its future duties. Further insult is added with your suggestion that “the alliances cobbled together” will eventually fall out. Plus your added comment with regard to Joanna Cherry’s election being altogether remarkable is uncalled for. In my view it was inevitable.
I could go on about your rant, but no! You are out, so get over it, as the saying goes. No-one is going to bully you into silence. Obviously that would be impossible. Find something else useful to direct your political energies and leave the new SNP committee and NEC members to get on with their job for which they were democratically elected by the people, for the people and of the people.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
MESSAGE to Nicola: please get hold of Alyn Smith and Joanna Cherry and lock them in a room and do not let them out till they come to some agreement/compromise, as this situation with the two of them is causing untold damage to the party! It certainly does not look good when we are trying to persuade doubters to sign up to independence!
George Bertram
The Black Isle
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