AS one who the SNP leadership tried to inter in a concrete block and throw in the River Cart, but who emerged Lazarus-like courtesy of the electorate, I very much welcome the column by Kevin McKenna, who has charted the extremely sad decline of the SNP into a party which now is focused inwards rather than outwards (SNP infighting the biggest threat to party in face of weak opposition, September 30).
Those who created the modern SNP post-1962 – Margo MacDonald, Billy Wolfe and Gordon Wilson – must indeed be birlin’ in their graves at this tragic development.
The causes of this decline are both administrative and political. Post-devolution, Peter Murrell as chief executive set about centralising party membership (2003) and the selection of council candidates (2011), and cut down the number of National Council meetings where, unlike the conference, real debate could take place.
READ MORE: SNP infighting the biggest threat to party in face of weak opposition
Politically, the party realised that it was beginning to be a real contender for government, so a culture of self-discipline grew, but mechanisms to continue to facilitate real internal debate parallel to this were nullified. For example, National Assembly, which was created for this very purpose, was all but killed by the SNP hierarchy.
Yet there are shades of light emerging. Last week at the full meeting of Renfrewshire Council it was unanimously agreed to support a motion I proposed seeking radical reform of the proposed Hate Crime Bill. As someone who was a founder member of the SNP Anti-Apartheid Group in 1986, and the first SNP parliamentary candidate to translate campaign material into Hindi and Urdu, in 1987, I should have been able to welcome that bill as it stood with open arms. While recent changes are welcome, I cannot stay quiet when legislation proposes to censor public plays and the theatre in a way which is inimical to free speech and the right to satirical comment.
The independent Scotland I seek is one where all colours, creeds, and varieties of Scot prosper and thrive, but I will never bow down to either the fascism of the far right or the growing authoritarianism of the new left.
Cllr Andy Doig (Independent)
Renfrewshire Council
THAT which many of us have been thinking as outsiders, without the insight of party membership or lobby passes, has been articulated so forcefully by Kevin McKenna. Thank you.
It felt as though independence was within grasp. Up until March 2020 and lockdown, my own organisation Edinwfi, with their “oot n aboot” Saturday stalls, were talking to real people about real everyday issues.
Like too little money come the weekend. Like being forced into using food banks, or worse, thinking they couldn’t live without them. What’s life without hope, without a possible future better than today?
After listening, talking, and having agreed about the dire need to change, many acknowledged they’d been worried about independence not delivering, having already seen the lie on the side of a bus.
READ MORE: Scottish MPs must not acquiesce to a rewrite of the Treaty of Union
But yes, they were prepared to consider, to go home, discuss it with families, friends, neighbours. EdinWFI are cross-party and non-party, so possibly we did get an easier ride since we weren’t pushing either parties or politicians, just the vision of different, better, after independence.
We’d reinforce that parties and politicians are what will get us there, but only if we vote for them.
And now? It would appear our FM is single-handedly fighting the Covid fight, doing the day job in other words, and the indy vision is like snow off the dyke on a sunny day. And we’ve not had many of those recently, have we?
Channel 4 recently reported on the use of social media in the last USA election that (allegedly) identified and targeted certain sections of society. It was a form of Project Fear that persuaded many not to vote, far less change their votes because they’d lost confidence in their preferred party. Sound familiar?
Can we afford to lose votes either through a remoulded Project Fear or through a loss of faith in a party fighting itself instead of fighting the opposition?
Selma Rahman
Edinburgh
KEVIN McKenna’s article about the SNP infighting rightly (I think) raises concerns about the SNP becoming more concerned with itself rather than leading us to independence. However, he spoils the article somewhat by raising matters which are not really relevant to it.
He criticises a government grant to the John Smith Centre on the grounds that all its board members are “affluent white people”. He does inform us that the grant is to support young BAME people into leadership but doesn’t see the irony of his criticism or the fact that he is a white, possibly affluent person.
He also criticises the “huge awards [the Scottish Government] dispenses each year to anti-sectarian charities, none of whom are trusted by the community most adversely affected by it.” Could Mr McKenna name the charities he is referring to? Can he identify the community he refers to, provide the measurements by which he determines it to be the most adversely affected, and by which he deduces they do not trust the charities? I won’t hold my breath.
Douglas Morton
Lanark
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