It's time to democratise the SNP's NEC

Earlier this evening, I had a brief but interesting Twitter exchange with the former SNP MSP Andrew Wilson, who incidentally I voted for back in the day no fewer than four times - twice when he was the SNP candidate for Cumbernauld & Kilsyth in 1999 and 2003, and twice when he was a Central Scotland list candidate in the same years.  (He was elected on the list in 1999, but missed out in 2003 due to his ranking on the list being too low - ironically as the result of something of a stitch-up.)

With all due respect to Andrew, the problem here has been caused by the attempted stitch-up on the NEC, not by people calling out that attempted stitch-up on social media. And I suspect he privately knows that.https://t.co/bHIRKVG2PV

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) August 2, 2020

Decoded, this tweet means "Joanna Cherry must be blocked from standing for a Scottish Parliament seat otherwise THE BAD GUYS WILL HAVE WON". Come off it, Andrew. You're playing the power politics game here, not promoting civility.https://t.co/bHIRKVG2PV

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) August 2, 2020

I completely disagree. https://t.co/uXUCZdSsXh

— Andrew Wilson (@AndrewWilson) August 2, 2020

Could you elaborate on that? Are you disagreeing with my interpretation that you want Joanna Cherry to be (to all intents and purposes) blocked from standing? If so, would you encourage the NEC to reverse their decision?

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) August 2, 2020

I have no locus in any of this. I would ratherJC stood and dont understand why she cant. I think NEC has badly handled it all. You haven’t met me so why you cast aspertions? This is what I am getting at.

— Andrew Wilson (@AndrewWilson) August 2, 2020

And you haven't met me, but that doesn't seem to be precluding a moral judgement in the opposite direction either. I'd gently suggest this could be resolved quite easily if you explain what the "placation of the gallery" that you fear so much would actually look like?

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) August 2, 2020

Happy to meet anytime

— Andrew Wilson (@AndrewWilson) August 2, 2020

And I'd be happy to as well, but is there a reason why you can't explain in a public space? If you fear you're being misunderstood (and perhaps you are), then being so elliptical is unlikely to help.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) August 2, 2020

Now, in fairness, what Andrew says about being unhappy with the NEC decision does check out - I had a look through some of his earlier tweets and he had made the same point before. So I'm happy to apologise to him for getting the wrong end of the stick. (I know some cynical souls will suggest that we may simply be seeing a tactical retreat after the NEC decision had already proved to be unsustainable. But we have to take what people say at face value in the absence of contrary evidence.)

Nevertheless, it's also reasonable to point out that I gave Andrew the opportunity to explain exactly what he did mean by the comments I misconstrued, and as you can see he very studiously avoided doing so. There presumably must be a reason for his reluctance to publicly explain what "placating the gallery" is getting at.  Off the top of my head, I can only really think of a small number of demands that people have been making on social media - one is that the decision to block James Dornan be overturned (that's already happened), one is that the decision to block Joanna Cherry be overturned (Andrew says he'd support that), and one is that people should think more carefully about who is placed on the NEC and the process by which they end up being placed there.  Is it the latter demand that Andrew is concerned about?  This is not an attempt to "cast aspersions", but when an explanation isn't forthcoming, all that can fill that gap is a process of logical deduction, and I'm struggling to think of any other possibilities.

If I'm right, it's little wonder that Andrew is unwilling to spell out what he means, because the calls to reform the NEC are a simple matter of democratic accountability.  To the limited extent that the NEC is elected at all, it's elected by an indirect method, and that's bound to cause great concern if the end result is a body taking decisions that are alien to the wishes of the wider party membership.  As for the observation that those who do have the opportunity to elect NEC members should take the process more seriously in future, that's an affirmation of a democratic principle too.  If you feel that any person you've helped to elect has let you down or acted inappropriately, of course you should reflect on that before you cast your next vote.

In the overall scheme of things, it wasn't all that long ago that even the SNP leader wasn't directly elected - there was election-by-delegate instead.  That wouldn't be considered acceptable now, and an unelected NEC really ought to be seen in exactly the same way as an anachronism.  And it can no longer even be said that it's an "anachronism that works".

Incidentally, none of this should be seen as a criticism of Angus Robertson, who would be an excellent MSP for Edinburgh Central, every bit as much as Joanna Cherry would.  (I regard Robertson and Cherry as two of the four most likely successors to Nicola Sturgeon, along with Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes.)  But we must have a fair process, and an end to factional control of the SNP's internal structures.