Back To The Future: I have rejoined the SNP

There's a well-worn political cliché, which may or may not have been started by Ronald Reagan after his defection from the Democrats to the Republicans, that "I did not leave my party, my party left me".  Rarely, though, have those words been quite so literally true as they are in my own case.  I did not leave the Alba Party, the Alba Party left me.  I was committed to Alba, I was working away as an elected member of three of its national committees until September...and then they suddenly told me to f*** off because I wasn't quite slavishly obedient enough to pretend that two plus two equals five.  So nobody in Alba can have any complaints at all about what I am about to say - I have rejoined the Scottish National Party, which I was previously a member of between 2014 and 2021.  And as long as the SNP allow me to remain a member, yes, that does of course mean I will be voting "both votes SNP" in May 2026.  

Now, I am in no way naive about the decision I have just made.  There have been crackdowns on freedom of speech within the SNP, both before and after my own time as a member, and those have sometimes been almost as bad as the crackdowns within Alba.  (I say 'almost' as bad because what has happened in Alba has undoubtedly been worse.)  So it's perfectly possible that I could end up speaking my mind about what I see as the best way forward for the SNP and for Scotland, and find "disciplinary" action being taken against me again, and if that happens I'll just have to find a Plan B - or I suppose it would be Plan C by that stage.  But I very much hope I can now just get on with pressing for independence on an ongoing basis as a loyal member of the SNP.  I would just note that in my seven previous years as an SNP member, I made many outspoken comments on this blog, but in complete contrast to Alba, the SNP actually allowed me to do that and I didn't start receiving sinister emails from the heavy mob.  So I'll just have to hope I'm equally fortunate the second time around.

I would imagine that when I joined Alba in 2021, I posted the join link on this blog in case anyone wanted to follow my example, and I've sincerely apologised for that, because I had no idea of the authoritarian freak show I was getting caught up in.  So although I will now post the link to join the SNP (and here it is) in case anyone else is thinking it's time to work for change inside the SNP rather than outside it, please make sure you're doing it for your own reasons and have thought carefully about the pros and cons.  On your own head be it!

One advantage of joining, of course, is that you'd get a vote when a leadership election eventually comes up.  It's no secret that if I'd been an SNP member in March 2023, I would have given a higher preference vote to Kate Forbes than to Humza Yousaf, but contrary to some people's lazy assumptions that's not because I'm "centre-right" - in fact in many respects I'm probably politically closer to Yousaf than to Forbes.  But Yousaf was just the wrong man, at the wrong time, and he was being installed by the ruling faction for all the wrong reasons.  I feel a lot more at ease with the SNP under the Swinney/Forbes leadership, and if it was just a question of who would make the best government, this current team would be a no-brainer.  It's not like that, though, the purpose of the SNP is supposed to be to actually deliver independence, and although I'll just be a drop in the ocean as one member out of tens of thousands, I will be arguing the case for the SNP to start accepting that 50% + 1 support for Yes is enough and to push for the endgame on independence on that basis, rather than waiting endlessly for some mythical "overwhelming" support that is highly unlikely to ever arrive.  

By the way, a small number of people have contacted me in recent days to say they're leaving Alba, not necessarily just because of what happened to me, but that was a contributory factor.  If you do leave Alba, for whatever reason, please ensure that you actually cancel your direct debit, because I've sat and listened to Chris McEleny boasting that "once you've got someone on direct debit, you've got them for life, nobody ever bothers cancelling".  The plan seems to be to get as many members onto direct debit as possible, and only then announce that the subscription fee is being hiked.  So please don't allow yourself to be fleeced by the world's most cynical man.

For my part, I'm just relieved to have a political home once again, and we'll see how it goes.