New article on my decision to rejoin the SNP

Just a quick note to let you know that I have a new article at The National, giving a condensed history of the events that eventually led to my expulsion from the Alba Party on trumped-up charges, and my reasons for subsequently rejoining the SNP.  You can read it HERE.  

THE ALBA FILES, Part 2: The extraordinary story of Chris McEleny's wrathful vendetta against Alba's Dundee branch - a guest post by former Alba parliamentary candidate Heather McLean

Note from James Kelly: Welcome back to Scot Goes Pop's new series of articles "THE ALBA FILES" (before anyone panics, it's only a name), in which I am aiming to put as much information as is realistically possible into the public domain, so that Alba members can make up their own minds about how their party has been run over the last couple of years.  For this second installment, I'm delighted to publish a guest post by Heather McLean, a former Alba NEC member and a former Alba parliamentary candidate in the North-East region.  Under Alba's constitution, she should have automatically become Alba's Women's Convener in early 2023 after Yvonne Ridley was forced to resign (but in the 7598th case of the Alba leadership ignoring their own rule-book, Ash Regan was appointed instead).

*  *  *

This will be the first year since 2012 I haven’t organised a Burns Supper due to resigning from Alba last year. 

When I was first contacted by Alex Salmond to join the party and stand as second to him on the North-East list in 2021 I felt honoured, excited and proud to be part of a new party which would push for Scottish independence, but four years down the line I’m left wondering what happened to all that optimism and enthusiasm, and where it all started to go so badly wrong.

This is an account of my experience and that of some of my friends within the organisation. Things began to unravel in the summer of 2023 leading up to the autumn conference where a new NEC would be chosen and it became clear that certain people for some reason had fallen out of favour and were to be replaced by those that the leadership preferred. 

Presumably people who were owed favours or who would sit quietly at NEC meetings and simply nod through and rubber stamp whatever the leadership decreed. 

First to go was Jacqui Bijster who was accused of currying favour and unfair electioneering simply because as Membership Convenor she sent out a blanket email answering the many enquiries she’d received from members regarding the election process.  

The results of the Convenors elections were set aside at the Glasgow 2023 National conference because apparently the ‘wrong people” won. 

I stood in the election as Women’s Convenor and to this day I do not know the result of that original ballot. It was decided to re-run the convenors election again to be announced at the December National Council and also the NEC ordinary members would be elected during the National Council weekend but by the signed up delegates to the Glasgow 2023 National Conference.

I was elected as ordinary member, and not even 24 hours later I was reported to the Disciplinary Committee for the crime of having "liked"  a tweet by another member who described the incumbent Women’s Convenor as "a shite Women’s Convenor and an Islamist". I was accused by Chris McEleny of racism, given that the dictionary definition of Islamist is - 

"An advocate or supporter of Islamic fundamentalism; a person who advocates increasing the influence of Islamic law in politics and society. A person who believes strongly in Islam, especially one who believes that Islam should influence political systems"

I’m sure that anyone of any race can be an Islamist and that the term itself is actually political and not racist. 

Following a meeting of the Disciplinary Committee I was exonerated, on condition that I unliked the offending tweet. However, I subsequently felt under scrutiny and that my social media was closely monitored by the General Secretary. 

It became apparent to me that Alba has a discriminatory and selective approach to freedom of thought, expression, and the truth, which was not and is still not applied equally.  

At several party meetings, including a Zoom call with the party leader, we had been told that to contest a General Election, a LACU would require a minimum of £5000 in campaigning funds and a campaign team of at least 12 activists.  

When the General Election was announced I applied for vetting as a candidate having stood as a candidate in the Holyrood elections and the council elections for Dundee - the only council where all eight council seats had been contested.  

In previous years I had raised funds for my LACU through various social events and in particular a Dundee Burns Supper which was the source of our main funding.  However, in 2023 I was asked to organise the Alba Party Burns Supper for central party funds and so cancelled the Dundee event, resulting in a shortfall in our anticipated capital needed for any future election campaign. 

As required in the constitution we held our AGM in February, the day before I was leaving for a holiday in Australia. 

It was decided that Dundee would not put up candidates as we didn’t have the necessary £5000 in the kitty, but would concentrate on gathering canvassing data, employ a campaign of “Not My Parliament” and use our activists to campaign for candidates who had a more realistic chance of election like sitting MP, Neale Hanvey over in Fife. 

I arrived in Australia to an email from the General Secretary demanding to know what had happened at the Dundee AGM and who was complicit in the decision taken. 

It was clear that McEleny wanted to know who the culprits were in the decision and expected me to implicate those involved, in particular the role of my friend Eva Comrie, Equalities Convener who oversaw the election of office bearers, and of Allan Petrie and Denise Findlay. 

It seemed to me that he wanted an excuse to reprimand or take punitive action against them. 

I took considerable time out of my holiday to reply in depth about exactly what had transpired, and was not even given the courtesy of a reply until I followed up my email asking Chris McEleny for an acknowledgement. I later learned that Mr McEleny had informed the NEC that I had failed to respond to his email! 

Here follows a transcript of the email I sent to the General Secretary -  

"It’s with great dismay that I’m just catching up with the events unfolding in Dundee. 

My recollection of the AGM which took place just before I left for Melbourne is as follows. Each of the office bearers delivered their reports and I intimated my re election to NEC, that I had campaigned and canvassed in all the by elections with Denise as National Organiser, that I had put myself forward unsuccessfully as Women’s Convenor  and that I had also been vetted by the vetting committee as a potential political candidate. I also indicated that I would be rescheduling the cancelled film event but that would have wait until I returned from Australia at the end of March. 

Each of the office bearers delivered their reports and our Treasurer Ashley gave her report on the financial position regarding our funds. It was agreed that we purchase a pop up gazebo to enable us to have street stalls in the city centre and other locations. 

After the office bearer reports the position was laid out by Allan Petrie, regarding the conditions laid out by Headquarters regarding standing a candidate in each of the Dundee wards. 

The financial position and the HQ requirements for standing a candidate were clearly laid out to the members who attended, a lot of whom are the activists, and they decided that we did not meet the criteria. We have neither the £5000 nor the activist team to cover the city now that the boundaries have almost doubled the constituency nor could we consider the other constituency because it took in Angus LACU and would need agreement from them. 

The decision was therefore made that we were not in any position to stand a candidate.

Given that Dundee would therefore face a choice of SNP Chris Law or a unionist candidate an alternative course of action was put to the meeting by Allan Petrie which was a campaign of spoiling ballot papers under a Not My Parliament slogan. 

The reasoning being that it would encourage people to use their ballot paper who would otherwise stay at home, encourage disenfranchised and disillusioned people to actually make their voice heard and get people on the electoral register for 2026 when the real issue of independence would be decided as articulated by party leader Alex Salmond. 

Denise Findlay asked for assurances that we would undertake to gather the data and voter ID needed for a future Alba Scottish election campaign in 2026. The intention was not to discourage folk from voting but rather that Alba take the moral high ground by refusing to jump on what many Dundonians perceive as the “London Gravy train” and to encourage those people to see Alba as a true independence option in 2026. This assurance was given by everyone at the meeting as we need to increase our potential voter base going forward. 

Allan based his proposal on the responses he and others had been getting from the general public who are disillusioned with politics and political parties of all persuasions in general and now feel disenfranchised and turned off as they feel no one represents them and that the Scottish voice at Westminster continues to be ignored. 

This initiative from Allan took everyone by surprise,  but after a discussion took place during which time Members asked questions,  it was clear that they were in agreement with this argument. It was stressed that we would continue to argue for Alba's voice, and that our voice could only be truly heard in the Scottish Parliament. 

The membership felt that this option was something affordable and within our limited budget and that we could actually get behind it. So that is what was voted for at the meeting.

Once this had been agreed the LACU office bearers were chosen as follows : 

Convenor - Heather McLean 

Secretary - Allan Petrie 

Treasurer  - Ashley Millar 

Organiser - Denise Findlay 

Women’s Officer - Heather McLean (creation of a new post) 

From what I can gather I’m now aware that Allan Petrie has resigned from the party and that Ashley has also since resigned, apparently because someone at headquarters took it upon themselves to report the Alba Dundee Twitter account, as a fake account because Allan Petrie had posted a tweet they objected to. Despite being registered as blind, Ashley has successfully administered the account on behalf of Dundee Alba since 2021 and is understandably upset. 

Surely it would have been less damaging had Ashley been approached directly to delete the tweet rather than take such a drastic step resulting in her resignation. Ashley has apparently resigned in humiliation that her own personal details (email and phone number) are now associated with a blocked account on X. 

I note that your email indicates that the National Organiser is now to oversee the running of Dundee LACU, can I ask if he has been in contact with our LACU organiser Denise Findlay? Surely it would be better to approach and liaise with Denise rather than take such a heavy handed approach? 

From what I can gather the fallout from the meeting might have been handled better, as what has ensued has escalated the situation,  possibly alienating members and in standing a candidate now, against the wishes of the LACU membership couldn’t guarantee support from the activists in the membership.

This is a mess Chris and I am at a loss as to how we row back from it as things seem to be escalating out of control, with what would appear to be a heavy handed approach before I return from Australia at the end of the month. 

So in the meantime I suggest that the only point of contact we have left on the Dundee Exec is our organiser Denise Findlay,  and it would be a good idea for Rob Thomson to get in touch with her and to liaise as to how we move forward."

I found out that our Treasurer Ashley Miller who had ran the social media accounts since the inception of Alba had wrongly been reported to Twitter for impersonation.  There was a tweet Chris had taken exception to, but rather than contact Ashley and ask her to remove the tweet he heavy-handedly reported her to Twitter.  Ashley was embarrassed and had her reputation traduced and she felt she had no alternative other than to resign.  In an act of vicious nastiness McEleny deemed Ashley to be a public resignation, meaning she cannot rejoin Alba without a vote of the NEC.  

The NEC have happily rubber-stamped all the ex-members presented as public resignations by McEleny, whether they publicly announced their resignation or said anything critical of the party.  This is not in accordance with the constitution.  

McEleny did not get in touch with Denise Findlay. I later found out that a secret Zoom meeting was arranged while I was in Australia to which neither Denise nor I were invited, despite being the only remaining office bearers on the committee. The meeting was by invitation only and it was decided that they would override the AGM and hold an extraordinary EGM at which they would revisit the question of Dundee candidates and elect a new committee. So much for party constitution and democracy! 

Denise subsequently tendered her resignation from Alba after being so blatantly snubbed and excluded. 

On my return from Australia I attempted unsuccessfully to find out in the NEC WhatsApp group when the next NEC meeting was to take place and ask for the minutes of the only meeting I’d ever missed to be forwarded to me. 

None were forthcoming and in fact I was removed from the NEC chat group by the administrator.  Again, so much for being a democratically elected member of the NEC, I was effectively excluded from the group chat and the date and details of the meeting kept from me.  

I also received an email from the General Secretary informing me that I had failed vetting, despite having been good enough to stand as a candidate in Scottish Parliament and Council elections. 

Another resignation was Eva Comrie, the Equalities Convenor, who McEleny tried to implicate in the decision of Dundee LACU not to contest the General Election and who I know was put under pressure to appoint a leadership favourite as her Deputy, despite this person never having contributed to the Equalities brief or policy making group. 

The situation became untenable and I no longer felt I wanted to be part of Alba in any capacity so in April I resigned from the party. Here follows the transcript of my resignation. 

"Please consider this email as a formal resignation. I no longer have any respect or faith in the management or values of the Alba Party and I am not prepared to compromise my principles or integrity any longer. 

I have witnessed the targeted bullying, harassment and ostracising of NEC and party members, mainly women and I cannot in all good conscience condone or continue to be a member of a party which displays such contempt or disregard for its members. 

I myself have now come under sustained bullying, harassment and attack from the party leadership. I was duly elected at a quorate fully constituted AGM of Dundee LACU yet following a secret Zoom meeting to which I was neither invited or told about, it was decided that my convenorship would be up for re selection thus unconstitutionally imposing HQ rule on the Dundee LACU. According to the constitution, the position of Women’s Convenor, should have fallen to me when the incumbent resigned, having come second in the ballot but this did not happen and was overruled contrary to due process of the constitution being adhered to. 

On Saturday, I was excluded as a member of NEC from attending the monthly meeting and without warning or consultation I was removed from the NEC WhatsApp group by the party chair. 

I have witnessed the discriminatory and selective approach to freedom of thought, expression and the truth that is not applied equally. 

The unscrupulous misuse and discriminatory manipulation and disregard for the constitution which is applied for expediency and not equally for all concerned. I can give many more egregious examples of intimidating behaviour, unsubstantiated lies and accusations but quite frankly it’s not worth my time or effort. 

I joined Alba because I believe that my country should be independent. I have had a long and successful career in education and am now retired. I did not join Alba as a career move. I left SNP because I believed Alba would be better but disappointingly it has turned out to be much worse. 

I am not in the least surprised at the number of recent resignations given the culture of intimidation which currently exists, mine included. 

Congratulations, you have achieved your aim and prime objective of forcing my resignation as you did with many others, but to what end? 

Please accept this missive as my full and formal resignation from the Alba Party." 

So where does Alba go forward from here? 

With the resignation and departure of McEleny who was a malign influence and law unto himself and the proposed abolition of the General Secretary position within the party, I would hope Alba will take the opportunity to make a fresh start with a new team and leadership at the top of the party and at headquarters.  

I would advise members to question the leadership candidates very carefully as to how they will turn the party into the promised member-led party which adheres to the constitution and to ask what safeguards will be in place to prevent a repeat of the last eighteen months. There is an opportunity to herald in a change for the better with greater democracy where the leadership actually listen to and promote real membership engagement where there’s a genuine will to do so. 

Thoughts on some of the more colourful 'feedback' about my return to the SNP

Around 70-80% of the feedback to my decision to rejoin the SNP has been positive.  However, it was always inevitable that my stalker from Somerset, and his devoted followers, would have a somewhat different take.  I know some people will always give Campbell a free pass no matter what he says or does, but in all seriousness I do think that thread on Twitter was objectively unacceptable.  I'm not talking about Campbell's own starter tweet, which was simply mockery of me and (uncharacteristically) didn't stray into outright foul-mouthed abuse.  But there are a few dozen replies to that tweet from the Fan Club, and by my reckoning around nine of them are abusive enough to warrant a report to Twitter, and indeed I have reported them to Twitter.  Of course it's a complete and utter waste of time reporting even the most extreme abuse in Musk-era Twitter, but sometimes it feels worth going through the motions simply as a matter of principle and self-respect, and I defy any reasonable person to tell me those tweets shouldn't in theory be removed.  Highlights include "creepy c**t", "pillock", and "dumb arse".  

With relentless reliability, Shannon Donoghue (who along with her partner Chris Cullen was one of the main instigators of my expulsion from the Alba Party) has yet again breached Alba's Code of Conduct by participating in the thread.  But never fear, Shannon fans - she won't be expelled from the party, nor will she be suspended, nor will any disciplinary action be taken against her whatsoever.  Alba doesn't take disciplinary action against the daughter of the Deputy General Secretary when she bullies people, don't be silly, of course it doesn't.  In fact one of the primary functions of the Alba disciplinary machinery is to facilitate and amplify bullying campaigns launched by Shannon and her much-respected extended family.  And it can't be denied that the disciplinary machinery is a veritable Rolls Royce in fulfilling this true purpose.  What happened to me was merely one of several inspiring examples of Shannon's tremendous success in cleansing the party of members who were not quite to her personal taste.

Nine highly abusive tweets out of a few dozen is an extraordinarily high percentage, and when I showed the thread to a few people, one reaction was: "Don't worry, James, that's just the Alba Way". Now, in one sense that's deeply unfair, because it's actually the Wings Way - Campbell's followers are simply following the standard of behaviour that he has set, and in theory Alba is not the Wings Party. I know there are many, many decent Alba members out there who want nothing to do with Campbell or the thuggery he represents and sponsors.  But in another sense it's entirely fair, because the Alba hierarchy have since day one deliberately allowed the boundaries to become blurred between themselves and Wings.  Doubtless that was an act of expediency and they reckoned there was some sort of advantage to it, but it's come at a terrible cost, because it's one of the main causes of Alba's brand becoming more toxic than it ever needed to be or ever should have been.

I've noted before that Campbell is a kind of 'Pied Piper' figure, and that can be seen most clearly in the attitude towards him of a certain subset of Alba members.  They still regard him as a folk hero when in fact they should be furious with him for wrecking their party's chances of ever becoming a credible electoral force. Campbell pushed for Alba's creation (as indeed I did) and went into one of his prolonged huffs during the period when it looked like Alex Salmond had decided against the idea.  But having eventually got what he wanted, did he do what I and so many others did by actually joining the party and getting stuck in and trying to get Alba into fit shape for the future?  No of course he didn't. He refused to join and instead did his Pontius Pilate routine, washing his hands of the party, telling his readers to vote Labour or Tory, while berating other people for failing to make a success of Alba.   And yet somehow his apologists still fail to join the dots and refuse to accept that his calculated withholding of support has been one of the reasons for Alba's failure.

The irony of course is that the Alba leadership lionise him for that lack of support, while those of us who joined and tried to make the party work have in many cases been either expelled or indirectly forced out, and then been demonised as a "wee gang of malcontents".  It's quite telling that Independence Live recently released a highlights video of Alex Salmond, in which many members of the "wee gang of malcontents" featured extremely prominently.  One might almost call it "Alex Salmond's Good Times With The Wee Gang of Malcontents: The Movie" - and Zulfikar didn't even get to direct it.

The root cause of my own expulsion was my push for reform and democratisation of the party on the Constitution Review Group, a body on which I had the dubious pleasure of serving alongside the aforementioned Shannon Donoghue and Chris Cullen.  The pair of them are, let's be blunt, playground bullies and their sole aim on the CRG was to prevent rank-and-file Alba members from having any say whatsoever in the way the party is run - or from even being given any information on the way the party is run.  But of course they were also horrified by the thought that Alba members might find out or guess that they were the ones responsible for thwarting internal party democracy, and that was ultimately the genesis of the malicious disciplinary action taken against me.

Anyone who thinks that I was expelled because the Alba hierarchy genuinely believed that the democratisation proposals I put forward were not in the best interests of the Alba Party must be living on another planet.  Those proposals were admittedly not in the best interests of Chris McEleny, or of Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, or of Corri Wilson, or of Shannon Donoghue, or of Chris Cullen.  But that is not the same thing as the best interests of the Alba Party.

As I pointed out the other day, having been maliciously expelled from the party on a bunch of utterly ludicrous trumped up charges, nobody in Alba could have any legitimate complaints about my subsequent decision to rejoin the SNP.  And yet as that Wings thread on Twitter exemplified, they did have complaints.  In fact they did nothing but complain.  Specifically, they seemed to think they had a right to expect me to still vote Alba on the Holyrood list even after my expulsion, and were furious with me for making a statement of the bleedin' obvious that I will instead be voting for the party I am now a member of.  In absolute seriousness, even if I hadn't rejoined the SNP, who in their right mind would continue voting for a party that has just expelled them?  Would Campbell do it?   Of course he bloody wouldn't.  The sense of entitlement in expecting me to do it is just through the roof.

At some point Alba are going to have to face up to the fact that the appalling way they have been treating their own members is not normal or routine.  It is in fact downright weird and abnormal.  It has directly brought about a state of affairs in which an Alba vote on the list is simply no longer an acceptable option for a large chunk of the most committed independence supporters.  Although I'm one of only a relatively small number who have been expelled from Alba outright, there are any number of others who have been forced out by bullying or ill-treatment.  Only a minority of them have done what I did by rejoining the SNP - but I suspect very few of them will be voting Alba on the list in 2026.  And that's on Alba.  It's not a me issue, it's not an Eva Comrie issue, it's not a Denise Findlay issue, it's not a Jacqueline Bijster issue, it's not an Alan Harris issue.  It's an Alba issue.  Alba could have been a welcoming broad church, uniting the most radical independence supporters behind a successful list vote strategy.  Instead it's chosen to become a narrow, paranoid, autocratic sect - one which now commands far too little support or sympathy to have any realistic chance of winning list seats.  Choices have consequences, I'm afraid.

Incidentally, Campbell's mockery of me for rejoining the SNP follows on from his mockery of me a few weeks ago for raising even the vague possibility of standing as an independent candidate or supporting other pro-indy independent candidates.  As there were only a finite number of options open to me once Alba expelled me (and one of the very few others was throwing in my lot with Peter A Bell), it's hard to escape the conclusion that he would have mocked me no matter what decision I had taken.  And you know what?  That might just possibly mean that his mockery is not coming from the most sincere of places.

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Shannon Donoghue has said "Character is always shown - just give it time", and I actually agree with her about that.  The time has come for Alba members to at long last find out about the actions and words of the people who run their party, so they can make up their own minds - not only about those people's characters, but also about the sustainability of Alba's whole system of autocratic, elite-led internal governance.  I have been persuaded by Shannon's intervention, which I in no way interpret as the victory dance of an immature bully, that my whistleblowing efforts should now aim for maximalist rather than minimalist disclosure of the available material, so that Alba members finally know in as much detail as possible what has hitherto been cynically concealed from them.

Coming up over the next few weeks on Scot Goes Pop's new series 'THE ALBA FILES' -

* 'The Conduct Of Christopher'

* 'Tas Unplugged'

* 'The Inside Track From The Constitution Review Group: Lifestyle Tips From A Straight-Talking Independent Woman'

* The remaining three installments of the story of the sham 'disciplinary' process that led to my expulsion

plus much, much more.  Stay tuned.

A good day for Kate Forbes, and a bad day for Stephen Flynn, as Survation poll shows the public still want Forbes as the next SNP leader

Some more details have just been released from the new Survation poll, commissioned by True North Advisers and the Holyrood Sources podcast.  For my money the most interesting result is on the question of who the public want to see as the next SNP leader, which as far as I can recall hasn't been asked by any polling firm since John Swinney took over.

Who is your preferred candidate for SNP leader after John Swinney?

Kate Forbes 25%

Stephen Flynn 13%

Neil Gray 4%

Màiri McAllan 4%

Jenny Gilruth 3%

In other circumstances it might have been possible to say that Kate Forbes is being flattered at this stage by her higher profile - after all, she's the current Deputy First Minister and has stood for the leadership before.  But given Stephen Flynn's prominence during the televised debates for the general election, it would be hard to argue that he's significantly less well known than Ms Forbes, and there are numbers elsewhere in the poll that broadly demonstrate that.  16% of respondents don't know who Mr Flynn is, compared to 9% for Ms Forbes.  So it does look like the public are expressing a genuine preference for Ms Forbes over Mr Flynn on a relatively level playing field.

Of course Ms Forbes was posting similarly impressive numbers with the public during the 2023 leadership election, but Humza Yousaf was able to argue that it didn't matter because he often had the lead among actual SNP voters.  Can Stephen Flynn claim a similar alibi this time?  It's certainly not straightforward for him to do that, because there are six different samples of "SNP voters" in this poll, and Kate Forbes is ahead in three of them, with Mr Flynn ahead in the other three.  Ms Forbes has the lead among people who actually voted SNP in both the constituency and list ballots of the 2021 Holyrood election, and among people who plan to vote SNP on the Holyrood list ballot in 2026.  But Mr Flynn has the lead among people who voted SNP in the 2024 Westminster election, and among those who plan to vote SNP in the next Westminster election, and also among those who plan to vote SNP in the 2026 Holyrood constituency ballot.  So that muddies the waters a bit, but it still leaves Kate Forbes with the clearest-cut bragging rights as the public's choice.

One thing is for sure - any project to build up a non-Flynn alternative to Kate Forbes has completely and utterly failed, and it looks highly likely that if there had been, for example, a Kate Forbes v Neil Gray leadership election last year, Ms Forbes would have won handsomely.

There's also another question that I haven't seen asked for a very, very long time, which is a multi-option question about who would be the best First Minister - and on past form that ought to be more predictive of the Holyrood election result than the net ratings for leaders that we see much more commonly.

Looking ahead to the Scottish Parliament elections in 2026 who, in your view, would make the best First Minister of Scotland?

John Swinney (SNP) 25%

Anas Sarwar (Labour) 16%

Russell Findlay (Conservatives) 10%

Alex Cole-Hamilton (Liberal Democrats) 7%

That could well be curtains for Labour, because it's hard to see how they'll overcome the unpopularity of the Starmer administration in London with a Scottish branch leader who is himself significantly less popular than the SNP leader.  And I'm sure we're all utterly baffled that Alex Cole-Hamilton's self-styled "fast bowling" is failing to pick up any wickets.  Maybe it's time to return to the tried and tested "Calypso Cricket" of Willie Rennie?

There are traditional net ratings in the poll as well, which are also very favourable for the SNP...

Net ratings of Holyrood leaders:

John Swinney (SNP): -1

Kate Forbes (SNP): -2

Russell Findlay (Conservatives): -7

Alex Cole-Hamilton (Liberal Democrats): -9

Anas Sarwar (Labour): -12

Ash Regan (Alba): -14

Patrick Harvie / Lorna Slater (Greens): -18

Net ratings of Westminster leaders:

Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats): -3

Stephen Flynn (SNP): -5

Carla Denyer / Adrian Ramsay (Greens): -10

Kemi Badenoch (Conservatives): -17

Keir Starmer (Labour): -23

Nigel Farage (Reform UK): -26

This should be some kind of corrective for those who think Reform are breaking through in the same way in Scotland that they are further south.  Farage's GB-wide personal ratings have tended to be significantly better than that of late.

There's also an interesting question that offers a twist on the familiar question of whether the Scottish Government or the UK Government should have the most influence on the way Scotland is run, because local councils are offered as a third option.  As usual, the Scottish Government is the runaway winner, with local councils trailing in a poor third place with just 9% support.  Not much comfort there for Labour politicians who think that "elected Mayors" are suddenly going to capture the public imagination and replace Holyrood in voters' affections.

Respondents were asked which party they trust most to stand up for Scotland interests.  33% said the SNP and 16% said Labour.  Just 2% said Alba, even though Alba seem to have been offered as one of the main menu of options.

Only 21% are satisfied with the performance of the UK Labour government, with 53% dissatisfied. 26% think the UK Labour government's performance makes it more likely that Scottish Labour will be the largest party after the Holyrood election (why?!) and 41% think it makes it less likely.

The headline Holyrood voting intention numbers are very close to the estimates I published yesterday, although there are a couple of minor differences, and the seats projection is a smidgeon better for the pro-indy side.  The SNP and Greens in combination have 63 seats, with unionist parties on 66 seats.

Sneak preview of the Scottish Parliament numbers from Survation - SNP appear to have 12-point lead over Labour

As far as I know, the Holyrood numbers from the Survation poll have not yet been officially released, but the crossbreaks in the data tables seem to give the game away.  I've had to calculate the percentages manually.  I can't guarantee these will be the headline numbers, because there may be some filter yet to be applied.  But I suspect these are pretty much bang on the money.

Constituency ballot:

SNP 34.7%

Labour 22.6%

Reform UK 13.7%

Conservatives 13.4%

Liberal Democrats 8.3%

Greens 5.4%

Alba 1.4%

Regional list ballot:

SNP 30.6%

Labour 21.1%

Reform UK 13.8%

Conservatives 13.6%

Liberal Democrats 10.2%

Greens 8.2%

Alba 2.2%

Seats projection: SNP 53, Labour 24, Reform UK 16, Conservatives 16, Liberal Democrats 11, Greens 9

So not quite a pro-independence majority this time, but very close - pro-indy parties in combination would have 62 seats, and unionist parties would have 67.

And if I may very gently adapt Chris McEleny's favourite turn of phrase, this is "yet another poll" showing Alba firmly on course for zero seats in 2026.  They wouldn't even be anywhere close to winning a seat.

The SNP *treble* their lead over Labour in the space of just two months, says sizzling Survation survey - and the Scottish Tories have now slumped to *fourth* place

It's an odd thing - I can remember constantly saying in 2023 that Survation were producing more favourable results for the SNP than other firms, and yet since the general election in July we've seen the opposite pattern.  Survation have failed to show the SNP opening up clear water in Westminster voting intentions in the way that other firms have.

Until now.

Scottish voting intentions for the next UK general election (Survation):

SNP 33% (+2)
Labour 24% (-4)

Reform UK 15% (+2)
Conservatives 13% (-2)
Liberal Democrats 9% (+3)

Greens 4% (-1)

Seats projection: SNP 30, Labour 18, Liberal Democrats 6, Conservatives 3

The seats projection for Labour isn't quite as grim as we've seen in polls from other firms, but that's because they're just above the tipping point at which they would fall away to single digits.  Reform UK don't take any seats (yet) because on something approaching a uniform swing they wouldn't have the necessary geographical concentrations of support.

The poll seems to have been commissioned by either True North or the Holyrood Sources podcast (or are those one and the same thing?), but there's no sign from them of the fieldwork dates, and Survation's own website seems to be down at the moment.  However, it's billed as the first Scottish poll of 2025, so the fieldwork must have been relatively recent.

The threat to the Tories is now existential as YouGov poll shows they have been overtaken by Reform UK - while the SNP enjoy a double-digit lead in the Scottish subsample

*puts on Canadian accent*

It's another *terrrrr*-ible morning for the Conservative Party.

Although even that old joke (which I've been doing since circa-2009) doesn't seem to quite capture the gravity of the situation anymore, because when you have a credible pollster like YouGov showing that the Tories are no longer the leading right-wing force, the threat to the party is clearly existential in nature.  The first-past-the-post voting system allows very little scope for pluralism on any ideological pole.

GB-wide voting intentions (YouGov, 12th-13th January 2025):

Labour 26%
Reform UK 25%
Conservatives 22%
Liberal Democrats 14%
Greens 8%
SNP 3%
Plaid Cymru 1%

Scottish subsample: SNP 33%, Labour 23%, Reform UK 18%, Conservatives 11%, Liberal Democrats 8%, Greens 7%

When I sat down to write this blogpost, it suddenly occurred to me it's been aaaaaaages since I last did my customary spiel about YouGov's Scottish subsamples being of more interest than those from other firms (because they seem to be correctly structured and weighted).  It turns out there's a straightforward reason for it being so long - this is the first YouGov voting intention poll since the general election six months ago. That seems incredible when you bear in mind that there was a time when YouGov used to conduct a poll every single day (funded by the Sun newspaper, if I recall).

So although it's technically the case that YouGov have just joined Deltapoll, Opinium and More In Common in showing Reform on a new post-rebrand high watermark, that fact has to be treated with caution because it's impossible to know for sure how Reform would have been faring in YouGov polls towards the end of last year.

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Poll commissions, poll analysis, election analysis, podcasts, videos, truly independent political commentary - that's Scot Goes Pop, running since 2008 and currently the fifth most-read political blog in Scotland.  It's only been possible due to your incredibly generous support.  If you find the site useful and would like to help it to continue, donations by card payment are welcome HERE, or alternatively donations can be made direct by PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

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.

Reform UK overtake the Tories in an Opinium poll for the first time since their post-Brexit rebrand

Opinium are one of the firms that showed the Brexit Party with an outright lead during their purple patch in mid-2019, so technically this is not an all-time high for Reform, who are legally a direct continuation of the Brexit Party.  But 24% is the best they've done with Opinium since their rebrand, and it's also the first time they've overtaken the Tories in an Opinium poll since then.

GB-wide voting intentions (Opinium, 8th-10th January 2025):

Labour 29% (-)

Reform UK 24% (+2)

Conservatives 23% (-)

Liberal Democrats 10% (-1)

Greens 9% (-1)

SNP 2% (-1)

Plaid Cymru 1% (-)

Four pollsters have reported in 2025 so far, and three of them have shown Reform at a new high watermark.  Ironically, the only one that didn't is Find Out Now, which was nevertheless the one that put Reform in a joint lead with Labour.

There was some discussion on yesterday's thread about how we can't pin all our hopes for independence on a Farage premiership, because that might never happen, it might not have the effect we think it will, etc, etc.  Well, that's fine, but if we're going to achieve independence in a different way, step 1 (and it'll be the most difficult step of all) will be to persuade John Swinney, and indeed Kate Forbes, to drop the nonsense about how independence can only happen with "overwhelming" support and to revert to seeking a simple 50% + 1 majority for Yes.  If they insist upon the "overwhelming" route, that's certainly only ever going to happen with a massive disruptive event like a Reform victory, which leads liberal No voters to completely reassess their view of the UK.  The idea that the SNP "demonstrating competence in government" would in itself push independence support to 65% is for the birds.

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Poll commissions, poll analysis, election analysis, podcasts, videos, truly independent political commentary - that's Scot Goes Pop, running since 2008 and currently the fifth most-read political blog in Scotland.  It's only been possible due to your incredibly generous support.  If you find the site useful and would like to help it to continue, donations by card payment are welcome HERE, or alternatively donations can be made direct by PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Where would the independence movement be after six more years of not particularly doing anything under John Swinney?

So a few thoughts about John Swinney's announcement that he intends to stay on until 2031, assuming the SNP win the Holyrood election next year - 

* This shouldn't necessarily be taken ultra-literally.  In many ways it feels similar to when Tony Blair  announced that he was going to see out a full third term, but of course in the end Blair stepped down midway through the third term.  The feeling is that a leader has to say they intend to serve a full term otherwise they're already fighting the election as a lame duck.  But the logic still points to Swinney stepping down before 2031, otherwise the question would be - will he stand down one month before the 2031 election or one month after?  Neither of those options makes any sense.  You'd always want to give your successor time to bed in, and then face the electorate, so some time between 2027 and 2030 would be much more sensible.

* Swinney has done better in the polls than I expected him to.  That may be partly due to his good sense in semi-dispensing with Yousaf's factionalism and appointing Kate Forbes as his deputy, but nevertheless it's fair to say a few more years of Swinney doesn't fill me with quite the dismay it once would have done - except of course for the elephant in the room.  It's great that the SNP are recovering in the polls, it's great that they now have a chance of rescuing the pro-indy majority in 2026, but the SNP were not set up to seek power for its own sake.  Their purpose in seeking power is supposed to be to use it to deliver independence.  Swinney did not say, as far as I'm aware, that he wanted to stay on for six more years to deliver independence.  He seems to be imagining himself handing on the baton of devolved government to someone else in 2031.

* Swinney of course has long since surrendered to the Westminster argument that a simple majority is not enough for Scotland to become an independent country - he says that will only happen if there is "overwhelming" support.  But even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he imagines himself to be genuinely working towards that "overwhelming" support, what will he actually do with it once he's got it?  Suppose, for example, he gets lucky, Farage becomes Prime Minister and tries to abolish the Scottish Parliament and drives support for independence up to hitherto undreamed of levels.  I've never bought into the argument that the way to win independence is to go over the heads of Westminster and seek international recognition, for the simple reason that other countries would shrug and turn away - but the abolition of devolution might just be an exception to that general rule.  Although theoretically devolution is an internal matter for the UK, there are precedents (for example Kosovo) of countries taking a dim view of long-standing autonomy being stripped away from a stateless people.  But would Swinney be assertive enough to try to nurture that and exploit it?  Given what we know of his character, it's hard to imagine.

* The one good thing that might come out of this announcement would be if it gives Stephen Flynn pause for thought about whether it's worth his while to switch to Holyrood and trigger a totally unnecessary by-election in Aberdeen South.  I don't believe that Flynn would be a sensible choice to replace Swinney anyway - he's a bit too belligerent for some segments of the electorate.

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Poll commissions, poll analysis, election analysis, podcasts, videos, truly independent political commentary - that's Scot Goes Pop, running since 2008 and currently the fifth most-read political blog in Scotland.  It's only been possible due to your incredibly generous support.  If you find the site useful and would like to help it to continue, donations by card payment are welcome HERE, or alternatively donations can be made direct by PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk