Ten years on, some personal recollections of the referendum

It's exactly a generation ago today that the independence referendum took place, and as everyone and their auntie seems to be publishing mini-memoirs of their own experiences during the campaign, I thought I might as well briefly join in the fun.

There were three main aspects to my own involvement.  One was Scot Goes Pop itself, which exploded in popularity as people searched for polling news and analysis.  I always thought it was really interesting that there was no big increase in Scot Goes Pop's traffic levels during the 2011 Holyrood election campaign, even though that was one of the most important and dramatic elections in Scottish history and I was constantly blogging about polls throughout it.  And yet even in autumn 2013, a whole year before the referendum, I was already seeing an exponential increase in reader numbers.  People were really hungry to know whether there was a chance Scotland might become an independent country.

Secondly, there was the syndication on Yahoo of some of my columns for the International Business Times, which as I always point out, probably means I was the most-read pro-independence blogger during the indyref campaign, albeit just through the sheer luck of being in the right place at the right time.  I have a friend who is rarely impressed by anything I do, but she actually did look momentarily impressed when she glanced at the Yahoo homepage and saw one of my articles staring back at her!

And thirdly, there were my two appearances on BBC Breakfast during referendum week, one before the referendum, and one after.  For obvious reasons the one beforehand was much more nerve-wracking, because there was the slight danger that if I had said or done something really stupid, it might have had a detrimental effect.  But it went OK in the end.  When I was asked by Naga Munchetty why I thought Scotland should be independent, I made a point of starting by saying "well, Scotland is a country", which was something I thought hadn't been said enough on TV and radio during the campaign.

I did feel very slightly stitched up, though, because the item was supposed to be two bloggers, one Yes and one No, giving their own personal views about independence.  In practice, Dunc "don't call me Dunc" Hothersall was always inevitably going to be my opponent because he was the only unionist blogger in the known universe, and he was there as a de facto Better Together spokesman.  He had obviously been thoroughly briefed on exactly what to say, and indeed he was deep in conversation with Kezia Dugdale when I arrived.  Whereas I genuinely was there independently and hadn't been briefed by the Yes campaign at all. But I did my best. The irony is that I had made up my mind in advance that the one thing I definitely wasn't going to do was criticise the BBC live on air, but Duncan effectively forced me into it, because Better Together had clearly instructed him to make a song and dance about the "mob" protesting outside the BBC Scotland building in Glasgow.  I replied that it was a peaceful protest from people who had a legitimate complaint because "the BBC, not BBC Scotland but the BBC in London, haven't exactly covered themselves in glory over the last week". When I said the words "in London", Duncan started beaming and pointing at Naga Munchetty, as if to say "yeah, he's talking about you, hun".

It wasn't even remotely premeditated, but looking back I'm glad I said what I did, because it at least flagged up for viewers that the concerns were there. And arguably there's not much point complaining retrospectively about the BBC's bias during the campaign if you didn't raise the issue at the time when you had the golden chance.

When I made the return appearance two days after the referendum, Duncan was supposed to be there again, but for some reason he was replaced by the Tories' Mark Brown, who actually struck me as a decent bloke. I chatted to him before the filming started, and he seemed as genuinely keen as any Yes supporter that the promise made in The Vow of a more powerful Scottish Parliament was kept.  And after the interview, he gave me a bearhug and bellowed "WE ARE BETTER TOGETHER JAMES".

Incidentally, when I was first contacted by the BBC producer about the second appearance, probably at about 3pm on Friday 19th September, he asked me if I could help to put him in touch with anyone senior from the Yes campaign, because he had been baffled to discover that the entire Yes Scotland organisation seemed to have already disappeared in a puff of smoke.  The significance of what he said didn't really register with me at the time, but it's arguably something we've been suffering from ever since.

It was a "festival of democracy", not a trauma: ten years on, YouGov poll shows the Scottish public resoundingly believe holding the independence referendum was the right thing to do, and that they want another referendum to be held within the next ten years

Unsurprisingly, this week's tenth anniversary of the indyref has brought about a flurry of polls on independence, which is quite helpful because for the last two months we've had relatively limited information on the impact of the general election on Yes support.  Of the three new polls I'm aware of, two are positive for Yes and suggest that there is a higher level of support for independence now than there was on referendum day a generation ago.  The exception is YouGov, which is quite like old times, really, because during the long indyref campaign YouGov were consistently the least favourable online polling firm for Yes due to the notorious 'Kellner Correction' that was artificially imposed on the headline numbers because Peter Kellner refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes and insisted there had to be some sort of bug that meant No was further ahead than the raw results suggested.

I'm not aware of any similar 'correction' that YouGov are making now that would suppress the Yes vote in their polls, although it can't be completely ruled out that something is going on that we don't know about.  Their new poll has No ahead by 56% to 44%, which would be the first sign of what I feared at the time of the general election, ie. that there would be a temporary drop in Yes support due to a Labour honeymoon effect.  Frankly, though, I don't take that notion too seriously anymore, because the other two polls suggest that Yes support has held up admirably.  More in Common appear to have No ahead by around 52% to 48%, although that's my own rough recalculation from the figures with Don't Knows left in - I can't find the definitive numbers in the data tables.  With Opinium the No lead appears to be a wafer-thin 51% to 49%.

Although the YouGov poll is on the whole disappointing, there are a couple of really encouraging results within it.  You might remember that during the indyref campaign, most people were finding it such an exhilarating experience (it led, after all, to the highest voter turnout since the introduction of universal suffrage!) that unionist politicians and commentators felt compelled to embrace the holding of a referendum as an overwhelmingly positive thing, and the campaign itself as a "festival of democracy" (Tom Holland's words on the eve of polling day) that the rest of the UK needed to learn from.  But within a year or two, the exact same people were shamelessly gaslighting us by trying to implant false memories that the campaign had instead been a national trauma on the scale of a small war and that families and friendships had been torn apart by it.  The YouGov poll suggests the gaslighting has deservedly failed, and that by a resounding margin of 52% to 33%, respondents feel that holding the referendum was the right thing to do.  They also, by a narrower margin of 43% to 40%, want a second referendum to be held within the next ten years, although there's more hostility than in some previous polls to the idea of holding it within the next year or the next five years.

The poll also shows that voters would overwhelmingly back independence (the Yes advantage would be 56% to 32%, or roughly 64% to 36% without Don't Knows) if it meant Scotland would rejoin the EU - which, let's be honest, it probably would.  This suggests that, contrary to John Swinney's dismal claims in the Salmond/Sturgeon documentary, the SNP missed a trick by not bringing the independence question to a head after the EU referendum.  The mistake was not, as Swinney believes, to push too hard but to not push anything like hard enough, and to back off at the first sign of any resistance from 'Tyrannical Theresa'.  Even now, it appears the window of opportunity to use voters' horror at Brexit to win independence has not yet closed, but clearly there is no prospect whatever of taking advantage of that opportunity for as long as Swinney remains SNP leader.

Also of interest is that a greater proportion of people who support independence say they feel strongly about their views (90%) than those who oppose independence (78%).  That leaves open the possibility of a significant future net swing to Yes.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  The fundraiser page can be found HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

A guest post by Alan Harris, former elected member of Alba's Disciplinary Committee and Constitution Review Group, on why he was left with "no alternative" but to leave the Alba Party

(Editorial note from James Kelly: I have been asked by Alan Harris to publish his guest post, and the letter within it, in full and unabridged form.  I have agreed to do so.  It is important that Alan has the opportunity to set out the real facts in his own words and without interference from anyone.  However, if anybody from the Alba leadership happens to be passing by, please note that 'full and unabridged' means *exactly* what it says.  What you are about to read are 100% Alan's words, not mine.  The topics and information referred to have been decided upon by Alan, not by me.  Any objections the Alba leadership may have to the contents are therefore not a matter for me and should not be addressed to me.  Many thanks.)

In his blog on Monday, September 9, 2024, under the heading 'A personal statement on the Alba leadership's bizarre and unconstitutional decision to remove me from a directly elected party role' James Kelly wrote:

“The candidate who topped the poll (for the Constitution New Review Group) was within a few weeks effectively forced out of the party by some of the most disgraceful behaviour I've ever witnessed.” That person was me. Whilst I don’t completely agree with that statement, I did feel that I was left with no alternative, as I set out in my resignation letter below. James went on to say that “Without that person it was always going to be a much more uphill struggle”. That may have overstated the case, since the prime proponent of the Review Group procedure, Mike Baldry, was still onboard, with James. However, without James as well, and the NEC appointees and others ranged against him, the task Mike Baldry faces becomes Herculean, in my opinion.

Over the past week James has faced a barrage of personal messages and posts on X from Yvonne Ridley. I make no comment on these exchanges, but they have influenced my decision to publish my resignation letter now.

My resignation letter was sent to the Chair who responded by “thanking me for my service to the party, and indeed to our national cause”. Tasmina also thanked me “for so diligently serving our members and myself as Chair, in your additional role as steward at various party events.” I publish those comments not as an exercise in self-aggrandisement; but solely in case anything otherwise is suggested now. When I joined ALBA, I made a personal decision not to use social media for political purposes. I did share my resignation with a few selected friends but I did not publish the letter anywhere at the time, because I regarded it as an internal matter, though I have been falsely accused of a public resignation.

At the Disciplinary Meeting in March that I refer to in my resignation, the then Chair, Marjorie Ellis Thompson, used an unconstitutional procedure and unreasonably, in my opinion, postponed a case against Denise Somerville, which prejudiced the outcome, when the majority (3) of us were of the opinion that she had no case to answer. I will publish a follow up blog about Denise’s unsuccessful Appeal in due course.

Now it seems that James is going to be prosecuted under the same unconstitutional procedure. I make no comment about the rights and wrongs of any potential case against James, lest it prejudice any future appeal. However, this is another reason why I consider it is important that I publish my resignation letter now.

RESIGNATION FROM THE ALBA PARTY 

Dear Tasmina, 

I have been a member of the ALBA Party since my former SNP Kirkintilloch Convener, Delia Henry, joined ALBA and ran for the UK Parliament in 2021. 

I have been Secretary and Treasurer of ALBA East Dunbartonshire since inception in September 2021.

In May 2022, I was privileged to be selected as the ALBA Party candidate for Bishopbriggs North and Campsie in the Local Government Elections. 

I was elected to the Appeals Committee in 2022 but no cases came before the Committee. I was elected to the Disciplinary Committee at Stage 1 in 2023 and I was re-elected in 2024 with the most votes of any candidate. One case was presented to the Disciplinary Committee in 2023. 

At the outset I enquired if there was a Disciplinary Procedure and on being advised that there was not, the then Convener, Hamish Vernal invited me to write one on behalf of the Disciplinary Committee. My credentials were that I had served on the Disciplinary & Membership Committees of the Financial Intermediaries, Managers and Brokers Association (FIMBRA) for 5 years under the Chairmanship of Sir Kenneth Clucas, the first Civil Service Commissioner, Permanent Secretary at two Government Departments and latterly Chairman of the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux; the Recorder (Chief Magistrate) of the City of London; and leading barristers. The procedure I wrote went through three revisions and DCv4 was presented to the NEC in May 2023. In an email on the 25 th of July 2023, Hamish advised the Committee members that “The papers that I provided on the Process are now out for consideration to an external source. I outlined our wish, as previously agreed by the Chair, that whatever results from this comes back to the DC for consideration before going to NEC for approval. Thereafter to the October Conference. This process and timescale was (sic) confirmed.” On the 18 th of August 2023 Hamish advised the Committee members that “We are unanimous in our views. I conveyed this in a telephone call to the Party Chair late yesterday afternoon. I reiterated our view, confirmed to me by the Party Chair again, that we wished all documents…..DCv4, NECV6 and Alan’s commentary which we all endorsed….to go to an external lawyer specialising in this area. I was informed that the current version was “sense checked” only (by the General Secretary) and will go to the NEC on Saturday for comment. I expressed our view that we were unanimously unhappy with the current version……we had all expressed our views in writing. Following the NEC all documents including any comment from NEC will then go external to be “legalled”. I have this assurance.” 

Eva Comrie, herself a lawyer and then member of the NEC, has advised me that she did not see this legal advice. Hamish Vernal has advised me that the explanation given to the NEC was that it was too expensive to obtain full legal advice and that he did not see any other version of the Procedure. In addition, Hamish has stated that he was given a further assurance, when remitting office as the Convener of the DC at the December 2023 meeting of the NEC, that the final version would come back to the DC for comment and thereafter the DC version would be “rubber stamped” by the NEC.

Notwithstanding all the foregoing, a new Procedure labelled NECv2 was presented to the Disciplinary Committee as fait accompli in March 2024. In an email to Morgwn Davies and other Committee members on 7 March 2024 the General Secretary said that “The disciplinary policy was approved by the National Executive Committee as they are entitled to do so under 12.1(d) of the constitution… with the requirements of 12.3 to be fulfilled but the policy being deemed constitutional drawing on the rules set out in 12.7”. Furthermore, in a second email to Morgwn on 12 March 2024, the General Secretary said “The final version of the policy was drafted by me upon commission from the NEC. The Disciplinary Policy was agreed by the NEC on 30th September 2023”. If this is true it was unknown to the then Convener of the DC, Hamish Vernal and belies the assurance that he was given by the Chair at the NEC in December 2023. 

At the meeting of the Disciplinary Committee on 20 March 2024, I raised a point of order based on - 

Constitution: 

12.3 All such Rules and Standing Orders shall be submitted to the National Council or Conference for amendment and/or adoption. 

There was a national Conference on 28 October 2023 and National Council meetings on 1 December 2023 and 27 January 2024 but the new procedure was not submitted for approval. 

The General Secretary relied on Constitution 12.7 which gives him the power to “interpret” the Constitution between meetings; but this does not apply because no such Procedure has ever been adopted by National Council or Conference and in any event under 12.5 “This Constitution may not be changed, except by a vote of at least two-thirds of the delegates present and voting at National Conference, or by National Council in relation to a specific matter that National Conference has delegated to National Council.” 

I invited the current Convener of the Disciplinary Committee, Marjorie Thompson, to take advantage of - 

Constitution: 

12.6 Should any question arise regarding the interpretation of the Constitution, Rules or Standing Orders of the Party, the convener of the meeting shall adjudicate on the question and his or her adjudication shall be final, unless a motion is passed requiring the person to vacate the Chair. 

but she made various contradictory pronouncements and the meeting proceeded on the basis of the NECv2 (witness the fact that the Clerk to the Committee, which position has been introduced by NECv2), was in attendance.

The reason for all of this is not hard to understand. The entire Disciplinary Committee in 2023 and every member who has ever expressed an opinion on the subject are unanimous in the view that ALL complaints should be submitted to the Disciplinary Committee for investigation and adjudication.

However, the Constitution [11.6] has been interpreted as meaning that the Disciplinary Committee can ONLY take disciplinary measures against a member on the proposal of the General Secretary; and that the Disciplinary Committee can only investigate a complaint on the proposal of the General Secretary. 

This is a breach of one of the key principles of natural justice which is that:

* a complainant party is entitled to have its case heard by an unbiased and impartial tribunal 

In effect the rules are being interpreted in a way that means that: 

* the General Secretary is pre-judging complaints which is a second breach of the principles of natural justice. 

Therefore, the Disciplinary Committee (Hamish Vernal, Convener proposing and Alan Harris, member, seconding) proposed to Conference 2023 that: 

A new paragraph 11.6 be inserted: 

The General Secretary will acknowledge receipt of all written or verbal complaints and send full details of the complaint and any associated documents to the party about whom the compliant has been made by email or other electronic means within 7 days of receipt. At the same time, the General Secretary will refer the complaint to the Disciplinary Committee for investigation. 

This and many other motions were not submitted to conference (see below, Constitution New Review Group). 

The NEC v2 re-defines a "complaint" solely as a "proposal by the General Secretary" and appears to exclude any other form of complaint. 

The Constitution at 11.5 demands the immediate referral of suspended members to the DC and that was ignored for 4 weeks, 3 weeks and 10 days respectively.  

In two of the three cases before the Committee last Wednesday, the General Secretary stated that complaints had been submitted against the members concerned: in one case by another member; and in another case by a LACU; but these complaints were not produced in evidence. In one of the cases the member had made a counter complaint but, contrary to precedent that both cases should be heard together, this complaint was not presented to the Committee. In two of the cases, vital evidence in the form of a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter); and emails were omitted from the evidence. In one of the cases the Clerk to the Committee said that the member had not asked to attend the hearing whereas in fact he’d made two such requests and never been given the details. 

It is small wonder that the new Convener has resigned today. 

The one case that was adjudicated by the Disciplinary Committee in May 2023 was immediately appealed despite the fact that the appellant, who was also the defendant, failed to engage with the Committee despite seven emails. The Appeal was not heard for nine months, apparently because there was no procedure; although I wrote an outline procedure which was presented to the NEC at the same time as the appeal was lodged. Not surprisingly the appeal was upheld. 

I was elected to the Constitution New Review Group with almost more first preference votes than the next three candidates put together. 

However, I now find that the powers that be have imposed an unconstitutional procedure on the Disciplinary Committee which enshrines in our rules a procedure that is contrary to natural justice and this has already been implemented to the detriment of two members. That is unacceptable to me. It is clear to me that since this procedure has been imposed there is no chance whatsoever that the leadership will accept the limitation on the General Secretary’s assumed power of veto over complaints, indeed this has now been enhanced. Not only that, but in one of the cases before the Committee last week, the General Secretary actually expressed a view that the Committee should take action against the member and in another he expressed a view on the penalty that should be imposed by the Committee, all of which is wholly improper conduct, presumably endorsed by the Party Chair to whom the General Secretary reports. 

In an email on 4 March 2024, our Leader Alex Salmond stated that "Yvonne Ridley our Women’s Convener is stepping back from her role for a time. Ash Regan MSP ......will step in to lead for the party on this issue in the meantime.  Eva Comrie publicly resigned from ALBA. I regret this and thank Eva for her considerable contribution. Our constitution and rules are clear, however, and subject to NEC approval I have asked Suzanne Blackley, a former Holyrood candidate for ALBA, to serve as our interim Equalities Convener until an election can be held at the next meeting of National Council or at our Annual Conference."

So, there is reference to an election for Equalities Convener but not Women's Convener. However, Morgwn Davies has reported that at their meeting on Wednesday 13 March 2024, Ash "said that she was acting Women's Convener until the next election for that position." And that Yvonne Ridley was free to stand in that election if she so wished. 

1. Therefore, it's clear that both positions are being treated in the same way. 

2. This is confirmed on the ALBA website: Interim National Women’s Convener - Ash Regan MSP; Interim National Equalities Convener - Suzanne Blackley. 

3. Yvonne Ridley is not an elected member of the NEC, she and all other office bearers owe their position to their national offices.

4. Since Yvonne Ridley is not currently the Women’s Convener she cannot be a member of the NEC. 

5. Since Yvonne Ridley is not a member of the NEC she cannot be an NEC delegate to the Constitution New Review Group (CNRG).

Our Constitution and Rules are indeed clear. 

However, the Convener, Hamish Vernal gave an apology for Yvonne Ridley’s absence at the CNRG meeting on 12 March 2024 and it is my understanding that the Party Chair sought to justify this at the NEC meeting on 16 March 2024. 

There is a second aspect to these resignations: 

Constitution: 

8.6 If a National Office Bearer’s post falls vacant before its term, the vacancy shall be filled by National Council in accordance with National Council Standing Orders.  

Annex C - Standing Orders of the National Executive Committee 

12.3 Should a vacancy arise for any elected position on the NEC then the vacancy shall be filled in the first instance by the candidate that finished next in the respective ballot. 

Therefore, Heather McLean who was next in line at the election should have been appointed to replace Yvonne Ridley and Abdul Majid who was the only other candidate, should have been appointed to replace Eva Comrie. 

In the light of all the foregoing I find myself in a dilemma. Hamish, Heather and Daniel Jack were good enough to endorse my candidature for these Committees. And, I am deeply indebted to all the members who put their faith in me by voting me on to these Committees where they expected me to use my experience to fight for justice and constitutional change. On the other hand, how can I continue to sit on these Committees in the face of all of the above breaches of the Constitution and the likelihood of significant change is remote. I stood for good governance and proper procedures. Not only have I failed to deliver but my continued membership of these Committees appears to endorse these malpractices. 

I have concluded that I cannot continue without doing irreparable damage to my integrity and that is not something that I will sacrifice for any organisation. 

Therefore, I have no alternative other than to resign from the ALBA Party with immediate effect. 

Yours sincerely

Alan S Harris 

25 March 2024

A generation later: photos from the referendum anniversary event in George Square

I'm not going to the event at the Science Centre tonight, but don't leap to conclusions - it's not because a certain Somerset gender politics blogger will apparently be making a rare-bordering-on-unique foray into northern climes.  It's simply because I'm counting the pennies at the moment and the ticket price was a wee bit on the steep side.  However, for obvious symbolic reasons I do feel it's important that the anniversary events for the referendum held a generation ago are seen to be well-supported, so I spent a couple of hours at the Hope Over Fear event in George Square this afternoon.  I was too late to hear the former First Minister, but I did hear Tommy Sheridan speak twice.  He may be a controversial figure, but bloomin' 'eck, nobody can deny he's still a powerful orator, and I agreed with 90% of what he said.

Two other thoughts: whatever my mixed feelings about the Salvo project, I must compliment them on having a superb logo that looks amazing on flags.  And I never thought I'd watch a singer on stage performing a song that contained the genuine lyric "the SNP and Alba both think they're right", but that's something that actually happened today.

After the event was over, I suddenly got this strange notion that I'd like to look up the HMV on Argyle Street where I used to spend half my life when I was a student.  I assumed it would be long gone, but I was delighted to find it's still there and in fact it's barely even changed.

Not many people can claim to have been bullied by a former hostage of the Taliban, so there's always that

I know I said last night that I hoped not to post any further about Alba internal politics for a while, but the situation keeps escalating and escalating, and the intimidation is getting so direct and blatant now that it's almost entering into the realms of the downright comical.

This morning I received yet another direct message on Twitter from Yvonne Ridley - I no longer see much point in protecting her identity.  She was once again gloating and taunting me at great length about the fact that she claims to have inside knowledge that a decision has been taken to expel me from the Alba Party.  Her implication is that there are trumped-up charges about a breach of confidentiality rules (an allegation that I have already addressed and shown to be without foundation).

There are only really two possibilities here.  One is that Ridley is a Walter Mitty style fantasist and that none of this is true.  I take that possibility extremely seriously given what others have told me about Ridley's past behaviour.

The second possibility is that Ridley is telling the truth, but that would by definition mean the independence of Alba's disciplinary processes are a sham, because no hearings have been held, and I have heard nothing about an expulsion except from Ridley and her own boasts.

Over to you, Alba.  I await with keen interest to discover whether Ridley is telling the truth or lying.  I'm going to work on the firm assumption that it's the latter, and that Alba's internal procedures and commitment to due process are not some sort of window dressing for a Mickey Mouse organisation in which vindictive bullies wield arbitrary power. But if by any chance she's telling the truth, there will be very serious implications, and those implications will not just be for me personally.

And one final but important point.  Here is an example of the low quality of what passes for Ridley's bullying attempts - 

"If you want to elevate your wee blog, why don't you do a story on the Aye App."

Hilarious, Yvonne, hilarious.  Who needs the Morecambe and Wise Christmas special.  

I was completely oblivious to the point she was trying to make with that "joke" for about thirty minutes, and then it suddenly hit me between the eyes.  I am currently an elected member of Alba's Disciplinary Committee, and it was her little way of indirectly telling me that she knew all the details of one of the committee's hearings from earlier this year, and that she knew how I voted in that hearing.  The Disciplinary Committee is bound by confidentiality rules, and unlike the unknown person who seems to have briefed Ridley, I abide by those rules, so I will be saying nothing about it.  But if my interpretation of her little dig is correct, and I'm 99% sure that it is, it's revealing of something downright sinister.  Something appears to be seriously amiss in the upper reaches of Alba, and if the party is to emerge blinking into the light with a bright electoral future, there will have to be radical change.

Incidentally, to the very limited extent that I know Ridley, I was previously on good terms with her and had interviewed her twice for this blog's podcast.  So she has no reason for a personal grudge against me, and I suspect the motivation for her bile is that she thinks it will please the powers-that-be.  Perhaps she's hoping to be a list MSP.  I'm not sure there's anything much worse in life than the sidekick to the school bully who is only doing it because she wants to be liked by the 'in crowd'.

Thoughts on "marked cards" and "sealed fates"

I've been swithering about whether to go public with this, but I think it's probably important that Alba members are given some kind of insight into the scale of the bullying that is going on in private, because I know sometimes members express frustration that they constantly hear vague hints but are left none the wiser.  Someone who I only know very slightly, and who is either a current or a former Alba NEC member (I'm not quite sure of her present status) randomly sent me a private message on Twitter tonight seemingly just for the sheer joy of informing me that "my fate was sealed", ie. according to her I'm going to be expelled.  That's news to me, but we'll see if her prediction comes true, and if it does that will give me a little clue about whether the next taunt she went on to make had any factual basis or was just bluster.

In true Primary 4 fashion, she went on to delightedly tell me about very unflattering personal comments that her unnamed "friends", seemingly extremely senior people in the party, had been making about me in private as long ago as 2021.  Apparently my "card was marked" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean) from the very first NEC meeting I attended three years ago, because I had been observed during that meeting and deemed to be lacking on what sounds like very crude "survival of the fittest" criteria.  The implication is that I was in some unspecified way 'blackballed' from that moment on, and that my predicted expulsion will be the natural culmination of that process.

It's reassuring to learn that I and others haven't unknowingly been living through some kind of Kafkaesque dystopia over the last three years.  If these taunts were in any way meant to dissuade me from my belief that Alba is in dire need of total root-and-branch reform, I must say they're having completely the opposite effect. I'm not naive enough to think other parties aren't just as bad, but incrementally these incidents are causing me to reflect quite a bit on how politics in this country needs to change, and change utterly, no matter whether independence happens or not.  Essentially politics needs to be humanised.

Hopefully this will be my last post about Alba internal politics for a while, but I'll keep you posted if there are any significant developments.

Do members of political parties lead best in the dark?

First of all, thank you to everyone who got in touch by email with supportive words after my unconstitutional removal from my elected role as a member of the Alba constitution review group.  The general sentiment was "shocked but not surprised".  There was one particularly interesting message from someone who actually contacted a key person in the Alba leadership a few months ago to ask for specifics about what was meant by Alba being a "member-led party", given the evidence of an increasingly top-down approach.  The reply was as follows: Alba is member-led because the members determine party policy, and they do so by electing a Conference Committee which sets the agenda for conference.

Now, that's fascinating, because in my blogpost of 21st April, one of the key points I made is that the members do not elect or control the Conference Committee.  It does have some "elected members", but those are elected by the few dozen people who attend National Council, not by the party membership as a whole.  And one of the specific complaints that has been made is that meetings of the Conference Committee have sometimes been swamped by a large number of other individuals who just somehow "appear" and are supposedly there "as of right" even though no-one can seem to quite identify the clause in the constitution that gives them that right. 

From what I've been able to deduce (although I haven't been told this by the Alba leadership, who were extremely non-specific), the blogpost of 21st April is probably what has been used as the pretext for my unconstitutional removal, due to a supposed allegation that it contained breaches of confidentiality.  I defy anyone to actually read the post and reach that conclusion - as you can see, it just contains generalised points about the arguments for and against constitutional reform, without revealing any details at all about what happened at meetings of the constitution review group or what decisions were taken.  Indeed I specifically made the point right at the outset of the post that I was bound by confidentiality rules and that I therefore wouldn't be commenting on the work of the group.  I do think it's wonderfully ironic that a post in which I simply tried to engage the members of a "member-led" party about the arguments for constitutional reform, a subject which you would expect the members of any "member-led" party to be making the final decisions on, has been regarded as a disciplinary matter because it's apparently of the gravest importance that the members of the "member-led" party are kept totally in the dark about the whole topic!  And heaven forbid that anyone explain to the members of a member-led party that they do not in fact elect the Conference Committee, when the bogus claim that they do is apparently the main basis for the notion that Alba is member-led.

The other justification for "member-led", incidentally, was that the NEC is "fully-elected".  Well, that's sort of true, but again, the point is elected by who?  You don't get to vote for the eight ordinary members of the NEC by virtue of being a party member, you have to purchase a vote by getting your chequebook out (figuratively speaking - it's 2024) and paying a premium.  It's a pay-per-vote system.  And is it therefore possible for wealthy individuals to purchase a significant number of votes on behalf of others who might then be expected to vote as a bloc?  Is there any safeguard in the system to prevent that happening, and can we be sure it hasn't already happened?  Last year, for example, when the results of the vote were mysteriously never published?  

These are the really serious questions the constitution review group should be grappling with, and getting on with sorting out, to ensure that in future the party members actually are empowered and in control.  Instead, apparently the priority is to keep them uninformed and to disenfranchise them by removing someone they've elected, because after all, how else would you go about demonstrating that the party is already member-led and that no substantive reform is required?

As for what I can personally do to get this situation resolved, obviously there are limitations because it would depend on the leadership reacting in good faith to the points I'm putting to them - nobody can force them to act like democrats or even to abide by the party constitution.  (Theoretically a court of law might be able to, but the operative word is "theoretically".)  What I've done so far is write back to the General Secretary to point out that the information he supplied me with was far too vague and raised far more questions than answers, and that not only did the NEC exceed their constitutional powers in making their decision, in one key respect they did so on the basis of completely false information.  

There has been no reply so far - which is fine, we're all busy people, but there's just something about a tweet I saw earlier from Shannon Donoghue (who as well as being a member of the review group also has family ties to the leadership) which makes me wonder if I'm going to come up against a collective line of "this is just too unimportant a matter to waste our time commenting on or replying to".  Well, I'm sorry, but the unconstitutional overturning of an election result is self-evidently a very important matter, and if I haven't heard back within a week (which I think is generally regarded as the reasonable amount of time within which a reply should be received), I'll certainly be chasing it up and looking for some proper answers.

Shannon does so adore the word "wee". "Wee gang", "wee blog", etc, etc. The only snag may be that Alba could end up as a very "wee party" if the nonsense of the last few months carries on for very much longer. So far it appears that it will. https://t.co/oLHk649Ys2

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 11, 2024

Just seen this reply to Shannon. I don't criticise anyone for accepting a platform that's offered, and there may be a case for going on a far-right podcast to put the alternative point of view. But when the far right podcaster then praises you and talks to you like a mate...? https://t.co/m7C0IhWH0W

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 11, 2024

BREAKING: Propaganda outfit "Scotland in Union" caught fibbing about their own poll - the claimed numbers in the press release do not tally with the data tables, which actually show the SNP 1% ahead on the Holyrood constituency ballot

As you may already have seen, I have an analysis piece in today's edition of The National about the new Scotland In Union / Survation propaganda poll, and you can read it HERE.

Once again, Survation have agreed to use Scotland In Union's slanted question as a substitute for a genuine independence question, and I remain baffled as to why, because by this point they know perfectly well that it always, literally always, produces purported "independence support" several points lower than genuine independence support in conventional polls.  This is precisely the sort of stunt that brings the polling industry into disrepute, and Survation do have to accept some direct responsibility for it, because they're not usually shy about standing up to paying clients about the wording of poll questions that are potentially unclear, confusing or biased.  Indeed on headline voting intention questions they would generally say a flat no to the client changing the standard question, even by a single word.  My guess is that they very foolishly allowed a precedent to be set and afterwards found it impossible to say no to repeat runnings of the dodgy question.  However, the good news is that the 59-41 "pro-UK" split is very much within the normal range for the question, and thus lends support to the impression from the recent Norstat poll that support for independence has remained relatively stable since the general election two months ago.

Of much more interest are the Holyrood voting intention numbers from the poll, because Survation haven't distorted them by allowing their client to rewrite the question.  Not for the first time, though, I'm slightly confused by the reported results from the press release, because they don't seem to tally up with what would appear to be the definitive figures from the newly-published datasets on the Survation website - at first I thought it may just be an innocent mistake and that someone was looking at the wrong table, but no.  Having re-read the press release, it's obvious that Scotland in Union are intentionally playing silly buggers. Here are the real results, which contrary to the impression given by the press release actually show the SNP one point ahead on the constituency ballot.  

Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:

SNP 31%

Labour 30%

Conservatives 12%

Reform UK 9%

Liberal Democrats 9%

Greens 6%

Alba 1%

Scottish Parliament regional list ballot:

Labour 28%

SNP 27%

Conservatives 12%

Greens 10%

Liberal Democrats 10%

Reform UK 9%

Alba 2%

Now that we know the real numbers, it doesn't actually feel like a radically different story from the recent Norstat poll - for the SNP to have any sort of lead in what should be Labour's honeymoon period is an extraordinary achievement and probably bodes well for what we can expect once the Labour government's unpopularity grows.  However, although I'm optimistic about the SNP remaining the largest single party in 2026 and possibly remaining in office, I'm not at all optimistic about the pro-independence majority being retained, and a big part of the reason for that is the 9% vote share for Reform UK, which would easily win Farage's party list seats.  This is one of the big problems we have with media bias - it's much easier for an anti-independence "insurgent" party to make a breakthrough due to the passive benefits of UK-wide coverage, whereas a pro-independence party will by definition by Scottish-only and will struggle to get a look-in.

This is a poor poll for Alba, there's no getting away from that, and it confirms what I and others pointed out about the recent Norstat poll, ie. that the 5% figure supposedly showing Alba on course for list seats was an illusion caused by Norstat's house effect.  Norstat is the successor firm to Panelbase, which all the way back to 2021 has repeatedly overestimated Alba's share of the vote, possibly due to the chance factor of having a disproportionate number of committed Alba supporters signed up to their polling panel.

In my blogpost last night about the Alba leadership's decision out of the blue to strip me of one of my three elected positions within the party (something which as far as I can see they have no right under the party constitution to do), I made reference to one of the uglier features of Alba internal politics recently, namely the leadership's cultivation of a "stab in the back" mythology that blames all the party's ills on a "wee gang" of "malcontent" ex-members.  In a recent email to Alba members, the party chair Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh made a song and dance about the Norstat numbers and then said this: "Inevitably, all signs of success from ALBA will be met by a handful of ex and disgruntled members who, when not fighting with each other, spend their lives on X tweeting offensive material about their former colleagues."

Don't shoot the messenger here, but as today's poll shows, those "signs of success" are largely imaginary.  Alba have been stuck on 1-2% in every election they have fought so far, and they remain stuck on roughly 2%.  The past and present do not necessarily predict the future, but as things stand Alba are not on course to win list seats, let alone to get close to Alex Salmond's stated target of 15% of the list vote.  That may be a brutal truth that people don't want to hear, but it is the truth.  Scotland desperately needs a real independence force with substantial list representation, but if Alba are going to achieve that or even play a partial role in achieving that, a fundamental rethink is going to be required, and the sooner we face up to that fact, the better.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

A personal statement on the Alba leadership's bizarre and unconstitutional decision to remove me from a directly elected party role

First, some context.  Almost as soon as I started participating in Alba internal elections in 2021, I received representations from members urging me to push for democratisation of the party, in particular a fully elected NEC.  To be frank, I don't think I did enough to argue for that type of reform during my year on the NEC (2021-22), partly because it was a very new experience for me and I was slightly overawed at meetings (and I probably wasn't alone in that).  But I was determined to make up for that last year, and so I made one member, one vote for NEC elections the centrepiece of my pitch for the Membership Support Convener election. I very nearly won that election - I narrowly topped the first round vote, and lost the second round vote to Daniel Jack (who I gathered was largely opposed to reform) by a margin of just 50.5% to 49.5%.

All was not lost, though. Because of the total chaos that engulfed the NEC elections last year, a special constitution review group was set up to consider issues such as democratisation.  It was far from perfect - only four of the eight members were to be elected, with the other four appointed by the NEC itself (which arguably has a vested interest against reform), and even the four elected members were not to be elected by the membership as a whole, but by the small selectorate of the National Council. Nevertheless, the outcome of that election in January was exciting, with three of the four successful candidates, of which I was one, being pro-reform. We didn't necessarily agree with each other on the exact nature of the reforms we wanted, and we were always going to be outnumbered by the four NEC appointees, but nevertheless we had a powerful moral mandate which we were optimistic would bear at least some fruit.

That mandate has now been subverted and turned upside down.  The candidate who topped the poll was within a few weeks effectively forced out of the party by some of the most disgraceful behaviour I've ever witnessed - but I didn't blog about what happened (except in the vaguest terms to try to alert people to the fact that something was terribly amiss), precisely because I do take the confidentiality rules seriously and I do abide by them.

Without that person it was always going to be a much more uphill struggle, but I thought back to my regrets about being too passive on the NEC, and I was determined this time I was going to stick to my guns and speak up for what I believe in and what I was elected to push for.  If I can blow my own trumpet just a bit, I really do feel I went the extra mile.  I was subjected to mockery and pretty blatant bullying attempts, and it would have been very easy to just roll over and go with the flow and say "OK, OK, Alba is already as democratic as it needs to be", but I did not do that.  Why not?  Well, because my aim was not to please the leadership and get a plum spot on the Holyrood list, but instead to actually meet the group's remit and try to make Alba fit for purpose.  I was almost in a state of shock after some of the meetings, that's how difficult they were, but I kept plugging away.

My reward for doing that has been to be informed by Chris McEleny this evening that I have been removed from my elected position as a member of the constitution review group.  I have since checked and I am reliably informed by someone with legal expertise that this action is completely unconstitutional - ie. there is quite simply no provision in the Alba constitution for overturning an election result and removing an elected member of a committee or group.  This therefore appears to be yet another example of the NEC making up the rules as they go on, following on from episodes in which office bearers have stepped down and been replaced by hand-picked appointees, even though the constitution clearly states that the runner-up in the relevant office bearer election should automatically fill the role.  Not to mention, of course, the notorious "dossier" incident at last year's conference in which the original ballots to elect the office bearers were unilaterally nullified by the leadership after they had already taken place. No-one knows whether that was because the "wrong" people were deemed to have won - but if that was the case, internal party democracy would clearly be a sham.  My own unconstitutional ousting from a directly elected position does little to dispel that depressing suspicion.

The nominal reason given for my removal is almost an irrelevance, because it has nothing to do with the real reason, but for what it's worth the excuse given is a breach of confidentiality.  I am extremely confident I am guilty of no such breach.  Helpfully, because the alleged breach presumably took place on this blog or on Twitter, people can make up their own minds as to whether I have done anything that would justify this extraordinary sanction.  What I actually did was write a blogpost or two discussing the general issues relating to the constitution review, which was an entirely appropriate thing to do because we are constantly told that Alba is a "member led party" and that members will make the final decisions.  However, I made very sure I did not disclose details of the group's meetings.

Three out of the four elected group members were elected on a pro-reform ticket.  Only one of those three now remains.  The consequence is obvious: there will be no reform.  Party members have had no say whatsoever on this cynical overturning of their democratic choice.  What I would say to Alba members is this: your "member-led party" is being stolen from you, right in front of your eyes, and if you're going to get it back you'll need to fight for it.  If you trust the people in control to do the right thing by you, you're going to be very badly let down, as you already have been time and again.

There has been a concerted effort in recent months by leading Alba figures to weave a "stab in the back" mythology in order to blame all of Alba's ills on a "wee gang" of "malcontents" who have left the party.  I'm breaching no confidentiality rules in saying that Shannon Donoghue, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and others have tried to get that embarrassing playground narrative going, because they have done so entirely openly and on the record.  Well, let me make this clear, guys: you can bully me, mock me, belittle me, find fault with my nose or whatever, but unlike others before me, I will not be leaving, no matter what the provocation.  Unless you come up with a pretext for expelling me (and that would not surprise me in the slightest), I will be going precisely nowhere.  I will be fighting to have this wrong put right and to ensure Alba's internal democracy is upheld.  I will probably fail, but by God I'm going to try, and I urge all Alba members of good conscience to join me.

Despair for unionists as first post-election poll suggests Labour's narrow victory has had NO EFFECT on support for independence - the Yes vote stands at a heady 48%

As you may have gathered, I've been travelling in recent days, so I'm sincerely indebted to our resident unionist troll KC (who somewhere along the line misplaced the Sunshine Band) for reminding me that independence support stands at a remarkable 48% in the recent Norstat poll, which is a fact well worth its own blogpost.  KC says he's never been so despondent on the constitutional issue, and I can certainly understand why.  He and his fellow travellers presumptuously imagined that Labour's narrow 35% to 30% win in the general election in Scotland would somehow "draw a line under independence", and if I'm being honest even I expected some sort of honeymoon effect for Labour that would have a temporary negative impact on Yes support.  That simply hasn't materialised, with only statistically insignificant changes on the previous poll from the same firm.

Should Scotland be an independent country? (Norstat)

Yes 48% (-2)

No 52% (+2)

Although the final pre-election Norstat poll had Yes on 50%, that can probably be attributed to margin of error noise.  The high 40s has been the most typical range for Yes with Norstat and its predecessor firm Panelbase, so it does look as if the general election result has had no knock-on effect on independence support whatsoever.  Unionists like KC must be wondering: if the shock value of SNP defeat didn't spook voters into abandoning independence, what will ever do the trick?

The most likely answer is that nothing will, and that exceptionally high support for independence is here to stay.

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The other important polling news is that Labour continue to fare extraordinarily poorly at GB-wide level.  A new BMG poll has them ahead of the Tories by just four points, raising the possibility of crossover in the near future, which would be downright embarrassing for Starmer just a few weeks after his landslide.  My view is that the post-election polling has confirmed that it was indeed a 'loveless landslide', with no great appetite for Labour even on polling day, and with some tentative signs that their early actions in government may already be alienating people.

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SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER 2024: I took a prolonged break from promoting the fundraiser during the general election period, but I'll have to start making some serious progress now if the blog is to remain viable.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  Card donations can be made via the fundraiser page HERE, or direct donations can be made via Paypal.  My Paypal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk