If the SNP leadership aren't going to reverse the catastrophic mistake of the Great Purge, they urgently need to show signs of having listened to members by offering some red meat on Plan B

Every so often, Stormfront Lite makes a plucky attempt to Anglosplain Scottish politics to us, although just this once - and rather irritatingly - I'm finding it hard to disagree with the overall thrust of David Herdson's piece on Saturday (he's still wrong on a number of details).  Basically he argues that divisions over the trans issue could unexpectedly cost the SNP its chances of an overall majority, and that the fault does not predominantly lie with the rank-and-file but instead with the leadership for giving too much weight to the views of a relatively small minority.  I think that's right - when the zealots called for Joanna Cherry to be sacked, the response should have been to point out that both sides of the debate were represented on the frontbench, and that was exactly as it should be.  The SNP was a broad church, it should have been said, and that was how it intended to stay, rather than letting itself become the hostage of one faction.  Nicola Sturgeon's intervention on social media should have been an even-handed denunciation of both transphobia and any trampling on women's rights, and should have assured both sides of the debate, not just one side, that they were welcomed and valued within the SNP.  

There's nothing wrong with wanting your own viewpoint to be represented at the top - but the problem with the zealots is that they're not satisfied with that, they also want the opposing view to be totally annihilated.  Joanna Cherry's ill-judged sacking did not succeed in appeasing them - it just emboldened them to start preparing the ground for her suspension or expulsion, presumably using the synthetic tool of an absurdly broad definition of the word 'transphobia' which will shortly be written into the party's rulebook.  When I suggested that one solution to the damage that had been done by the sackings was simply to reverse them, it was pointed out to me that although that would reassure a lot of people, it would also cause others to leave the party.  But I do wonder if it might be no bad thing to lay down a marker - to say to people that they're welcome in the party, but that they're not welcome to spend every waking moment trying to drive other good people out.

However, plainly the leadership have no intention of reversing the sackings, so I'd suggest we need something in lieu of that.  Mike Russell argued at the weekend that the danger of division was that it demotivated SNP activists who needed to be wholeheartedly behind the campaign for an SNP majority win in May - but actually the onus has to be on the leadership itself to help solve that problem.  Asking passionate supporters of Joanna Cherry to campaign without reservation for the SNP in these circumstances is a bit like randomly punching a marathon runner in the stomach, and then lecturing him about how he owes it to you and to himself to carry on running for another ten miles.  The problem is particularly acute given that the reshuffle looked like a way of effectively overturning or defying the NEC election results - there can be no clearer way of demonstrating to members that they have no stake in their own party than to treat their votes with contempt.  They indicated that they wanted a change of direction and the leadership's response has been to continue in the original direction at even greater speed.

So we need evidence of the leadership listening, and quickly.  If we can't have Joanna Cherry and people of like mind back on the front bench, probably the best available substitute will be some red meat on Plan B, and it will have to go quite a bit further than Mike Russell's 11-point plan.  We need specifics and dates, and also a Plan C for a plebiscitary election in the event that a legal challenge by the UK Government succeeds.  That, I think, would be the recipe for an enthused membership chapping on doors (or the figurative pandemic equivalent), regardless of any misgivings they have about recent events.

It also goes without saying that there can be no further big concessions to the zealots.  Everyone has their breaking-point, and if MPs or even ordinary members start being suspended or expelled on the basis of bogus allegations of transphobia, people will quite rightly conclude that enough is enough.