I've written about this before, but it's something that genuinely bewilders me about the Alba Party's current positioning. When Nicola Sturgeon first announced the de facto referendum plan (unfortunately since semi-abandoned by Yousaf and replaced with a "Schrodinger's de facto"), I felt strongly that it was a step forward. The Alba leadership were, however, heavily critical, and one of the key points they made was that it was unforgiveable that Ms Sturgeon had unnecessarily specified that only an absolute majority of the popular vote would count as a mandate for independence. They felt that this represented a kind of pre-surrender on behalf of the independence movement, one that would take effect in the more likely circumstances that a majority of seats was won and not a majority of votes.
I had a lot of sympathy with what the Scottish Government were saying at that point, because in the real world the general public will not accept a mandate won on, say, 35% or 42% of the vote as sufficient for Scotland to become an independent country. I thought it possibly made sense to make a virtue out of necessity by accepting that reality in advance, so that voters could see that no-one was trying to win independence in a tricksy or underhand manner. I did add, however, that there was no great harm in Alba continuing to argue the case that a majority of seats should be sufficient for an independence mandate. I know from having talked to senior Alba people at the time that for many of them it wasn't just a matter of tactical positioning, and that they sincerely and vehemently felt that if it was fine for successive UK governments to do what they liked to Scotland, despite having been elected on well under 50% of the UK-wide popular vote, then the principle should cut both ways.
Since becoming leader, Yousaf has made a number of fundamental modifications to the Sturgeon plan, most of them negative ones which water it down. But he has undoubtedly done exactly what Alba asked him to do on the question of the mandate threshold - he is now saying that a majority of seats (perhaps even just a plurality of seats) will be a mandate for independence and that a majority of votes is not required. And yet, bizarrely, Alba are attacking him for doing exactly what they requested, and strongly implying he should go back to the Sturgeon position which they castigated her for. Here is what Alex Salmond was quoted as saying yesterday in a BBC article: "No-one seriously believes that proposing a majority of seats as an independence mandate is at all credible."
I haven't been on the Alba NEC since last October, so I'm no longer as plugged-in to the evolution of the leadership's thinking as I used to be, but with the best will in the world, it's impossible to see that statement as anything other than a total contradiction of what Alba were saying last year, when they were not only arguing that a mandate based on a majority of seats was credible, but was in fact the only credible position that any pro-independence party could possibly hold.
Now, I totally understand that small parties need to find wedge issues and differentiate themselves from larger parties they're trying to take votes from. But in doing so, you surely have to take care to maintain congruity between your 2023 position and your 2022 position. Rather than attacking and mocking Yousaf for doing exactly what you demanded he should do, it would make far more sense to embarrass him by claiming his U-turn as a massive triumph for Alba's campaigning.
My own view of this aspect of Yousaf's Schrodinger's de facto plan is that it is indeed nonsensical, but as I said about Alba's similar position last year, there may be no great harm in him publicly putting it forward. A majority of seats won on a minority of votes will obviously not result in Scottish independence, but by arguing in advance that it ought to, it may be more likely that the media will treat any such election outcome as a score draw, and that the independence movement will live to fight another day. You can argue the case either way, but for Alba to suddenly turn their attack lines upside down and insist that the target for an independence mandate should be substantially increased (and thus made much harder to reach) seems distinctly odd.
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Well if Grenada started Independence negotiations with 46 percent of votes and a majority of seats, why can't the same be done here?
ReplyDeleteWas that not the example I debunked last year? Did the other 54% of voters all vote for anti-independence parties? If they didn't, it's not a valid comparison.
DeleteGreat to see this blog continuing its constructive hostility towards Humza Yousaf's leadership. It's nothing personal, but he simply has to go if the SNP are to avoid disaster at the GE.
ReplyDelete"...he [Yousaf] is now saying that a majority of seats (perhaps even just a plurality of seats) will be a mandate for independence and that a majority of votes is not required."
ReplyDeleteIn Holyrood, not Scottish seats in Westminster? Or both? Don't we have them already?
Or is Yousaf just asking, one more time and trust me?
Noses are really sore after being held so often on SNP promises.
Supposedly this is from the proposed resolution:
ReplyDelete"If the SNP subsequently wins the most seats at the General Election in Scotland, the Scottish Government is empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country."
Sounds good until you wonder what it means, and it can mean different things to different people. Some have already seen it as a total copout, looking for a S30 yet yet yet again.
"to give democratic effect"
a ticket to say "Ah, we're doing that, we've begged on our bended knees for Westminster to talk to us about a referendum, they said no, so vote for us in 2029 /2034 / 2099 and we'll beg again".
BUT - the resolution is apparently open to amendment even before the conference, so it needs to be tied down into plain and unambiguous English so that there can be no escape - it's begin negotiation for Indy itself, no faffing about.
As it stands it doesn't please me, if it's made plain and watertight the SNP will get my vote in 2024.
…empowered to begin negotiations…
Delete…to give democratic effect…
Yes, those weasel words roar like a lion. Without clarity on what the authors intend it to mean it’s hard to know what to make of it. It sounds good of course, but it’s a bit too wordy, and a bit too clearly meant to sound good, if you see what I mean. I would hope that the past 9 years have taught us all not to put too much faith in fine-sounding vows, pledges or manifesto “commitments”. Clarity please.
As James and others have said, the notion that a simple majority of seats will be seen as a mandate is delusional. Maybe once upon a time, back in the 80’s say, when that idea was more of a consensus view (and completely unthinkable, which is very likely why it was a consensus), but in today’s Scotland we need 50%+1 voting for independence to have any chance of seeing it actually happen.
Some encouraging numbers for the SNP in this poll anyway. With a few more positive developments, and maybe an unashamedly populist policy or two, maybe they can keep a healthier lead over Labour. Not too much to ask, is it?
OK, so Yousaf has clarified this with journalists:
Delete"... to put independence into democratic effect, so have a referendum ..."
so it's a meaningless copout yet again, and saying that they'll get the begging bowl back out again for an S30 and so on ad infinitum for another 316 years.
Yousaf must resign, and a new SNP leader voted in with courage and integrity for a change.
As it stands I will be spoiling my ballot sheet with "INDEPENDENCE" written diagonally across it, and if the SNP are reduced to 6 MPs in 2024 or even just 1 as before, then what difference does it make to Independence, except there'll be a waste of SNP begging bowls?
I have had the view for several years that the SNP should be going on the basis of a majority of seats. That's the criteria to govern at Westminster and it gives the PM and governing party the power to make any law, sign treaties, send troops to war and in the extreme launch nuclear weapons and destroy us all. A referendum wasnt needed for Brexit, they couldve decided to do anything that was passed by parliament. It's the Westminster system and demanding independence on the same basis forces them to defend thst system in public. Let us go to court if need be.
ReplyDeleteExamples from Ireland, former colonies and dominions can support this argument.
The worst outcome that I see is that the Supreme Court rules that the UK is a unitary state and that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have no legal meaning. Barely different from right now.
A majority of seats won on a minority of votes will obviously not result in Scottish independence, but by arguing in advance that it ought to, it may be more likely that the media will treat any such election outcome as a score draw, and that the independence movement will live to fight another day.
DeleteWhy would the media do that? If the SNP lose more than a handful of seats, even if they maintain their majority, it will be treated as a major setback for independence. So why further damage the cause by arguing that Scotland should become independent even if most vote against it? It just leaves them open to the charge that they aren't actually interested in politically empowering the people of this country, which is supposed to be the whole point of independence to begin with.
"Why would the media do that?"
DeleteI must introduce you to the modern Scottish media some day, Keaton. They're not renowned for their capacity for independent thought. Political parties putting out press releases, and suggesting what journalists should think, has sometimes proven to be a not entirely ineffective tactic.
Is Alex Salmond seriously trying to say that if back in 1992 (when he ran the 'Free by 93' campaign) the SNP had won a majority of the seats at that year's UK general election, he would not have considered it as a mandate to negotiate Scottish independence? If Alex jogs his memory he will recall that the 'majority of SNP candidates elected at a UK general election' being the mandate for independence was the SNP policy back then - and had been fir decades. Alex persuaded the party in March of 2000 to alter its policy to the referendum route. That was fine & dandy so long as Westminster played the game and accepted the democratic mandate for a referendum when the Scottish Government had one. I don't know if Alex has noticed but Westminster is no longer playing the democratic game so far as the referendum route is concerned. In its absence the SNP is fully entitled to opt back to the direct first past the post electoral majority route. I think that Alex does have a case for asking the SNP to broaden the wider campaign for independence through a Scottish Convention, but in my opinion that is a different argument.
ReplyDeleteWhen Supermajority Salmond's snap reaction quotes are indistinguishable from those of Rachel Reeves, it's time to take a good hard look at what Alba's true purpose is and always has been.
DeleteIf Alex can't father an independent Scotland, he's gonna make sure nobody else does.
I welcomed Alba's launch, agreed with every word of Eck's keynote, and gladly voted for them in 2021. Someone was making the positive case for independence and the constructive case for how to get it. I was impressed. I was also pleased to vote for Kenny MacAskill as my Lothians candidate. He and Salmond played a blinder over the Lockerbie trial back in the day.
DeleteThen the election came and the polls were right: not even 2% of Scots supported Alba.
Look, I get that founding a new party in the heat of a coming election, with an obsessively hostile media out for your leader's blood, is a tall order. Alba wasn't going to be easy. But that pathetic showing in the election was a shocker, and scunnered me on the route there and then. I was disgusted with Nicola's SNP (and Humza's continuity, obvs) and I was dismayed with Alba's arrival.
That was the turning point, sadly, when the party's mask came off. Reason had clearly failed. All the media's expectations about Alba being one man's vengeance weapon to destroy the SNP proved true. Everything they've done since then proves I was wrong to buy their positive message. They're the Wings Party.
It's a sad place to be: a Yesser who sees the SNP as the cynical, comfortable, troughing successors to Ancestral Labour that they are, and yet wants independence, not just the SNP's smouldering corpse. I've no one to vote for, no one to speak for me, and I can't see any way out of the UK's headlock on our progress thanks to the supreme court ruling against future referenda. We are snookered, thanks to Nicky.
Referencing the '92 campaign slogan 'free by 93' above, it's an interesting (but purely fantasy politics) thought experiment to wonder how we would become independent if the Scottish Parliament wasn't created by the New Labour referendum in 1998.
ReplyDeleteWe'd not be talking about referendum or majority in Holyrood (there wouldn't be one) we'd be talking about a majority of *seats*.
Seats are what counts at Westminster, not votes.
At the start of the 1992 campaign, Alex Salmond was challenged by a journalist on whether it was ridiculous to suggest the SNP could win independence in the election. His reply was "if we win 40% of the vote, we'll get a majority of seats and that will lead to independence, that's always been accepted by all sides". Hard to square that with what he's saying now.
DeleteIt is hard to square that!
DeleteGeorge Robertson's "kill the nationalists stone dead" comment could be said to be correct. It may have taken 20y of attrition but the SNP really doesn't know where to go from here as they are bogged down in operations (running government) rather than developing change (building the circumstances of independence). Operations are management processes and tweaks here & there. Change management is clarity of vision, an understanding of cause & effect and a plan. There's no intellectual weight behind it nor understanding of the British state and its constitution (except with Joanna Cherry).
There's 47% support for independence *even in the YouGov poll*!!! No wonder unionists are in a state of panic.
ReplyDeleteAnd mass attendance of rallies too. Exciting times for the independence movement.
DeleteYup. And only a couple of weeks ago too.
DeleteBetween this and the anti climax of the Rutherglen by election, I suspect the time is fast approaching for Alex Salmond to be put out to pasture. His heart is not in it, he doesn't have the drive in him to do the legwork required to take a party from the fringes to the mainstream (can't say I blame him at his age). And the bizarre collection of sycophantic courtiers that has now become the Alba NEC can only provide an ego boost for so long.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he was ever quite interested once Alba tanked in 2021 and it became clear it was a long-term project. Meanwhile, people who invested earnestly in a pro-independence alternative party to the SNP were, over time, shouldered aside by Salmond fanatics who see him as the second coming, rather than simply an astute and adroit politician capable of strategic error.
There is always this danger, with politicians past their prime. I know there are a lot of Alba members who hearken back to the glory days of 2014. But if we're honest with ourselves here, the Salmond of 2023 is not the Salmond of 2014. Just as the Thatcher of 1999 was not the Thatcher of 1990. And the Blair of 2016 was not the Blair of 2007. And just as the Sturgeon of 2032 will not be the Sturgeon of 2023.
Their star fades when they lack the limelight. And more importantly, their political judgement also starts to slacken. Goodness, it happens quite inevitably when they're still in office. Once they're out of office, it's all but guaranteed.
Salmond has been reduced to a frustrated figure, sniping from the sidelines but too frightened to get involved again in case he gets burned. And meanwhile his courtiers lap it all up, ensuring Alba continues to circle ever and ever closer to the drain.
The problem with Alba is the problem that brought many to be disillusioned with the SNP over the years. The party has only one centre of gravity. And that centre of gravity is a star in its death throes, collapsing in on itself as age and exhaustion takes hold. The self-same cult of leadership that Alba figures thumbed their noses at with regards to the SNP is now firmly entrenched within Alba. And until that changes, the party will flounder.
Frankly, it needs a Forbes, or a MacNeil, or a Cherry to take the reins. Someone with vitality and energy and drive left in them. But the sheer status of Salmond with the party faithful allows this inert, half-hearted, reactive, unchoreographed, shambling style of leadership to continue to take the party from low to newfound low.
The SNP had their reckoning with leadership cultism when the House of Sturgeon came tumbling down. Alba faces the same issue. But unless someone with vigour says the unsayable and wrests the party from Salmond's listless hand, the House of Alba will come down with a whimper, scarcely noticed by any at all.
I don't disagree with all of your comment, but your depiction of Alex Salmond as 'past it' doesn't really ring true. OK, no politician can go on forever, as Joe Biden may be in the middle of proving, but Salmond is nowhere near that point yet. I'm as mystified as anyone by his decision not to stand in Rutherglen, but I don't think lack of energy is the explanation for that.
DeleteMystified? Why would Alex want to go to live in London every week and tolerate (again) the hateful atmosphere of Westminster? I'd prefer him to be in Holyrood and maybe he would too.
DeleteBecause the decision was never about going back to Westminster and living in London. He wouldn't have won. It was about getting a good enough result to finally establish Alba as a credible party, after a dismal string of terrible results stretching back to the party's founding.
DeleteI wouldn't have been as blunt, but I agree with most of what you've said.
DeleteAlex Salmond is tired and in his 70s and at best he can keep Alba afloat spiritually until it gets its shit together.
By getting its shit together it needs to ease out the sycophants and organise on a competence basis. IE to be the health spokesperson you need to have a good working knowledge of the sector. That approach would professionalise Alba in a way that none of the major parties have managed.
With a membership of 5000 it *must* be possible to find a dozen competent souls to represent a brief and prepare policies.
Imagine declaring Indy on 47% of the vote and 50 seats. All ths does is weaken the argument.
ReplyDeleteThe sort of thing I'd happily endorse minor parties proposing as a pressure tactic. Not the actual SNP.
Idiotic
You need have no fears about the SNP "declaring indy" under any circumstances whatsoever.
DeleteExactly. If they were a team in the rugby world cup they would insist on playing whilst pushing supermarket trolleys around the pitch.
DeleteIf the SNP wanted to negotiate independence off the back of a majority of seats and not votes, I would be angry, to be honest. Independence can only come with one thing, our people's majority support.
ReplyDeleteOf course you’re right. The idea that having the most seats is enough is just ridiculous.
DeleteOf course. Yousaf embarrassed himself the other day when he suggested the SNP winning one more seat than the second largest party would be enough to start negotiations with the UK government on independence.
DeleteWorryingly Flynn apparently agrees with him on this.
Almost as if it was designed to set the indy cause back.
DeleteIndependence is to the SNP what anti-abortionism is to the American Republican Party: the red meat their base is permanently focussed on but a bit of an embarrassment for the leadership who only really want their donations and their votes, not the spittle from their hateful plebeian mouths. What a shameful bunch of rabble. Go bark for it!
DeleteWhatever the vagaries of the electoral system, and whatever any particular politician says at any given time, the will of the people is accurately expressed in votes.
ReplyDeleteIn which case the will of the people hasn't been enacted for decades, with the possible exception of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition from 2010 to 2015, because at no other time has the UK Government been backed by a majority of the popular vote.
DeleteFrom the National:
ReplyDelete"Stephen Flynn challenges Anas Sarwar to 'come clean' on triple lock"
This is wrong.
Stephen Flynn = MP = Westminster
Anas Sarwar = MSP = Holyrood
stick to your own flaming Parliament, and that goes for Westminster Tories and Labour poaching on our territory.
Realistically the pro-independence share of the vote at the next GE would need to be over 35% for independence to be achieved automatically without any need for a referendum.
ReplyDeleteGiven that 50%+ has already been achieved in the past, 35%+ seems almost inevitable. The Union is doomed.
If you claim a vote for your party is a vote for independence then a yes vote should mean independence. Saying you will demand talks is a joke. Westminster will tell the SNP to pissof just like May and Johnston did and Truss would have done if she had been there long enough.
ReplyDeleteThe SNP under the control of Sturgeon's gang is a sad sick joke of an independence party.
If the SNP were serious about independence they would have had a de facto referendum at Holyrood years ago. The only thing most of them are serious about is keeping their place on the gravy train.