I hope that the SNP see the light, but the independence movement needs a Plan B for 2026 in case they don't

IFS mentioned the latest Wee Ginger Dug post, so I had a look and there is indeed lots to agree with in it. Paul Kavanagh basically argues that the SNP's strategy of moving towards independence by demonstrating competence in government has failed, and that they now need to move towards using the 2026 election as some sort of de facto independence referendum and galvanising Yes support for an all-out push to win a majority at that election and get this done once for all.

However, that starts from the premise that everyone in the SNP agrees that independence is the single-minded objective and that the only disagreement is over the tactics on how to get there.  In the real world it's not really like that. There are other people who see the SNP as a political party like any other, for which the goal is power.  A party pursuing power generally reacts to a defeat by looking at its menu of policies and working out what can be removed and what can be added to maximise its level of support.  Hugh Gaitskell and Neil Kinnock both reacted to Labour defeats (in 1959 and 1987 respectively) by deciding unilateral nuclear disarmament had to be removed as party policy, even though it was a fundamental belief for many members.  Similarly, there will be SNP parliamentarians and ex-parliamentarians who are currently thinking that independence has to be ruthlessly sacrificed in an election-winning push.  They're barking up the wrong tree, because abandoning the SNP's unique selling point would actually be the fast lane to election defeat.  But the fact that they believe it might work and believe it's worth doing is what matters, and that means the genuine independence supporters are going to have to face them down in the months to come.

If they are successfully faced down and if Paul Kavanagh's strategic advice (or something similar) is accepted, there's no problem.  But if the 'endless delay' faction get their way yet again, the independence movement is going to need a Plan B, one that is external to the SNP.  And for the avoidance of doubt, I am not talking about replacing the SNP as the main independence party - that is completely unrealistic, whatever Stuart Campbell's wild fantasies may be.  But what may be possible is an electoral force that wins a modest number of list seats and then lends support to an SNP government on condition that independence is genuinely pursued.

Paul Kavanagh says of the Alba party: "It lost its two MPs and attracted only a handful of votes. It is over as a political project."  Well, I'm on the inside of Alba - I'm certainly not part of the in-group, but I'm an elected member of three of the party's national committees and I've been to branch meetings, so I know how determined Alba members are to see it through. Alex Salmond is the master of surprise, so who knows, maybe he'll stun us all by declaring Thursday was a setback too far and then wind the party up, but I very much doubt it.

There does, however, need to be an injection of realism about just how far Alba currently are from winning list seats, and what will need to change to make that happen.  I presume the leadership must have been expecting better results on Thursday, because Mr Salmond had been confidently predicting throughout the campaign that the results would surprise people, and even on the BBC results show he announced that Alba was going to save two deposits.  By that point, Alloa & Grangemouth and Lothian East had already been declared, so I was really puzzled as to where he thought two saved deposits were going to come from - Cowdenbeath & Kirkcaldy seemed the only realistic possibility, but it didn't come close to happening even there.

On Twitter the other day, Shannon Donoghue reverted to the comfort zone of the "stab in the back" theory by announcing that Alba's poor election results were all the fault of Denise Findlay and "the wee gang".  I mean, come on.  I know Shannon to a small extent because I'm on the Constitution Review Group.  A vacancy on that group came up a few months ago after a prominent member left the party in disgust due to some of the things that had been going on behind the scenes, and Shannon filled his place as a sort of 'lucky loser' from the January election, so I've attended a few meetings with her.  I'll try to be diplomatic here, but the idea that Denise Findlay or anything else to do with Alba internal politics is the explanation for Alba's electoral failures to date is just so many light-years away from reality that heaven help us all if that's the theory that starts to take root within the party.  That would be a party slipping into delusion.

99%+ of the public do not know who Denise Findlay or the so-called "wee gang" are, but they most certainly know who Alex Salmond is, and to a lesser extent they know who Ash Regan, Kenny MacAskill, Neale Hanvey and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh are.  That is their point of reference for the party and that is the basis on which they cast their votes. For whatever reason, and I'm not going to pretend to fully understand why, the Alba brand just doesn't seem to have enough appeal for the electorate.  I'm wondering if one way of squaring the circle might be to build on the 'Scotland United' idea and have Alba as a component part of a much wider electoral alliance standing on the list in 2026.  That alliance's branding and its collective leadership might have much broader appeal and get us to the 5-7% threshold for winning list seats.  It's just a thought, but I do believe we're going to need some blue-sky thinking to get ourselves out of this trap.