Sunday, June 29, 2025

A gentle hint to the non-Sovereignty contingent within Liberate Scotland: the tactic of "slinging a deefie" at any questions about the electoral pact with a far-right nativist party is not going to work for a whole year, and especially not when the mainstream media start asking the questions

As you know, I'm far from content with the SNP leadership's current approach to independence, but the point is that pretty much any plan is superior to the Barrhead / Barcelona brew of a) uniting 0.2% of the independence movement under a "big tent", b) demonising the other 99.8% of the independence movement as "saboteurs", c) fiddling the franchise so English people living in Scotland can't vote, d) strolling effortlessly to a landslide election triumph, and e) marching on the UN to beg them to decolonise us.

This is the first time I've had any contact with Eva since she made what I can only describe as the dreadful error of joining Liberate Scotland.  If she had stayed as a genuine independent candidate and stood on the list only, I think she would have had a small outside chance of becoming an MSP, but she's blown it by associating with a brand that is likely to become as toxic as Alba (if not more so).  But as I hadn't previously spoken to her about her decision, I expected she'd have some kind of thoughtful answer to the question of what on earth had possessed her to enter into an electoral pact with Sovereignty.  Her refusal to even acknowledge the question, let alone answer it, stunned me.

I was on the Alba NEC with Eva for a year in 2021-22, and two things stood out for me about her.  One was her absolute commitment to the equalities role - she was extremely passionate about aspects of it that have been neglected by others, most notably justice for Scotland's Travellers community, which is an issue that has been in the news very recently.  It's hard to believe that someone who feels so strongly about equality for one of the most marginalised segments of our society would have much truck with the idea that some residents of Scotland should be denied citizenship after independence on arbitrary ethnic grounds, but that appears to be the Sovereignty position.

The second thing that stood out was Eva's hardheaded realism about electoral strategy.  When she was concerned about the deficiencies in Alba's preparations for the 2022 local elections, she spoke up volubly and identified exactly what she thought the shortcomings were.  She was nobody's yes-woman - she cared about independence and about the party above all else, and if she thought that Alex Salmond and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh needed a forceful dose of reality, she was more than willing to provide it.  I find it very hard to believe that she's naive enough to think that the questions about Sovereignty and its nativist policies will go away if they're just studiously ignored.  It's one thing fobbing off fellow independence supporters on social media, but when the mainstream media start asking the same questions, Liberate Scotland are going to be absolutely crucified if they can't find a more convincing and respectful way of answering.  (That's assuming the mainstream media pay them any attention at all - and if not, all of this becomes totally academic because Liberate will be lucky to get 0.1% of the vote.)

To me, the obstinacy of just repeatedly ignoring the questions has more of a "made in Barrhead" or "made in Barcelona" feel to it than "made in Clackmannanshire".  Barrhead Boy is by all accounts the de facto leader of Liberate, and Eva may be reluctantly going along with the dubious wisdom of a "just sling a deefie" directive imposed by HQ in sunny Catalonia.

Posted by James Kelly at 9:29 PM 1 comments
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