I have some past history with Roddy MacLeod, aka "Barrhead Boy" (among other things, we were on the Alba NEC together for a year), so I know only too well that he can be a volatile character. But even so, his meltdown in response to
my blogpost of yesterday is bizarre, and it does neither him nor his new electoral alliance any favours. I now feel somewhat liberated to say out loud what I previously said only in private - that while I have very great respect for individual Liberate Scotland candidates such as Eva Comrie and Sean Davis, I do think they've backed the wrong horse here.
In spite of the mistaken impression some people might get from MacLeod's rant, my blogpost was not in fact a full-on attack on Liberate Scotland - it simply brought to people's attention that one of the three component parts of the alliance, namely Sovereignty, has a number of extremist right-wing policies, and that one of those policies in particular (withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights) would have prevented me from voting for Liberate even if I wasn't a current SNP member. If MacLeod can't even cope with seeing a considered comment like that without accusing me of being some sort of traitor to Scotland, which is essentially what he's done, then he's plainly a zealot who will not be able to work constructively with the vast bulk of the independence movement, let alone reach out to ordinary voters. People have been saying to me in private for weeks that with MacLeod in charge, Liberate will just be Alba Mark II, because it'll be yet another tinpot dictatorship (albeit an even less subtle one, because MacLeod isn't as good at concealing his temper from the public gaze).
I'll respond to his specific points, such as they are -
"Earlier today an SNP blogger decided to attack Liberate Scotland and our attempts at unifying the Yes movement."
No I did not do that. It wouldn't have been physically possible for me to do that, because MacLeod and Liberate are not trying to unify the Yes movement. They are instead trying to divide the Yes movement further. They have already announced their intention to stand constituency candidates directly against the SNP next May, which is bound to increase the chances of unionist parties gaining constituency seats, and thus reduce the chances of the pro-independence majority at Holyrood being saved. Not even Alba are being as irresponsible and destructive as that. Kenny MacAskill has sensibly announced that Alba will be sitting out the constituency ballot and only standing on the list.
"This Thursday we might indeed see the backlash against the SNP if independence supporters continue to boycott the ballot box by staying at home."
I presume that's a reference to next Thursday, not this Thursday, because the Hamilton by-election is next week. If there is indeed a backlash against the SNP next week and people who would normally vote SNP stay at home, how does McLeod think it would help to have a small pro-indy party trying to persuade them to vote against the SNP instead? In a first-past-the-post constituency election, that cannot possibly help the pro-independence cause in any way. Literally the only way to stop Reform UK next Thursday is to vote SNP. Will MacLeod, the self-styled "unifier", urge independence supporters in Hamilton to do that? If not, why not?
"This site and TASP has long advocated for our movement to unite."
No, it hasn't. It's done the opposite. It has constantly tried to erect an impenetrable Berlin Wall between the SNP and other independence supporters.
"Be assured the Union fears Scottish unity more than they fear the SNP."
That's certainly true. And doubtless the most committed unionists will be wishing MacLeod well in his efforts to split the Yes vote.
"Unlike our detractors we say to them you are welcome to join our unity cause. We will not exclude any independence supporting party, organisation or individual."
Which is a mealy-mouthed, self-righteous way of doubling down on the rash decision to invite what is essentially a far-right party into his alliance. Let's be clear: Sovereignty are not making some kind of trivial or fringe contribution to Liberate - they are one of only three component parts of the alliance, and a very substantial proportion of Liberate candidates will therefore be people who want to ban *all* economic migration, restrict Scottish citizenship on the basis of some sort of undefined ethnicity test, withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, discriminate against those in same-sex relationships, and roll back free healthcare and the welfare state.
That is not the sort of Scotland I am remotely interested in building. More importantly, it is not the kind of prospectus that will help build a majority for independence - in fact it could potentially set the cause back decades if the public starts to take it seriously. If MacLeod is going to get his alliance to work, he needs to have calm, reasoned, compelling answers to the legitimate questions that are going to be asked by many, many people who have concerns about his embrace of Sovereignty. If he is incapable of responding without lashing out and accusing the people asking the questions of being traitors or saboteurs, then he simply isn't fit to be in a position of political leadership, and he should either abandon the whole endeavour or hand over to a less hotheaded colleague. There are actually one or two sensible people around him, and I'd be very surprised if they haven't at least warned him to exercise considerably more caution in his dealings with Sovereignty. I don't think he's listening to anything but the sound of his own voice at the moment, and I doubt if he ever will.
"Let’s not forget, during the 2014 referendum, Better Together was a coalition made up of the Tories, Labour, the Lib Dems and yes, even UKIP, the BNP, and Britain First"
Don't be so bloody ridiculous, Roddy. The BNP and Britain First were not part of the official Better Together campaign. And let me tell you this: if Labour or the Tories had ever been batsh*t crazy enough to enter into a formal electoral pact with the BNP, as MacLeod is doing with Sovereignty, even our biased Scottish media would have absolutely crucified them for it, and rightly so.
"Wouldn’t it be better, after independence, to enshrine a written constitution, a document rooted in Scottish values and democratic principles, that guarantees human rights in law, beyond the reach of political whims or Westminster meddling?"
I must say I don't see how any of that would be inconsistent with giving a basic pre-independence guarantee that Scotland will be (like every other European country apart from Russia and Belarus) a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which is precisely what MacLeod is setting his face against by doubling down on his alliance with Sovereignty. His decision will quite reasonably be interpreted as meaning that, if he and his alliance are calling the shots, human rights are at risk of being downgraded after independence.
"Debating individual policy positions now is putting the cart before the horse. Let’s get the powers first. Let’s win our independence."
When people say that we should leave individual policies until after independence, they're generally talking about practical bread and butter policies, not about fundamental values such as human rights and democracy. Is MacLeod really saying that every single fundamental value will be up for grabs after independence, and nothing at all can be assured or promised in advance? Is he really saying "we might be a Christian theocracy, we might be a liberal democracy, who knows, let's decide later"? It's a ludicrous line of argument, and no way to go about winning independence.
MacLeod's blogpost is a catastrophically ill-judged and tone-deaf response from the de facto leader of an alliance that is going absolutely nowhere unless and until it has a fundamental rethink. What I've just said will be an unpalatable message for some, but anyone with an ounce of political nous knows that it's true.
