“There would be little point in the SNP as a party”
In a blog post about a speech by Michael Moore on the Liberal Democrat Voice website, LibDem activist Caron Lindsay wrote:
The one thing I would be a bit wary of is that it’s not realistic to expect the nationalist camp to come up with just one vision of independence. They can’t. The nationalist movement is by its nature going to be full of people with a diversity of views. Should Scotland choose separation, there would be little point in the SNP as a party. There would be nothing to hold it together after the first effort to build the new nation. There are liberals, socialists, greens, republicans, right wingers within it. They would most likely join other parties or start new ones.
It’s good to see that at least some people in the Unionist parties are starting to realise that an independent Scotland won’t be an SNP dictatorship and that independence offers a huge opportunity to other political parties.
Too often I’ve talked to people who say they’re voting No because they don’t like Alex Salmond and/or specific SNP policies. In reality, the SNP is a very broad church that is held together by the quest for independence, so there will have to be a realignment of the Scottish political spectrum after a Yes vote.
It’s even possible that Labour will lead the first government in an independent Scotland, as I’ve blogged about before.
@arcofprosperity Michael Moore should probably the Conservative party given that speech. Scotland has three ‘c’onservative parties, I guess.
@caronmlindsay I quoted you in my latest blog post: http://t.co/PNPmNNGlew
My opinions on the SNP were largely formed 20 years ago when it was decidedly anti-English in a semi-racial kind of way. At least, the student wing was. There was also a ‘Tartan Tory’ wing that I heard of but never experienced. I have read Andrew Marr’s article in this month’s Prospect magazine where he suggests that if you scratch the surface, you’ll find this kind of attitude not far below — the intellectual vanguard may be outward-looking and inclusive but that’s not necessarily true of the grassroots.
The grassroots I know are in general outward-looking and inclusive, so I don’t know where Marr is getting his anti-English ideas from. Possibly he met the same people that you did at the same time, and given that he’s been in London for a long time now, he might not have fully realised what the SNP is like now.
(Given that I didn’t live in Scotland at the time, I can’t comment on the nature of the SNP of your student days, although I would find it surprising if anti-English rhetorics were common in the mainstream party back then.)
I sincerely hope that the SNP do win the first election after independence, as the Labour party in Scotland will still be dominated by the same people as now. Can they be trusted to put Scotland’s interests first, or will they still be taking orders from UK Labour? Is there absolutely no chance that they would try to undo independence? Personally, I would not trust them at all, considering the levels of dishonesty they have shown in attacking the campaign for independence, their hypocrisy in professing left(ish) principles while backing or failing to oppose right wing policies (either New Labour or Tory), and the evidence of corruption amongst some of the local authorities under their control.
Perhaps Labour in an independent Scotland will reform, or be replaced by a new party based on the Labour for Independence grouping, but this will take quite few years.
I find it very hard to predict what the Scottish political landscape will look like even just a few years after independence. As an SNP member, I personally hope my party will continue to do well, but I can also see that a Labour party liberated to form its own policies free of interference from London could suddenly appeal to Scottish voters in a way they can’t at the moment.
Caron Lindsay may have some kind of point about Scotland’s civic nationalist movement being “full of people with a diversity of views” (What political party isn’t?), but she exhibits characteristic shallowness when she insist there would be “little point in the SNP as a party” after independence.
Where has she been for the six years and more? In that time the SNP has established itself as a party of government to such an extent that it won a supposedly impossible outright majority at Holyrood.
In Caron Lindsay’s silly utterances we see yet again the inconsistency and contradiction that permeates so much of what passes for thinking amongst unionists. In one breath they frantically insist that a vote for the SNP is not a vote for independence. In the next breath they insist just as stridently that this is the ONLY reason people vote SNP and that without that reason the party will have no purpose.
I confidently predict that the SNP will not only continue after independence, it will lead the first government of a Scotland restored to its rightful status in the world.
To be honest, I think you’re both right in different ways. I agree the SNP most likely will continue to be a successful party after independence, but at the same time, some members would be likely to leave it.
What I mean is that at the moment the SNP is perceived as an independence party first, and as a Social Democratic party second. After independence, practically all parties will be independence parties (I find it inconceivable that any mainstream party will campaign to reestablish the UK after independence), so that won’t be the defining feature of the SNP. Instead, it will be seen as Scotland’s Social Democratic party, and those members that don’t see themselves as Social Democrats are likely to leave and join other parties; at the same time, members of other parties and none that like Social Democracy will be likely to join the SNP at that point.
@arcofprosperity in holiday cottage with rubbish signal. Will check when I can.
The grassroots I know are in general outward-looking and inclusive, so I don’t know where Marr is getting his anti-English ideas from. Possibly he met the same people that you did at the same time, and given that he’s been in London for a long time now, he might not have fully realised what the SNP is like now.
(Given that I didn’t live in Scotland at the tim… http://arcofprosperity.org/?p=6029#comment-1564