‘Infighting’ may damage SNP’s bid for referendum

ALEX Salmond’s former adviser has warned that SNP infighting could damage the party’s fight for a second independence referendum.

Kevin Pringle said ‘factions’ within the Nationalist movement were unlikely to hinder Nicola Sturgeon’s chances before the 2021 election – but the party must ‘mend and maintain’ relationships in order to avoid trouble ahead of new calls for a vote on breaking up the UK.

Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Pringle said: ‘Let’s say it out loud: this is a party that contains factions – organised ones at that – which goes against the cultural grain of the traditional SNP.’

He said there were a ‘number of dimensions’ to the splits, including ‘independence strategy, transgender policy and attitudes towards Alex Salmond’.

His intervention comes only a week after the SNP conference which saw Miss Sturgeon’s grip on the party under threat. Internal elections have brought huge changes in the national executive committee, with her allies losing out.

Mr Pringle admitted ‘factions can cause fracture’ but said the SNP’s newly elected president, Mike Russell, could help to ‘mend and maintain relationships’.

He said that unless ‘current troubles’ were resolved, they could become damaging in any stand-off with the UK Government over an independence referendum, ‘when unity will be at a premium’.

Scottish Tory chief whip Miles Briggs said: ‘Voters don’t respond well to divided parties, especially when other issues are firmly on their mind.’

PoLITICAL parties, when they go unchallenged long enough, end up challenging themselves. Events of the past seven days signal the SNP is entering this phase of its long sojourn in power.

Elections to the party’s National Executive Committee tend not to capture headlines but last week’s results were an exception. In what looked like a trial run for a leadership coup, key Nicola Sturgeon allies such as Alyn Smith were ejected from the NEC, while the First Minister’s arch-nemesis Joanna Cherry won a seat – along with others sympathetic to Alex Salmond or critical of the SNP’s current direction.

The election was also a case of out with the woke and in with the new, in the form of unreconstructed Lefties, gender-critical feminists and advocates of a harder line on independence. All of a sudden, democracy has come to the SNP.

Factionalism is rife in politics, but most parties tend to enter office with established tribes rather than acquiring them after more than a decade in power. Margaret Thatcher knew the Dries were devoted while the Wets disdained her.

United

The Blairites and Brownites were in hostilities before their figureheads made it to Number 10 and Number 11, respectively. The SNP is different in that, under Salmond’s leadership, the party presented a united front to get itself into power and, under Sturgeon, has more or less kept it up – until now.

It is tempting to see the Salmond/Sturgeon fault line as a revival of the old fundamentalist/gradualist debate but it is more complicated. Yes, Salmondites generally want to press ahead on a second referendum or even contemplate a unilateral declaration of independence, while the Sturgeonistas prefer to ca’ canny until they can be sure these new majorities for independence are solid.

Personalities, however, play at least as big a role as questions of timing. Salmond is supported by the likes of Cherry and Kenny MacAskill, temperamentally abrasive politicians, and by veterans with long, bitter memories of hopes dashed and chances wasted. The Salmond forces are impatient but they are also dismayed by what they see as excessive timidity from the current leadership. Their rivals are ideologically diverse but typically espouse a more technocratic approach to government. These are people such as Angus Robertson and John Swinney, who represent a nationalism that aims not to scare Middle Scotland. Naturally, they want independence too, but while some Salmondites seem to be interested only in 50 per cent of votes cast plus one, Sturgeonistas regard maximising support for a breakaway as vital for a less rancorous and more successful separation.

Younger members broadly sympathetic to Sturgeon also bring with them modern mores and believe these should be as intrinsic to the SNP as the national question. This is new. The SNP has always had Left and Right, and camps who wanted either independence in Europe or full sovereignty, but the 2014-15 influx introduced waves of members whose priorities are different.

These late entrants believe in ‘ independence plus’. Independence is a primary goal but not the only one. They believe it must go hand-in-hand with fundamental changes in how Scotland thinks about economics, social policy, race, the monarchy and much else.

The fear is not that the NEC has become an SNP incarnation of Labour’s far-Left Momentum but that it is home to an array of what one party old hand branded ‘mini-Momentums’, each with its own pet issue that equals independence in fervour, trumps party unity and pays little heed to the concerns of voters.

These mini-Momentums, as described to me, comprise: the Wokes (who cross over with the Sturgeonistas and were largely defeated in the elections); the Salmondites (who made key gains); the antiGRA reformers (who oppose changing the Gender Recognition Act); the Plan B- ers (who want alternative routes to independence other than a Westminstersanctioned referendum ); and the Common We al Group( Leftist, republican and off-message on currency).

An SNP source said: ‘The truth is the party’s far more fractured than external observers realise.

‘The NEC results are a product of this factionalism but they’re a headache in themselves. If voters had the first clue about what some of these people believe, they’d run a mile. In a way, it’s a testament to how dominant the party is. The Tories and Labour are hopeless. The real opposition party is on the NEC.’

Toxic

I understand a particular concern is the Common Weal Group, whose radical ideas about swiftly ditching the pound in favour of a separate Scottish currency are perceived by the party establishment to be electorally toxic.

The NEC’s power isn’t what it once was, and while a more colourful slate could cause public embarrassment and internal friction, the policy and direction will continue to be set by Nicola Sturgeon.

oddly enough, that makes further division more likely. Because the leader has concentrated so much power in her own (and her husband’s) hands, events like the NEC elections can only ever be proxy battles. Sturgeon’s iron grip on the party means that changing the NEC is not enough. If you want to change the party, you have to change the leader.

This is where the pro-Salmond forces hit their most stubborn obstacle: they have no one who can match Sturgeon except the man himself, and it is not at all clear that he wishes to return to the daily grind of running a country.

Her enemies may not have an alternative leader but that will not matter if Sturgeon cannot do the only thing SNP leaders are elected to do: make Scotland independent. If she wins a majority next May but still can’t deliver a referendum, the factions will likely come for her as the Tory factions did for Maggie.

Like Mrs T, Sturgeon can’t be beaten at the ballot box but she can be brought down by her own.