MP in attack on ‘toxic’ SNP
Neale Hanvey, the MP for Kirkcaldy who quit the SNP to join Alex Salmond’s Alba Party, has described his former colleagues at Westminster as “toxic, aggressive and hostile”. He said: “There is no place for debate.”
Neale Hanvey has spoken of the “toxic, aggressive and hostile” SNP group at Westminster - and how it damaged his health.
The kirkcaldy mp, who quit to join Alex Salmond’s Alba Party and stood unsuccessfully on the regional list in last week’s Scottish election, said he was heart broken to leave the party, but he “detested” what it had become.
Mr Hanvey said: “You are not allowed to have a critical mind. There is no place for debate. It is policy by diktat. It is a really uncomfortable place.”
Mr Hanvey added: “It was frustrating to see how many of the SNP cohort were far too comfy with Westminster life that really galled me.
“What motivates me is seeing too many people in poverty-not a fancy flat in London.”
Mr Hanvey was the second SNP MP to defect to Alex Salmond’s new party, in late March, following in the footsteps of Kenny Mcaskill.
He said the decision to leave was“unfortunately, not that difficult .” and added :“I could not continue in a Westminster parliamentary group that was so aggressive and hostile I did not think it was good for my physical and mental health.
“It was really getting incredibly difficult to even go to work even virtually. You have to watch everything you say. If you are not loyal - and by that, they mean obedient - then you are targeted.”
Mr Hanvey’s trajectory to Westminster was far from smooth.
He was adopted as the candidate fork ir kcal dy and cow den be a thin 2019, and then dumped just weeks before the december election after it emerged he had used anti-semitic language on a social media post three years earlier.,
With his name already on the ballot paper, he stood as an independent, and won.
After a period of suspension he was brought back into the SNP fold, and, in February, was made the party’s vaccine spokesman - only to be sacked within days.
By then, he said, the atmosphere was impacting on his health.
“After being sacked, I was being targeted through the media again quite purposely by the SNP - that was their choice,” he said.
“I developed a pain in my head, woke up and lost part of the visual field of my eight eye. I had damaged an optic nerve through stress.”