Ex-SNP minister adds to dissent in party’s ranks

IT is a party with an iron discipline so strict it famously banned MPs from ever speaking out against official policy.

But it seems the whip Nicola Sturgeon cracks over politicians in Westminster and Holyrood is losing some of its bite.

Yesterday, Marco Biagi become the latest senior Nationalist to raise his head above the parapet, when the former local government minister admitted Scottish education was falling behind other countries.

In a newspaper article making the case for super-heads running clusters of schools, he wrote: ‘Continuing with an approach which is leading to other countries overtaking us is surely no longer an option – not for a Scottish Government committed to closing the attainment gap.’

Meanwhile Angus Robertson MP, frontrunner in the SNP deputy leadership race, yesterday admitted the party was in danger of losing support in rural areas.

It follows the Scottish Government’s disastrous handling of EU payments, which pushed farmers to the brink by delaying millions of pounds in funding.

Mr Robertson said: ‘There was a time when the SNP was most successful in rural Scotland; now the biggest strides are in urban Scotland. We have to make sure that the SNP is successful in both and we cannot take that for granted.’ Miss Sturgeon’s policies on tax and using the UK-wide Brexit vote to try to engineer a second independence referendum have been savaged by two of her former SNP cabinet colleagues.

Kenny MacAskill, former justice secretary, said: ‘If benefits are to be improved and a path towards a fairer and more equal society embarked upon, then tax will have to rise.’

Alex Neil, former health secretary and current MSP for Airdrie and Shotts, said there was ‘little chance’ of Scotland staying in the EU when the rest of the UK leaves.

Miss Sturgeon recently flew to Germany as part of an EU charm offensive and has claimed a second referendum is ‘highly likely’ if she does not get her way.

But Mr Neil said she was making a tactical error and urged her to ‘look at alternative scenarios… in terms of the independence offer’.

There has also been dissent from Mr Robertson’s deputy leadership rivals. Councillor Chris McEleny opposed the First Minister on tax by calling for a 50p top rate; Alyn Smith MEP said an independent Scotland should have a referendum on keeping the Queen as head of state; and Tommy Sheppard MP said the Nationalists needed to get ‘match fit’ for any future independence campaign.

It is all a far cry from the dictatorial standing orders imposed on MPs in 2015.

These demanded they ‘accept that no member shall within or outwith the parliament publicly criticise a group decision, policy or another member of the group’.

MSPs have faced a similar ban on free thinking. Yesterday, SNP opponents claimed the party’s failures in government were pushing senior figures to speak out.

Scottish Tory deputy leader Jackson Carlaw said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon, whatever she says, will be concerned that more enlightened senior Nationalists are breaking that iron will.’

An SNP spokesman insisted it had ‘always enjoyed healthy debate. That is just one of the reasons we are able to come up with policies which are so popular.’

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