Let’s say you don’t live in denial, you don’t think the General Election result was just a bit of a setback and you’re not convinced the SNP is actually in a strong position on the basis of a Scottish Government track record which has record low public satisfaction ratings.
Let’s say you simply can’t resign yourself to leaving the party in the hands of a leadership team which has driven the party to this position, seems to have no idea what on earth to do next except keep gaslighting people and which thinks the above is a credible response to the position in which it finds itself.
And let’s say that you don’t believe a serial election-loser and emblem of the government which achieved record low satisfaction ratings is the man to signal a change of heart and a fresh start to voters, let’s say you’re an ordinary party member, what on earth can you do about it? Loads.
It will very much help if you actually are a member of the SNP, but some of this you can participate in simply as an independence supporter. I will set this out in a simple order – from most delicate to most seismic. I trust it goes without saying that I greatly favour delicacy but that we’re now in a position where going full seismic remains a much better idea than doing nothing.
Swinney needs to go and a new, fresh team with new ideas and approaches needs to come in. More than that, the public has to see a new, fresh team with new ideas coming in. The party must finally accept it is time to change. But the nonsense Swinney is spouting suggests that’s not going to happen unless someone makes it happen. So you need to make it happen.
As it should be
Ideally this would mean John Swinney realising this himself and stepping down. Barring that you’d want it to be dealt with via wise heads among the senior echelons of the SNP drawing this obvious conclusion, demonstrating some courage, tapping Swinney on the shoulder and telling him its time to move over for the good of the party. Sadly there isn’t much of a senior echelon to be identified, there aren’t a lot of wise heads among them and almost none as demonstrated any courage.
Because it won’t be…
Therefore, assuming those things don’t happen, it’s over to the membership. This point I really need to emphasise – changes don’t organise themselves. Unless the SNP membership organises then the leadership will trample all over them like usual.
Organising in the SNP is very difficult because the SNP leadership has made it very difficult. The prohibition on branches having each other’s contact details is ludicrous and cynical, but HQ simply will not provide the membership the contact details of the rest of the membership, so you will need to backfill this data yourself.
That means someone has to put their hand up publicly, say ‘I/we are determined to push for reform of the SNP so if you or your branch feel the same way could you please contact me at this email address’. Unless someone steps up and leads, others will be unable to follow. No, you probably won’t be popular at first, but history will remember you kindly.
You need to move quickly; unless you can agree a broad plan then you will find it very difficult to unite around anything – look at how the leadership played competing Growth Commission motions off against each other and thereby basically ignored the conference vote.
Pre-pack your solutions
That raises another important point of approach; don’t allow the leadership wriggle room because they’ll cheat. Worse still, don’t get involved in process with them because they are past masters at creating convoluted processes which they can then use to bog people down and prevent change. You only beat this grouping by presenting them with fait acomplis. You must present a complete solution.
Don’t fight them over each dot and comma because that’s what they love
I suggest there are three things you want to achieve across this short campaign. The first is that you need a fresh-start leadership campaign. I’ve explained why. I know many will panic about this and ask ‘who’s better?’. One more time, at this stage it’s not about better or worse, its about whether you respond to the public with a ‘we hear you’ or a ‘yeah, whatever dudes’.
The second thing is that you need a different conference agenda. The party will find every reason in the world to prevent having an autopsy on the election, on government, on its indy strategy – on anything. It has prevented reflection of failure again and again. I would love to write you an alternative agenda here but there isn’t space.
Briefly, you need a debate on five things. First a policy agenda that can kickstart the party over the next 18 months. Second, a review of support for branches and campaigners, of HQ infrastructure, of data collection and of rates of activism in the party. All need substantial improvement and ideas are needed about how to go about achieving that improvement.
Third, you really need a long, hard look at what you’re doing and saying on independence. It’s not working and no-one is taking it seriously, so you need a proper, unconstrained discussion. Fourth, you desperately need reform of party democracy and to undo the top-heavy, centrally-controlled shift in the party which has accelerated over the last decade. Five, you need to work out how to get more genuine talent into Holyrood.
I am not suggesting that the ideal place for all these conversations is the main conference floor, but that’s what you have. It is the leadership which cut off all opportunities for these discussions for a decade so something has to give here. Hiving it off to various working groups will be yet another joke played on members by the leadership. You could simply have a conference with a lot of closed sessions. Let’s be clear, this ain’t triumphalism time and resolutions on Sexually Transmitted Infections can wait.
That’s a conference agenda. There is a method for electing a leader quickly – the NEC invented one specially when it was trying to parachute continuity candidate Yousaf in (before they dropped elections altogether to parachute continuity candidate Swinney in). That’s a conference agenda and a leadership election process pre-packed (give or take).
The next thing is demands for party democracy. The recent Governance Review is a categorical explanation of why almost no-one running the SNP at the moment should be allowed to run it for so much as another day. A shocking series of events lead to the chief executive of the party being arrested and charged with embezzlement so the party sets up an emergency review…
…which then goes about forcing out anyone who wanted reform and then steering the whole thing into the long grass to die. People should be fired for what happened during the Murrell years, not allowed to run their own review into themselves. I therefore propose a simple, pre-pack approach to party democracy; simply demand a return to the ‘classic constitution’.
This is a little bit of a construct given that there are always tweaks to constitutions, but most people understand what that means. It is basically the constitution as it stood going into the first Holyrood elections – wholly elected NEC, properly powerful branches, all leadership structures answerable to members, policy thrashed out at National Council in between conferences and so on.
Don’t fight them over each dot and comma because that’s what they love. Take the ‘classic constitution’ to them and force a vote on it. You’ll win and the de-demoncratisation and centralisation of the recent era will be swept away at a stroke.
You know the strategy for independence that I believe will work because I’ve written a book about it. I won’t go further here other than to say that the stage-managed farce that has been ‘strategic discussion’ over the last decade must now end and a proper debate begin.
If you seriously think you can just clap your way through this conference and send out the same team to run the same election based on the same non-legacy and the same woeful policy agenda and not pay the price, think again
Quietly at first
So, with this agenda in place, how do you push it? On the tiny chance that the party grandees actually finally work for the party members and push for rapid change, any new leadership candidate should be assessed based on their willingness to accept the above agenda (or similar).
Assuming that doesn’t happen, the first option is a private letter-writing campaign. As many branches as possible should write to Swinney and demand he move on and that these things be put in place or at least put to a vote at conference.
Then out loud
If that doesn’t work, the next step is to make the letters public and put public pressure on the leadership. As always, it is better done in private but since the SNP leadership repeatedly doesn’t play fair, you might not succeed privately.
Then a direct showdown
Let’s say that that doesn’t work and they all seem determined to rough it out to 2026 and to hell with independence and the rest of you, your next option is to take action at conference. This again needs proper organising. The first solution is to get to the very first session at which delegates votes to adopt the ‘standing orders’ of the conference.
Basically it may not feel like it but conference is still technically all-sovereign in the party and it has to agree its own agenda. One can’t be imposed on it against its will. That’s why conference must adopt the standing orders. Don’t. Reject them and vote on an alternative agenda as per above.
Let’s say that there are shenanigans or for whatever reason that doesn’t work, the next option (much less good) is to do the same again every morning, seeking to load conference with topical and emergency resolutions. Chances are this won’t work if the leadership thinks it can get away with it, but it is an option.
Then you have nothing left to lose
After that, it’s all soft power. That’s all you’ve got left. That said, never, ever underestimate soft power. I’d begin with a campaign of every delegate that wants change stopping every election politician they see and making that clear. If the politicians can’t move for being told the party isn’t happy, they’ll panic.
You can try all kinds of things at conference such as organising petitions or photo opportunities (a mass demo outside, that sort of things). But there is a final, nuclear option that is very effective but brutal; embarrass the leadership in public. At the top end it is simple; if there are 1,000 people at conference and 300 start a slow handclap during the leaders’ speech and continue it, the leader is finished.
It’s the optics alone. It becomes clear a leader has lost the party and everyone but everyone knows its over. I don’t really want that kind of division, but it wasn’t me that drove the party to this perilous situation. I’m not going to be in court on embezzlement charges, I didn’t achieve record low satisfaction records for my government, I didn’t promise you fictitious referendums and I certainly didn’t lead you to a decimation of your MP numbers.
I know the SNP hates being unseemly, but I also know you really do want to achieve independence and I know that there are very few of you keen to attempt that by getting stuck in paralysis for seven years.
In that context, none of the above is too much. This is existential. If you seriously think you can just clap your way through this conference and send out the same team to run the same election based on the same non-legacy and the same woeful policy agenda and not pay the price, think again.
How much do you care about independence? How much would you do? Will you stand up or are you another part of the problem? As you can see, shrugging and saying ‘nothing I can do’ is not honest. There is lots you can do.