[Robin McAlpine Blog] Desperately seeking a party

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Desperately seeking a party

Is the new Corbyn Party an opportunity? Or a waste of space? If it isn’t the opportunity, what is? If it’s meant to be one of the existing parties, what is stopping them? If there is no hope in what is there, can something new be created? This is the only real question on my mind just now.

I am and have always been basically political party agnostic. I have worked inside them or closely with them virtually all my career and if you know party politics then you know that you will undoubtedly be disappointed if you place too much faith in them. They attract good people who want to change the world – and chancers, in equal proportion.

Political parties do not drive change and never have. They don’t have good ideas and they don’t generate fresh thinking. In fact they’re usually last in line to notice a good idea because they are, fundamentally, small-c conservative and always have a reason to avoid risk. And yet…

Because while they do not drive change, they are the doorway to change. There are really only three ways to make fundamental change to a democratic society – if you have an awful lot of money, if you are able to fundamentally change social attitudes, or if you can get policy change via politics. In most instances, most of the time, only the political option is realistic.

This is the tension; people who believe in political parties will be disappointed, people who walk away from political parties will lose. This shitty reality is the reality of change.

This is the context for my ongoing struggles to get anything done in Scotland, to make anything change. I need a political vehicle to work with, to work on, to work through – and that is because we all do.

Nothing is working and if someone in an existing political party has the gall to suggest they are the solution then I want to cross examine them. The SNP is a rolling joke, the giant change-bringer which is going to bring the change any minute now, any minute now, hold on, wait for it, no not quite yet, really soon, just you wait and see…

The Greens keep choosing irrelevance, so I have little option but to accept their choice

To be clear, I spent a decade trying to make this true somehow. I argued against trying to start Rise and said the focus needed to be on pressuring the SNP to do something. Rise arrived at precisely the wrong time for a new political party and the energy that went into creating it basically let the SNP off the hook.

Since then the SNP is basically a suicide pact between its leadership and its members. It’s like that old Soviet joke about ‘you keep pretending to pay us and we’ll keep pretending to work’, except its a mutual deal where the leadership pretends it isn’t incompetent and the membership pretends to believe it. Just one more overwhelming majority in 2026 and John Swinney will lead us to the promised land.

I have tried and tried and tried to offer suggestions and solutions that might make the SNP effective but it is determined to continue being utterly ineffective. It’s internal democracy has been rigged to within an inch of its life, its personnel are substandard, its string of broken promises leaves it with no credibility and its arrogance has driven most of its core membership out of the party.

The SNP is a functionless mess and I there is no way I can see to save it now. Replacing a political party is very, very difficult to do, but the SNP is all-but defunct and there seems no chance of it getting its act together in the next decade so it’s remaining tiny cohort of true believers can be left to chat among themselves as they have been. There is no remaining seriousness about the SNP.

The Greens are no better. It is in a debate about whether to maintain a focus on seriously unpopular identity politics or whether to pivot to a class-based campaigning style by being led by two middle class transwomen who would struggle to make any connection with any working class community I can think of. The Greens keep choosing irrelevance, so I have little option but to accept their choice.

Starmer’s Labour is as bad as it gets and has taken a party that has long been mediocre in Scotland and turned it toxic. Let’s move on. And while I was willing to give Alba the benefit of the doubt (like I say, I’m party agnostic), it isn’t working and its polling suggests its now in SSP territory. That too is a vehicle that shows no signs of return either.

There are a bunch of electoral initiatives that are bobbling around just now but they seem totally lacking in credibility to me. They are all independence initiatives which still believe that the only thing Alba did wrong was have policies. Indy, nothing else – vote for me. So that’s the single issue voters with no interest in public services who are alienated by the SNP and the Greens but not convinced by Alba covered. How many of those people are there though?

This means I am in principle very willing to have a conversation about the role of a new Corbyn party. My problem is a simple one; I’m unclear how it is meant work in Scotland. I’ve been talking to people close to the new initiative and my analysis of some of the problems that they would need to overcome to have an impact in Scotland is substantial. This is only a preview.

Team Corbyn have plenty sympathy with Scottish independence, but it’s not their purpose

At the heart of the problem is a ‘you can’t be two things’ problem. Corbyn’s constituency is ‘rebels’, people unhappy with an establishment status quo. In Scotland those people’s identities are now closely tied to the cause of independence. Most of them are past the point where they can believe in reform of Britain.

Team Corbyn have plenty sympathy with Scottish independence, but it’s not their purpose. Their purpose is to win power in London and use it to change Britain. That is ultimately what their campaign has to ask you to believe in. So what is it asking us to believe in in Scotland? That it’s here to make Britain a country we can all believe in but if that doesn’t happen we can have a referendum?

I suppose this constitutes a pledge and a guarantee you can cash in if the pledge doesn’t work. But is an indy supporter going to buy that? How will it sound? Can party members advocate for independence or only a right to choose? If they are allowed to advocate, what about party members that don’t support independence? Is it a party or a debating club?

It isn’t easy to square this particular circle, and even if it was, this is not something the party’s nascent leadership has thought about. Trying to put that right after launching would be a major mistake, but getting it right before launch is not going to be easy.

Again, don’t get me wrong – electing Corbyn Prime Minister would do more for Scottish independence than electing John Swinney First Minister. Then again, electing Nigel Farage as PM would benefit Scottish independence more than electing John Swinney – and there is an argument that says the same would be true of an improbable second Prime Minister Starmer term or an even more improbable Prime Minister Badenoch debacle.

So yes, basically anyone you elect other than John Swinney will probably do more for Scottish independence in the long term than electing Swinney. But even if there was some alchemy that put Corbyn in power, or if a Labour government relied on him and he asked for the right to a second Scottish referendum as a condition, I am unconvinced that is the final breakthrough.

I want to believe (really I do) that voting for a new left party at a UK level would be a solution for Scotland but there are two many moving parts rubbing against each other for me, currently, to be persuaded it can work.

Yet that leaves us back where we were – a Scotland with no good political option. That in turn suggests we need to undertake the long, slow task of creating a new political vehicle. Then again, new political parties fail 90 per cent of the time and we don’t have time for five goes at this.

It is a sorry state of affairs and all I want is a way out, a vehicle for change. Swinney-SNP is basically at the bottom of the list of options, but nothing is at the top of the list. I have already written off 2026 in my mind and the thought of having to go through more SNP pantomime in which they pretend they’re fit for purpose fills me with despair.

I just want someone to vote for I could believe in who also has a chance of making something change, causing something good to happen. I’m looking at every option with a genuinely open mind – but not with gullibility and never without asking the difficult questions. I can’t see the path yet and that is worrying.

Perhaps a Corbyn party will become my best option, or perhaps not. But is it a good option for Scotland? I’m not sure. At the moment I fear it might just about end up being the least bad option, but that isn’t good. So the search goes on.

Source: Desperately seeking a party