>Kenny MacAskill, who defected to Alex Salmond’s Alba in 2021, said his former party has become an “empty vessel” – and placed the blame with former first minister Nicola Sturgeon.
>In an exclusive interview with Holyrood magazine, he said the SNP had become a party with “no ideology, no direction” since Sturgeon took over after the independence referendum of 2014.
>And he accused her of fostering “cult-like adoration” culminating in “almost glam rock” events at Glasgow’s Hydro venue, which he described as “gobsmacking” and “unhealthy”.
>…
>The MP drew comparisons between the SNP now and Labour in the early noughties. He added: “There’s a synergy between the black suits and red ties of New Labour and the black dresses and yellow blouses that now exists in the SNP. What are they there for? What are their politics?
>“I put the blame for this change firmly down to Nicola Sturgeon and those around her, because the party became highly centralised.”
It’s hard to argue with these points.
I mean, that was has always been its raison d’etre to be fair – other than being pro-independent, it’s never really had a consistent ideology across its members and MSPs. People just imagined it did while the Salmond-Sturgeon axis ruled it a couple of decades.
There’s a reason 48% of its members voted for a leader who would be to the right of even most Tories.
Why are their never “Former Labour man says Starmer is….” stories in the Scottish press……..when Corbyns former camp are always crowing? Weird…can’t imagine why
Also Alba – LoL
Holyrood Magazine is owned by Political Holdings, which is owned by the conservative peer Lord Ashcroft. View its output through this lens.
A lot of people will hand waive this away with the usual “but Alba…”
Nobody will address the points.
Is the current state of the SNP the fault of Sturgeon? Yes
Was the cult like atmosphere around her bad for the party? Yes
Should the SNP have been spending huge sums on arena conferences? No
Did Nicola Sturgeon achieve any gains for independence support above the base level she inherited from the previous leader? No.
The SNP had a decade of near uncontested governance of Scotland and spent more time trying to win over pro independence green voters than the soft Britnat supporters in Labour or the lib dems. I’m not sure we can be confident a vote for them is a vote to make independence the priority, a vote for the SNP now is just a vote against Labour or the torie. With that said a vote for Labour definitely IS a vote against independence, so that’s not an option for many.
I think they got a bit too caught up in Brexit and started to believe their own hype. An issue I think a lot of politicians have is failing to understand the difference between being supportive of an issue, and that issue being the most important one of all. Felt like many in the SNP just assumed that because the majority in Scotland voted to remain, that this would be the driving cause to independence and everyone was as animated about it as they were.
I think there is a similar issue with Brexit itself now, the whole ‘will of people’ thing and the failure to accept that for the vast majority of people, Brexit is not the central cause in their life and they are not as ideologically committed to it as the elites who drove it. In effect Tories are still very much in their ‘will of the people’ stage without realising that many see Brexit as a failure at this point.
I just don’t think people live their lifes in the way politicians and politically interested people think they do. It was almost taken as a truth that Brexit would help deliver independence, the same way that re-joining the EU is treated as something everyone in Scotland will get behind.
Independence supporters won’t vote SNP, I think that tells us everything we need to know
Alba member complaining about cult of personality is certainly something.
always has been.
MacAskill’s point, that the SNP has “no ideology, no direction” *since Sturgeon became leader,* is wildly untrue. Under previous leaders, the party promoted independence simply for its own sake – that Scotland should be an independent country making its own decisions. It was very much a case of getting independence now, sorting out the direction of the country later. That’s not nothing, but it strikes me as a technical, procedural stance, with no real goal in mind, i.e. what kind of country do we want Scotland to be? OK, independent – but what next?
Sturgeon was very different. She transformed the party into a left-leaning one, with a focus on leading the country in a different direction now, which would show voters that a different way is possible, and that would encourage independence – so that Scotland can pursue an ideology and direction that is very different from that of England. Basically, she answered the question of “why independence”. Some may disagree with that approach, but it was clearly grounded in ideology and direction.
The SNP used to be both left-wing and right-wing, with factions of both. It opened the party up to taunts of “Tartan Tories”. The left-shift of the party, and the Alba leavers, helped to draw out the poison. I think that this is what really bothers MacAskill. He simply doesn’t recognise Sturgeon’s reforms as legitimate, and wishes he could return the SNP to a more right-wing state.
No you fantastic moron I was pointing out that all these stories are dumb and the fact we never see them from the media to be against other parties I used Labour as an example
You being a knuckle dragger asked for clarification and I told you and then you decided to not listen to answer
🙁🙄👍
Ideology is getting Scotland independent.
In my eyes, it’s visible that the SNP doesn’t actually want to achieve that goal, because they pulled more political weight getting Gaza debated than they ever have Indy.
For that, fuck em. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate their stance on Gaza to be clear.
If 2014 should have taught us anything, it should have been that the cause itself is not enough.
You have to answer all the questions, no matter how small. As is right when you’re asking someone to vote for a nation changing decision.
Salmond, for all his many faults, mostly did this with a few noticeable and fatal exceptions in 2014.
I think Sturgeon was the right person to take over, and nationally I think she got a hell of a lot right when in power. However, it was a source of extreme frustration to me when the snp just failed to make any capital of the independence argument post 2014. They didn’t really answer any of the questions people still had, and didn’t offer any alternatives.
It’s a lost decade imo, they didn’t exactly have an easy ride of it, but so many years of opportunity down the drain.
Then you have Murrel’s dodgy accounting. Needlessly opening up the snp to smears. The second Sturgeon took charge he should have been forced to step down, it was always going to end up in cronyism.
So where do I go from here? Effed if I know. Can’t vote alba, because they’re bigoted nutters. Won’t vote Labour, because they want the opposite to what I want. Will never vote tory for obvious reasons. Won’t vote green or lib dem because frankly it’s a waste of time.
Without the fight for independent Scotland, the SNP have nothing. Under their governance, the public roads have worsened, schools have closed, crime rates have soared and people have lost faith in the scottish government. Not much of a legacy, is it?
14 comments
>Kenny MacAskill, who defected to Alex Salmond’s Alba in 2021, said his former party has become an “empty vessel” – and placed the blame with former first minister Nicola Sturgeon.
>In an exclusive interview with Holyrood magazine, he said the SNP had become a party with “no ideology, no direction” since Sturgeon took over after the independence referendum of 2014.
>And he accused her of fostering “cult-like adoration” culminating in “almost glam rock” events at Glasgow’s Hydro venue, which he described as “gobsmacking” and “unhealthy”.
>…
>The MP drew comparisons between the SNP now and Labour in the early noughties. He added: “There’s a synergy between the black suits and red ties of New Labour and the black dresses and yellow blouses that now exists in the SNP. What are they there for? What are their politics?
>“I put the blame for this change firmly down to Nicola Sturgeon and those around her, because the party became highly centralised.”
It’s hard to argue with these points.
I mean, that was has always been its raison d’etre to be fair – other than being pro-independent, it’s never really had a consistent ideology across its members and MSPs. People just imagined it did while the Salmond-Sturgeon axis ruled it a couple of decades.
There’s a reason 48% of its members voted for a leader who would be to the right of even most Tories.
Why are their never “Former Labour man says Starmer is….” stories in the Scottish press……..when Corbyns former camp are always crowing? Weird…can’t imagine why
Also Alba – LoL
Holyrood Magazine is owned by Political Holdings, which is owned by the conservative peer Lord Ashcroft. View its output through this lens.
A lot of people will hand waive this away with the usual “but Alba…”
Nobody will address the points.
Is the current state of the SNP the fault of Sturgeon? Yes
Was the cult like atmosphere around her bad for the party? Yes
Should the SNP have been spending huge sums on arena conferences? No
Did Nicola Sturgeon achieve any gains for independence support above the base level she inherited from the previous leader? No.
The SNP had a decade of near uncontested governance of Scotland and spent more time trying to win over pro independence green voters than the soft Britnat supporters in Labour or the lib dems. I’m not sure we can be confident a vote for them is a vote to make independence the priority, a vote for the SNP now is just a vote against Labour or the torie. With that said a vote for Labour definitely IS a vote against independence, so that’s not an option for many.
I think they got a bit too caught up in Brexit and started to believe their own hype. An issue I think a lot of politicians have is failing to understand the difference between being supportive of an issue, and that issue being the most important one of all. Felt like many in the SNP just assumed that because the majority in Scotland voted to remain, that this would be the driving cause to independence and everyone was as animated about it as they were.
I think there is a similar issue with Brexit itself now, the whole ‘will of people’ thing and the failure to accept that for the vast majority of people, Brexit is not the central cause in their life and they are not as ideologically committed to it as the elites who drove it. In effect Tories are still very much in their ‘will of the people’ stage without realising that many see Brexit as a failure at this point.
I just don’t think people live their lifes in the way politicians and politically interested people think they do. It was almost taken as a truth that Brexit would help deliver independence, the same way that re-joining the EU is treated as something everyone in Scotland will get behind.
Independence supporters won’t vote SNP, I think that tells us everything we need to know
Alba member complaining about cult of personality is certainly something.
always has been.
MacAskill’s point, that the SNP has “no ideology, no direction” *since Sturgeon became leader,* is wildly untrue. Under previous leaders, the party promoted independence simply for its own sake – that Scotland should be an independent country making its own decisions. It was very much a case of getting independence now, sorting out the direction of the country later. That’s not nothing, but it strikes me as a technical, procedural stance, with no real goal in mind, i.e. what kind of country do we want Scotland to be? OK, independent – but what next?
Sturgeon was very different. She transformed the party into a left-leaning one, with a focus on leading the country in a different direction now, which would show voters that a different way is possible, and that would encourage independence – so that Scotland can pursue an ideology and direction that is very different from that of England. Basically, she answered the question of “why independence”. Some may disagree with that approach, but it was clearly grounded in ideology and direction.
The SNP used to be both left-wing and right-wing, with factions of both. It opened the party up to taunts of “Tartan Tories”. The left-shift of the party, and the Alba leavers, helped to draw out the poison. I think that this is what really bothers MacAskill. He simply doesn’t recognise Sturgeon’s reforms as legitimate, and wishes he could return the SNP to a more right-wing state.
No you fantastic moron I was pointing out that all these stories are dumb and the fact we never see them from the media to be against other parties I used Labour as an example
You being a knuckle dragger asked for clarification and I told you and then you decided to not listen to answer
🙁🙄👍
Ideology is getting Scotland independent.
In my eyes, it’s visible that the SNP doesn’t actually want to achieve that goal, because they pulled more political weight getting Gaza debated than they ever have Indy.
For that, fuck em. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate their stance on Gaza to be clear.
If 2014 should have taught us anything, it should have been that the cause itself is not enough.
You have to answer all the questions, no matter how small. As is right when you’re asking someone to vote for a nation changing decision.
Salmond, for all his many faults, mostly did this with a few noticeable and fatal exceptions in 2014.
I think Sturgeon was the right person to take over, and nationally I think she got a hell of a lot right when in power. However, it was a source of extreme frustration to me when the snp just failed to make any capital of the independence argument post 2014. They didn’t really answer any of the questions people still had, and didn’t offer any alternatives.
It’s a lost decade imo, they didn’t exactly have an easy ride of it, but so many years of opportunity down the drain.
Then you have Murrel’s dodgy accounting. Needlessly opening up the snp to smears. The second Sturgeon took charge he should have been forced to step down, it was always going to end up in cronyism.
So where do I go from here? Effed if I know. Can’t vote alba, because they’re bigoted nutters. Won’t vote Labour, because they want the opposite to what I want. Will never vote tory for obvious reasons. Won’t vote green or lib dem because frankly it’s a waste of time.
Without the fight for independent Scotland, the SNP have nothing. Under their governance, the public roads have worsened, schools have closed, crime rates have soared and people have lost faith in the scottish government. Not much of a legacy, is it?