Forget the Parties, Unite the Members

 

Welcome to my first ever blog.
I decided to do this after a long reflection of where I believe the independence movement to be, after taking into account last year’s Holyrood election as well as this year’s council elections.

I will set out from the start – yes, I am an Alba Party member and stood in the recent election. However, my reason to start this blog is to, if I can, play my small part in moving the independence cause beyond the party politics that is holding us back in many ways. Throughout these blogs I will not look to promote any party but only the independence cause and that alone.

However if that means promoting and questioning policies or opinions of either political parties, independence supporting groups or individuals, I will do so but in a respectful manner.

I will base the blogs on national issues as well as local issues to me in the Highlands & Islands.

So to begin with blog number one, I will focus on the current divide or as I prefer difference of opinions in the independence movement and why I believe the focus should be on uniting the members of these parties and not uniting the parties.

PRE-ELECTION

Before both elections there was a drumming up of a divide between the Alba Party and the Scottish National Party. This divide was jumped on and, to an extent, exaggerated by the establishment and the mainstream media, who must have thought all their Christmases had come at once.

If we are to move forward, both parties also have to be honest that there were members of both, who didn’t help in the divide. The establishment and media need no explaining, we all know their reasons, but in my opinion, the parties’ members and supporters have been misrepresented.

Firstly, the members that were vocal in negative campaigning against what they seen as a threatening party were a minority on both sides.

Secondly, most - not all granted - but most who were vocal negatively, were within their rights to voice their concerns, dissatisfaction and frustration.

For the SNP members – they saw a new party forming, which, they believed, risked dividing the cause, while the Alba Party members saw a party they believed had already divided the cause.

Both were entitled to their thoughts and beliefs, what unites us all here is a worry and concern for the cause of Scottish independence.

There was of course a small minority on both sides that had other reasons and that is of course also OK as we still live in a democracy (until the Tories remove that as well).

ELECTION RESULTS

That’s where I believe we were at both pre-elections, if we look at the election results themselves.

The SNP have done well, improving their votes in both elections, while the Alba Party haven’t quite made the political breakthrough we had hoped for, but I don’t believe it has been the hammering defeat some would want you to believe.

I can only talk of my personal experience, in the Holyrood election yes there was a lot of animosity towards Alba, we were new, we had just formed after the parliament enquiry which did divide opinion, and there was still a lot of anger and members again on both sides who maybe acted out of anger of not knowing what to make of the sudden divide between 2 of the leaders many had seen as the leading forces of our movement in the previous decade, and of course members on both sides believed they were right.

However, in the recent election I found there to be much less animosity and a lot more open minds to what the party were saying.

In the results the Alba Party were presented as having 0.7% - 8% of the vote. BUT first of all, that is first past the post votes, which I think even the most optimistic of the Alba Party members didn’t expect to challenge on. For me the important figures were the transfer of votes from the SNP candidates and indeed the Green Party candidates, where they also stood. I have only taken random samples, but I estimate the Alba Party featured on 20%-25% of the SNP and the Greens (next votes). And secondarily, as we know, council elections seem to always have lower turnouts, which always affects the independence supporting parties.

Therefore, for me the SNP members, the Alba Party members and the Scottish Green Party members can be optimistic about the results of this election.

I may have rambled on a bit there about the Alba Party results and that is not me trying to defend the results or make excuses, but to explain my position of being optimistic in going forward united.

Many, I am sure, may think that the SNP don't need to unite, they are doing great as it is, or that the Alba Party don't need to unite as their support is building.

The truth is, both are probably right in one context. However, what we need to remember is that they’re both right if independence could wait another 10 years for this divide to heal. But the reality I hope we can all agree on is that the UK living standards and decisions in Westminster are getting increasingly worse and independence is now a necessity.

Both parties have big assets to the independence movement and I don’t think it’s any secret that most of who moved from the SNP to the Alba Party were pro-active activists, and it can’t be denied the SNP have the public backing.

Remember pro-active activists got us from 30% to 45% in the summer of 2014 and the combination of pro-active activists and public backing won the SNP 56 out of 59 seats in the General Election in 2015.

GOING FORWARD

How do we use that to the movement’s advantage?

In my opinion, we need to stop focussing on the parties’ leaders, when we are discussing party involvement in the independence movement. Let’s start thinking of the party memberships, as illustrated at the start - there is more that unites us, than divides us.

We also need to separate the day to day politics from the movement.

And, all independence parties need to focus on positive campaigning for their own policies as well as the independence movement.

That is not to say we should all just “wheesht for indy” and not hold each other to account on policies and strategies, political parties should always hold each other to account that’s the reason of having different political parties. But there we can do it in a positive manner with attacking each other..

I think within the next year we will see one of two scenarios play out:
1. A referendum will be announced for 2023 and the movement will need to come together to campaign like our lives depend on it.

2. A referendum won’t be called, and we then need to re-analyse the movements strategy on winning independence, which there will be many options put out on the table, of that I am sure. We will hear the Plebiscite option, we will hear the Claim of Right option, we will hear the Super-Majority option and we will hear the Section 30 court case being pursued option.
It will then be down to the independence movement to decide how to go forward and, maybe more importantly, when we need to change tactics.

To finish off this first blog and, maybe something I will write on more in the future, I also think the independence groups need to unite.

I think I have heard all groups calling for the parties to unite, yet we still do not have a fully united movement going forward, and that is something we need. I suspect like most of us I am sure that whatever strategy or tactic is used we have a big fight ahead and it is down to these groups to help unite and organise us as we will need to be organised. But for them to unite us they too must be united.

I hope this has been an OK first attempt at a blog and kept respectful to all independence supporting parties and those of no party, of which, I acknowledge I have not mentioned all, but for the context of this first blog I hope you understand my reasoning.