A helping hand

All Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is doing with his latest ‘initiative’ is perpetuating the misconception that it is Westminster which is the obstacle as well as the fallacy that a Section 30 referendum can lead to the restoration of Scotland’s independence. It is certainly no coincidence that these two pieces of falsity are very helpful to John Swinney. It suits the SNP leadership very well that the finger of blame for lack of any progress on the constitutional issue is kept pointed at Westminster. So long as these myths persist, the SNP can continue to use the vote-winning properties of Scotland’s cause for electioneering purposes.

John Swinney desperately needs all the help he can get from Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp with crucial by-elections in Aberdeen South and Arbroath & Broughty Ferry only ten campaigning days away. For the SNP, these by-elections are the downside to victory in the recent Holyrood election for Stephen Flynn and Stephen Gethins respectively. Also looming are a pair of council by-elections on 3 September in Edinburgh following the resignations of two SNP councillors – Simita Kumar (Southside/Newington) and Kate Campbell (Portobello/Craigmillar), both of whom were also returned as MSPs in May’s Scottish Parliament election.

Significantly, all four of these by-elections fall within the first 100 days of John Swinney’s new administration. Defeat in any of these by-elections would be embarrassing for the SNP leader. Defeat in all or even most of them could trigger a leadership challenge by Stephen Flynn at the SNP’s annual conference in mid-October.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp’s latest marketing wheeze will be regarded as a godsend by the SNP leadership as the rumble of discontent within the party and across the independence movement looks ready to turn into a roar of anger. By the time the conference rolls around, even the less blinkered of the SNP loyalists will be starting to realise that all we’ve got from the Holyrood election is another five wasted years. I know we say this before every SNP conference, but there could be some turmoil in Aberdeen.

It may be relevant that one of the Edinburgh City Council by-elections is in the Southside/Newington ward. Readers may recall that it was the Newington & Southside branch of the SNP which submitted a ‘rebel’ resolution to the 2025 conference which posed a real threat to the leadership clique and so was excluded. The final paragraph of what came to be known as the Newington Resolution should suffice to explain the fear.

Therefore, Conference agrees that the SNP shall put in their manifesto for the 2026 Scottish Parliament election that if a majority of SNP and other pro-independence MSP’s are returned to Holyrood in 2026, they will bring forward a bill to assume responsibility for constitutional affairs as directed by the people of Scotland. This will include the right to hold referendums on increased powers and independence—driven by the will of the people.

Should the SNP lose that seat, it is not unreasonable to suppose that there might be another awkward resolution submitted by the Newington & Southside branch this year. That’s the kind of thing John Swinney can well do without.

Swinney may be averse to any questioning of the SNP’s approach to the constitutional issue, but Scotland’s cause urgently needs a challenge to the orthodoxy which concedes sovereignty to Westminster. Next to the SNP, Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp’s Believe in Scotland (BiS) organisation is the biggest part of the independence industry. Both concede sovereignty to Westminster.

People must be made aware that when they vote for the SNP they are voting to deny the principle that the people of Scotland are sovereign. When people participate in BiS initiatives, as well as helping to promulgate the idea that Westminster is the obstacle to Scotland’s cause, they are colluding with a framing of the constitutional issue which places Westminster above the people of Scotland.

Of course, Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp will deny this. But he is condemned by his own words as quoted in The National:

At the Scottish Election on May 7, the Scottish people elected a record pro-independence majority.

Those 73 MSPs have a democratic mandate to demand an independence referendum. In simple terms that means that the Scottish people voted for a referendum – so the Scottish people should damn well get a referendum.

In that short quote, Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp twice acknowledges that the people of Scotland have unambiguously expressed their democratic will that there must be another independence referendum. If he adhered to the principle that the people of Scotland are sovereign, he would see this as the end of the matter. If the people are sovereign and the people have spoken, then that is the end of the matter. All that is left is for the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament to abide by the principle and act in accordance with the mandate. But according to both Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp and John Swinney the will of Scotland’s people is insufficient. Both accede to the alien doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Both acquiesce to the British state’s asserted authority to veto the will of Scotland’s people.

I find this unacceptable. I hold the sovereignty of Scotland’s people to be both a constitutional fact and an abiding principle underpinning our distinct political culture and our identity as a nation. I decline to participate in a campaign based on the idea that the people of Scotland and the parliament we elect are subordinate to a British regime which I detest and a British parliament in which Scotland has only token representation.