The slowest dawn

Surprisingly—or perhaps not—much of the best political commentary in The National is to be found not in the material provided by the professional journalists and columnists but on the paper’s Community page. Letters from readers are often insightful and thought-provoking. In part, at least, this may be because the people who write these letters are not constrained by the orthodoxies of the independence industry and the Sturgeon doctrine, which deprecates discussion of any strategy in the struggle to restore Scotland’s independence which strays from the ‘gold standard’ of the Section 30 process.

Come to think of it, when did you ever hear or read the phrase ‘restore Scotland’s independence’ used by any SNP politician or professional commentator? When toilers in the independence industry speak or write about the constitutional issue, they tend to use terms such as ‘gain’ or win’, as if independence were a prize that we have to qualify for by diligent compliance with established rules rather than a return to a state of constitutional normality on escaping the aberration of a grotesquely asymmetric political union imposed with threats and bribery in a time which, in this regard, was arguably not so very different from the present.

The ‘letter to the editor’ which caught my attention today is from a regular correspondent who identifies himself only as Old John. The following extract may explain why my interest was piqued.

Sooner rather than later, the SNP is going to have to replace John Swinney. He is not up to the mark regarding independence. What irks me is who is going to replace him? As of right now, there is no-one who shows any fervour to get us out of the Union.

This perspective may seem odd to some. After all, didn’t John Swinney just lead his party to victory in the Scottish general election? Hasn’t he steered the SNP through a period fraught with scandal above and beyond the ‘perma-scandal’ generated by the pro-Union media? Doesn’t his recent record suggest he is the best person to continue dodging the bullets as the party seems intent on shooting itself in the foot with a machine gun? Questions continue to be asked about the SNP’s ‘idiosyncratic’ accounting practices and not only by the party’s opponents. Isn’t John Swinney’s skill in the art of authoritative circumlocution needed now more than ever? This is a man who can respond at considerable length to an awkward question with what sounds for all the world like a comprehensive and entirely reasonable explanation, and it may take a minute or two or more to realise that he has actually said nothing at all. Some never realise.

Despite all this, Old John still reckons Swinney will have to go. He is far from alone in this. As Old John observes, “He is not up to the mark regarding independence.” I would go further. I’d say Swinney can’t even see the mark. But like Old John, I peruse Scotland’s nominally pro-independence political caste and see nobody who might serve Scotland’s cause in the manner that Swinney so signally doesn’t. John Swinney is an adequate manager. He is not fit for the task of leading the fight to restore Scotland’s independence. He is unimaginative, conventional, and risk-averse to the point of political paralysis. Which makes him the diametric opposite of the leader Scotland’s cause needs.

There is probably a good football analogy that would fit well at this point. But I am not sufficiently au fait with the game to concoct one without embarrassing myself, so I’ll give you a moment to think of your own.

Ready? Okay! Let’s go back to Old John’s letter.

Before the Scottish election I was foursquare behind John and the SNP. Within myself I knew that the policy of “get the SNP elected and take it from there” was seriously flawed. At that time it was a no-brainer as we had to stuff Reform and Labour. That was then, this is now, and everything I thought was going to happen is coming to pass.

There’s the problem! Despite well over a decade of abject failure to progress Scotland’s cause in any way and the incomprehensible farce of Swinney’s election ‘strategy’, we are stuck with the SNP because it remains vital as a barrier against the British parties squatting in Scotland’s parliament. But where Old John seems resigned to taking the SNP as is, I favoured using the leverage offered by a looming election to force the SNP leadership into a rethink of its approach to the constitutional issue. As tends to happen, that leverage was left unused by an independence movement that has splintered to the extent that it is incapable of realising and deploying its strength. It has lost the knowledge of how to combine and is now reduced to a thousand hands flapping and fluttering ineffectually for want of the purpose and leadership that might transform it into a single mighty fist.

As I read the above passage from Old John’s letter, I wondered how many people were in the same boat, having voted for the SNP with gritted teeth and heavy hearts, knowing that their vote would achieve nothing for Scotland’s cause. I wondered also how many of those who voted SNP in the belief that Swinney’s ‘strategy’ was pure dead brilliant and a new referendum was in the bag are now slowly coming to the realisation that they’d been duped—and not for the first time. Surely there must be some who, prior to the election, could be counted in the ranks of SNP loyalists and who now find that their loyalty has been tested beyond breaking point.

I keep telling myself that there must be a tipping point at which the SNP’s ludicrous charade collapses in on itself in a manner not dissimilar to a financial Ponzi scheme. (Not necessarily criminal act is implied.)

I know many of you will say that I am clutching at straws. Perhaps so. But it is not false hope or, worse still, blind faith that bids me single out this particular straw but the perfectly rational assumption that there are limits to luck and people’s patience. Other than those at the most seriously deluded end of the denial spectrum, even party loyalists must run out of rationalisations eventually. The line on which increasing irritation with pusillanimous procrastination runs is on a collision course with the diminishing credibility of those perpetrating the deception.

That straw is made more buoyant by the equally reasonable assumption that within the party hierarchy, there must be unease shading into unrest which becomes open revolt when it meets ambition and opportunism. There must be people around John Swinney who are aware of and not entirely comfortable with the way independence is quite blatantly being used as an electioneering device while there is nothing resembling a plan to actually do anything about restoring it. By the same token, there must be some who recognise the underlying weakness of Swinney’s position. He may be the hero of the party and untouchable while the relief of wriggling through another election holds, but when that relief fades, disenchantment and disgruntlement flow in to fill the vacated space. In politics, gratitude has an extremely short shelf-life, and loyalty is as conditional as any lawyerly mind might make it. Backs are for stabbing.

So, there remains the possibility of some kind of internal revolt. But don’t pop those champagne corks quite yet, folks! This revolt could just as readily replace a leader who has run out of credibility with someone whose credibility has not yet been tested. It may be that for those in the power and payroll palace of the party, a better leader might mean no more than a leader who is capable of keeping the charade going.

Asked to point out a preferred successor to John Swinney, Old John is stumped. As is everybody I know in the independence movement. The only figure lurking in the wings is Stephen Flynn. I suspect that were he asked to point out those who could only be expected to put a vaguely different spin on the Sturgeon doctrine so as to keep the imaginary plates spinning, Old John would be able to produce a lengthy list. And Flynn would be in the top three.

Whatever way I come at the problem of how to get Scotland’s cause out of the SNP rut, I always come back to the need for a credible competitor for the political niche that the SNP has made its own. However little it deserves to occupy that niche, the SNP isn’t going to be evicted easily. To be credible, the competitor will have to be markedly different from the SNP while still being electable. The problem being that in the mind-like thing of the dumb beast that is the electorate, electability is associated with the SNP. It’ll take something exceptional to prise electability and the SNP apart sufficiently for an alternative to squeeze into the consciousness of the voting public.

One thing we know for sure is that it won’t be any of the pretenders to the SNP’s throne that we’ve seen up until now, none of whom have laid a fist on the champ. That should be a useful clue as to what is required. But I look around at the personalities and parties looking to take the SNP’s place, and I don’t see a contender worth betting on.

Isn’t that where we came in?