The SNP Conference–Alex Salmond–Perth 14th November 2014

2014AR: The way forward and the new role of the SNP

WHERE ARE WE AT?

1. YES lost the referendum – NO won it – decisively.

2. Turnout 84.6% – highest since 1910 (when women didn’t have a vote).

Glasgow and Dundee had lowest turnouts but voted YES.

East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire and Stirling were each over 90% turnout.

4. 3,619,915 Scots voted.

YES – 1,617,989 votes. NO – 2,001,926 votes. 44.7%/55.3%Winning margin – 383,937

5. The polls probably had it right all along, YES probably was never ahead at any point, and final polls were close to the result. The bookies called it right all along.

COMMENT

The above facts are the core reality, and they contradict the fantasies entertained by many YES supporters, fed by some online YES commentators, but almost certainly never believed by politicians, core YES strategists or hard-headed YES commentators.

It was always an unfair contest – a fast, fit lightweight against a heavyweight who was so out of condition that he had to call in other heavyweights and the Establishment Mob – and offer a last round bribe to win.

Pyrrhic victory is usually a sour grapes overstatement by losers, but as applied to the NO win in Scotland’s referendum, it increasingly looks like a devastatingly accurate assessment.

Labour in meltdown, Tories entering their conference in chaos, HRH pissed off at her PM, UKIP cackling maniacally, a rush into a third ill-conceived 21st century war and the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland setting their faces against the Big Bribe offered by a  Tory/LibDem/Labour front led by Gordon Brown(!) to try and appease rebellious Scots.

If we add to that a massive and quite unprecedented surge in SNP membership (75,000)  a  re-energised, confident  YES campaign, and mass demonstrations at Holyrood, then Pyrrhic victory seems a rather apt description.

The YES Campaign (as distinct from YES Scotland) is a strange and fascinating construct – one large, long-established, highly disciplined Scotland-only party, the SNP with  its raison d'être independence, the Scottish Green Party with  its raison d'être environmental, with independence for Scotland being one means to that over-arching, worldwide goal, the Scottish socialist parties – small, recently riven by faction and the actions of one charismatic leader, and a plethora of other groups covering almost every conceivable interest group one could think of, across party, sex, artistic, religious and demographic lines. Added to this rich mix are those of no party or group affiliation whatsoever – the individual activists committed only to YES.

There are the think tanks and the theorists (e.g. the now split Jimmy Reid Foundation and Common Weal), National Collective, Radical Independence, Business for Scotland, Labour for Independence, Women for Independence – I could go on, ad infinitum.

From another perspective, however, I see a still inchoate democracy of newly-politicised, organised, enthusiastic but mainly politically naive voters reaffirming their core commitment to YES, but searching for a new focus and looking for leaders.  They are wide-open to three kinds of approaches –

1. the new leader (or old leader re-cycled) approach

2. the crowd-fund new initiative approach (often old initiative repackaged)

I see real dangers in the first two but real opportunity in the third.

3. radically new approaches to YES organisation - as yet in embryo stage - in this new 2014AR era.

The balancing factor in this may well be the great surge in SNP party membership (and to a lesser extent Green and SSP membership).

This can be interpreted as simply a massive thank you to the party that delivered the referendum, put Scotland on the world stage, yet still managed to govern competently for seven years in the face of shrinking budgets and a wall of hostility, or it can be seen as a recognition that single focus campaign/protest politics has now entered a more complex phase, and the time has come to commit to traditional political structures.

But it can also be seen as a wish to reclaim politics from the political anoraks and careerists, by  engaging with party politics in a radically new way while retaining the local autonomy, fellowship and focus of individual YES groups and  all their democratic dynamism.

I hope to explore this latter approach in some more detail, but first I will outline what I see as the dangers of the first two.

THE NEW LEADER and crowd-funded initiatives.

The YES Campaign presented an opportunity to those outside of conventional party politics to gain a platform and a profile, indeed it almost demanded that such figures should emerge, and they duly did,  some prompted, some invited, and some simply stepping uninvited on to the new platforms offered.

In fact the process had already started well before the official YES Campaign was launched, initially with the election of the 2007 SNP Government – and many have forgotten just what a jolt that event was to Labour complacency – then with the defining event of the 2011 landslide, which effectively guaranteed the referendum would take place.

The first significant bloggers emerged, then the YouTube pioneers, then the social networkers on Twitter, Facebook, etc. A seminal event for many (including myself) was Pi-Camp, an alternative media workshop in Edinburgh mounted by Mick Fealty of the influential Irish blog Slugger O’Toole.

Other big figures, out of mainstream politics at that time, such as Jim Sillars and Dennis Canavan, cautiously stepped back into the arena, and later becoming central figures in the YES movement. Of course, political opportunists sniffed the new political air, and the likes of George Galloway popped up, complete with hat, to try and find a niche in newly-politicised Scotland.

With the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012 and the official YES Scotland structure, the YES Campaign acquired a kind of co-ordination, but made many fundamental mistakes initially, before learning hard lessons about the incompatibility of traditional organisation structures with the radically different needs of a newly empowered grassroots movement, without parallel or precedent in modern politics.

But when a large number of people become gripped by an idea, a cause, an enthusiasm, whether it be religious or political, such enthusiasm creates a hunger for a focal point, new leaders and a wish to demonstrate allegiance by tangible contribution.

These processes throughout history have produced transformational political movements, political parties, and the great world religions. The consequences have been sometimes positive, sometimes destructive and all too often exploitative.

An inevitable product of a nation gripped by an idea or by perceived injustice is that such a situation is  instantly recognised as an opportunity by people who want power or money – or both. The reasons they have for seeking power or money may be admirable or venal, but in both cases, the process involves surrender of control and autonomy by the people.

Organisation is subordination – an inescapable fact.

The essence of the great grassroots YES movement was and is democratic self-empowerment in small groups. Try to keep it that way, but with the freedom to liaise dynamically with other individuals groups in networks and events.

Radically new approaches to YES organisation in new 2014AR era.

It’s early days, but the most hopeful development I’ve seen so far is the recently formed YES Alliance. I don’t do Facebook because of security reasons (and other reasons) so this limits my involvement with them. I don’t know enough to endorse them, but I like what I read and see so far, especially their flexible, rotating leadership concept.

The key dynamic of YES groups and YES collectively in the new era in my view will be the parallel relationship with the political parties committed to independence, and by political parties I mean those parties with an existing discrete identity as a party, e.g. SNP, Greens, SSP etcetera, not groups of supporters within a UK party committed to independence, e.g. Labour for Independence,  not sub-groups of YES, e.g. Women for Independence, and not aspirant groups who might like to form a new party at some point.

I make no value judgement on the latter non-party groups, and certainly don’t challenge their democratic right to try and found a new party – my advice is based on the stark fact that the new seminal event, the 2015 UK General Election is just over seven months away (7th May 2015), the UK Parliament will be dissolved on Parliament will be dissolved on Monday 30 March 2015, in less than six months time, and to all intents and purpose, the UK parties are now in unofficial, but deadly serious and bitter campaigning mode in one of the most unpredictable and uncertain political climates I have witnessed since the 1945 General Election.

There just isn’t time for new grand initiatives and the formation of new parties – we’re now in a deadly serious mega game in which a key player will be the combined Scottish political parties committed to independence fielding candidates – and that means the SNP, the Scottish Greens and the SSP, but backed up by a giant YES grassroots organisation who have put their money on, and their commitment with political parties and party membership on an unprecedented scale.

(YES Alliance seems to understand this in a way that the other groups that mushroomed in the strange atmosphere following 19th September don’t appear to. (Some of them seem to be trying to re-invent the Referendum Campaign, or are in pursuit of worthy but completely unattainable objectives in the short term.)

THE SNP MEMBERSHIP SURGE – IMPLICATIONS

One senior Scottish politician – Nicola Sturgeon – instantly recognised - with her usual acute political insight - the implications of an SNP membership now comprising 75,000 plus members, more than two-thirds of whom are new members, many with little or no political experience other than YES activist campaign work, and a significant proportion of whom are likely to have little understanding of how political parties work in a democracy, or even of how UK’s partial and  flawed democracy actually works.

HERALD: “The Deputy First Minister, who has no plans for a fresh referendum, said if the members and leadership were out of step it could cause issues for "the next couple of years".

However, Sturgeon - who is almost certain to succeed Alex Salmond unopposed as SNP leader and First Minister in November - said she would far rather deal with this issue than the exodus of members she believes is facing Labour.”

That’s one issue. The other key one surrounds the right of members to vote on the selection of candidates for local elections, UK Parliamentary and Holyrood Parliament. The new members would under existing rules be time-barred from voting for candidates for the 2015 General election, however, I understand that a rapid change of the qualifying period is now planned to permit them to do so.

There is another dimension to the new membership surge – the actual experience of Party branch structures. Without in any way wishing to sound negative about the committed activists who have often devoted a large party of their lives and energies to branch activities, participation and attendance is low in most branches, and the branch ability to promote – or even their enthusiasm  for promoting maximum membership involvement in the selection of delegates and candidates for election may also be low in many instances.

The new dynamic from the new members and new structures of YES groups – e.g. YES Alliance – is going to be, shall we say, interesting …

POLITICAL EDUCATION

Since our schools do it so badly – or not all – I see an urgent need for basic courses in the mechanics of democracy for YES activists and new party members, and I think this should be driven and provided by the YES movement, obviously with the involvement of the political parties but emphatically not by the political parties. I can see a clear role for Business for Scotland in this key task.

SUMMARY

So that’s my very tentative take on where we’re at. I had great difficulty with this blog – I feel it’s scrappy, incomplete and not exactly what I wanted to say, but it’s the best I can do in a situation that is changing by the day, if not by the moment …

Saor Alba!

Cybernats – Eat your heart out!

I feel that cybernats are having their undeserved reputation for bad behaviour seriously challenged of late. Here are some of my favourites from my pre-moderation inbox of YouTube comments. PvPGodz Uk is my current favourite.  I really feel his (her?) formidably elegant powers of articulation of the Project Fear core arguments deserve a wider audience, and I commend them to Alistair Darling and Alistair Carmichael.

(Sadly, YouTube has been classifying them as spam of late, and despite their tickable boxes, I have no way of either deleting them or showcasing them to a wider public – except this.)

PvPGodz Uk

Why shouldn't we vote for independance? We are that busy thinking about we're gonna be the greatest nation in the Universe, but we are really gonna be bankrupt, we get food imported from other countrys, and some include the EU countrys we're getting the food from! We're getting threatened that if we go independant we won't be in the EU anymore, and where we gonna get half our food, eventually we'll run out and we'll be full of poverty! And if we get the 'Stirling Pound' tooken from us what we going to use, and to make factorys to produce money in scotland, or make another currency, it'll cost money to do that! Alex Salmon has no idea what we are gonna get ourselfs into, I'd borde the first train to England if they take the money! The Queen's brining in lots of money to 'Britain', and it won't be shared amoung us if we go independant, and we rely on the money we get from the Queen brining in money from tourists, and England will have the money, the currency, you name it! And we'll have nothing! 
NO TO INDEPENDANCE!

Michael Cawood

Dear Salmond, first you need to learn to run a piss-up at a brewery

Debra smith

If Scotland go independent, that means they are not British anymore, ergo they can't have our bloody currency!!! Let em have the euro and see how that works for em.
Vote for independence Scotland please, then you might stop your bitching about England , and how mean we are to you.

karezza777

How to be Scottish: 1. Eat deep fried Mars Bars. 2. Wear a skirt 3. Hunt Haggis 4. Believe in the Loch Ness Monster 5. Blame everything on England 6. Speak unintelligibly 7. Enjoy bagpipe noise 8. Say "Och aye the noo" 9. Drink nothing but whisky 10. Enjoy dreek weather

amicusalba

This is a shit video that tries to propagate the Nationalist Separatist agenda by Kim Il Salmond. Posted by an idiot for an idiot. Only 30% of Scots support this tit.

Adi B

A big part of Scotland economy is Edinburgh which is big financial city and most of the large private sector employers are financial businesses but when Scotland get independence forget AAA rating they will be a new small economy so will be counted as high risk so their rating will not be good. This will badly effect Edinburgh as financial business rely a lot on good rating like AAA but after independent most likely lot of the financial businesses will move their headquarters out of Edinburgh.

Spin by headline and the Herald.

Today was the second time the Herald rejected an online comment of mine. The common factor seems to be that both comments criticised the way the Herald was using headlines.

Today’s article by Kate Devlin was the case in point.

Here is the comment I posted, so far unpublished.

COMMENT

Your headline Cameron: no change to Barnett and the first line of the report DAVID CAMERON has ruled out making changes to the controversial Barnett formula are partial and misleading. The truth lies in the line "The Coalition announced that there were no plans to review the formula before the next general election"

The YES Campaign assertion (and mine) is that whatever government is in power after a No vote in the 2014 referendum will cut the Barnett formula. The pressures to do this from English voters and organisations, including local authorities - not to mention senior politicians - will be irresistible.

But with the referendum vote in September 2014, it is clearly impossible for the Coalition to do this before a general election in 2015. Labour is unlikely to include this in their manifesto, relying still on the Scottish Labour vote, but the Tories have little to lose by offering this vote winner to their English supporters, since the party is dead in Scotland.

A No vote in 2014 will not lead to more devolution - it will inevitably lead to, at best, devo zero, and at worse, a clawback, devo minus.

My Tweets – Monday. Donors, culture, powers after a No vote

HTTP://COUNTINGDOWNTO.COM

I can help: they're campaigning to keep Labour MPs jobs, salaries and expenses intact on Westminster gravy train Peter Curran ‏@moridura 9m @leeb0147 All the Scottish puppets of three Union parties will offer recommendations, worth zero - immediately binned by Westminster bosses.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 10m Brian Monteith:"opinion polling showing UKIP could do well in Scotland in next June’s elections" What elections June 2014? EU 22 May 2014?

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 25m

@leeb0147 Any increased powers would be electoral suicide for a UK party that proposed them in 2015 manifesto, or introduced them. DevoMinus

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 27m Brian Monteith:"it is as if the Scotland Act is the dog that does not bark, that it has been muzzled by its owners" You got that bit right.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 34m What Brian Monteith, BetTog and 3 unionist parties avoid like the plague is that Unionist Scotland has near zero influence on more powers.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 35m Brian Monteith "strange aspects of debate that neither BetTog campaign nor three main unionist parties mention Scotland Act" Not strange. Sinister

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 38m

Read Monteith's incredible smoke screen and nonsense on more powers, then read my blog http://www.scotsman.com/news/brian-monteith-unionists-need-alternatives-1-3234337 … and http://moridura.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/what-awaits-scotland-after-no-vote.html …

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 40m This must be black humour: it's removed from any reality. There's a good reason why the Scotland Act is avoided by BT http://www.scotsman.com/news/brian-monteith-unionists-need-alternatives-1-3234337 …

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 42m Brian Monteith: "If unionist parties . argue that they will give further powers to Holyrood . their record suggests they can be trusted" !!!

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 47m @LichtieFreedom Your tweet was addressed to me, Graeme - no link to Marion

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 53m @LichtieFreedom Who's Marion?

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 54m @LichtieFreedom It has been unkindly suggested that I DID come from anothe planet. When I mix with deadhead No supporters, I feel that way..

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 56m @MackinonMarquis My ebook has a Mackinnon in it, Rhoda.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 58m @Ross_Greer @JoanMcAlpine @GailLythgoe Is it being recorded, Ross? YouTube?

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 1h @pilaraymara Great article on Scots and home, Pilar. Here's the traditional song of Scots leaving, promising return. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7cmmQwRnks …

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 1h @MarketWatch Money isn't 'real' but it's taxable. Bitcoins are a currency, not money.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 4h @joycemcm B - and maybe C?

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 4h If I'd just arrived in Scotland from nearby planet, I'd be convinced to vote YES by the arguments and character alone of those supporting No

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 5h Anyone who doubts that there's a Scot/Brit Establishment hostile to the independence of Scotland only has to look at BT's big money donors.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 5h Arsenal FC chairman, Old Etonian Sir Chips Keswick (wife daughter of 16th Earl of Dalhousie) gave BetterTogether £23k http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chips_Keswick …

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 5h Donald Houston, Ardnamurchan Estate owner - huge donor to Better Together - also owns Glenborrodale Castle Hotel and the Adelphi distillery

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 5h Sir Keith Craig and Christopher Wilkins gave £10k each to Better Together. Both linked to Hakluyt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakluyt_&_Company … Now there's a thing

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 5h £10k donation from Sir Keith Craig - works for intelligence-gathering firm Hakluyt. Christopher Wilkins gave £10k. He helped found Hakluyt.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 5h Andrew Fraser, stockbroker - £1m donor to Tory Party - gave Better Together £200,000. Blair McDougall welcomes such Tory donors, such cash.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 5h Donald Houston, Ardnamurchan Estate gave £600k to Better Together: £500k thru Rain Dance International and Beinn Bhuidhe £100k in own name.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 5h Historical novelist Christopher Sansom, whose novel 'Dominion' attacked SNP, has given £294,000 in total to the anti-independence campaign.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 5h Scotsman catches up with donor story: big pic of UK-OK Blair McDougall. UK's not OK, Blair - haven't you noticed? http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-pro-union-donors-revealed-1-3234090 … … … 

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 6h @lipmarty75 @StephenMcGann It would not be as meanignful. It's perceptions vs stats reality, and Scotland is very different in both areas.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 7h @lipmarty75 @StephenMcGann We have a thriving Muslim community in Scotland, making a great contribution to our economy and our national life

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 7h National Collective have committed the unforgivable sin from a unionist perspective - they have made an independent Scotland fashionable ... 

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 7h @Fankledoose How could I? I am one - but proud to be a member of National Collective, trying to get fit enough to join the partying ...

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 7h What represents Scottish culture better than the youthful, joyous, partying, literate, artistic, musical, intelligent National Collective?

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 7h Christians united in love and harmony? Naw, same auld squabbling Kirk factions and as ever, money, property, power. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/minister-fails-in-battle-to-leave-kirk-over gay-clergy-row.22958926 …

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 7h @StephenMcGann @GlaikitGeezer @IpsosMORI This chart is not UK - it's Census population 2012 England and Wales. Scotland and NI not included

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 7h Very odd comment from a Marco Antonio Godoy. YouTube marked as spam, but I let it through for a laugh. Scroll down http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95veFnBZnjo&google_comment_id=z12rtf3pttaczjrfo23devkovnrycdov1&google_view_type#gpluscomments …

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 7h A culture is more than its art: it is a people expressing their values and their choices through their art, behaviour, languages and choices

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 7h David Torrance misunderstands in saying a culture is more than who rules us. It's about who the Scottish people choose to rule them.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 8h @pilaraymara Thanks, Pilar - I hope Clifford clears his name. Many Scots fought and died to fight Franco's fascism in the 1930s

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 8h Court confirms judgment of the Fonsagrada, which condemned Clifford Torrents Colman, who hammered off the Franco plaque, to pay 434 euros

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 8h A culture springs from the people, David Torrance. Scotland's people express their wish for independence significantly through their culture

Peter Curran ‏@moridura 8h "Our culture is more than the result of who rules us" A unionist, David Torrance, rattled by National Collective. http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/our-culture-is-more-than-the-result-of-who-rules-us.22938947 …

Scotland’s independence debate and Q&A 10th Dec 2013 – Civic Scotland and press

HTTP://COUNTINGDOWNTO.COM

Sun’s shining – who needs politics?

What happens to campaigning when the sun shines and Scots emerge into a Mediterranean climate, set up the barbecues, eat al fresco and briefly entertain the fantasy that café culture has come to stay in our towns and cities?

Despite the daily headlines charting the collapse of the United Kingdom into venality, corruption and gross incompetence, a Kingdom where the rich get richer, the bombs get bigger and the poor and vulnerable are punished severely for a crime they didn’t commit, it is all too easy to think things aren’t too bad after all, and, hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

If one adds to this the sombre background of the doom-laden Better Together’s Project Fear telling Scots that the Sun shining on this dying rump of empire will be extinguished completely if independence comes, outdoor canvassers may be greeted by a dismissive “It will never happen, we’re alright as we are …” response. Few want to focus on difficult decisions over a year away under clear, sunny skies.

So maybe the dedicated campaigners can relax for a week or so, enjoy their own well-deserved leisure time.

Or for those with unbounded energy, re-focus on approaches that are urgently needed in the campaign – the injection of some fun, life, colour, spectacle and music into the mix. It is, after all, Festival time!

Earlier in the week I was prompted by a last-minute call to join a photo-shoot on Calton Hill publicising the September 21st March and Rally.

When I got there, Cragingalt had quite a few tourist groups taking in the spectacular views of Edinburgh, and talking knowledgably about this history-soaked iconic area of Scotland. The Rally Group were understandably focusing on getting their banner unfurled and setting up the camera, and they had more than enough volunteers suitably attired to stand behind it, so I decided to talk to the tourist groups.

A delightful Taiwanese Glasgow University student asked me to take her photograph against the backdrop of the National Monument, the French students affably informed me that they had invented the entire concept of independence with the French Revolution (I more or less agreed with them, but claimed a role for Scotland in inventing democracy – well, yes, there was Athens, but …) and I spoke to some Danes on the way down – more of that later.

The photo-shoot group had their own agenda, which was aimed at subsequent use of their video, but more or less inadvertently they created a mini-event on Calton Hill, and this was totally due to their young piper, Connor (Conor?) Sinclair. Connor struck up at the end of the banner line, and as soon as the unique sound of the pipes – the sound of Scotland – hit the summer air, the tourist and visitor groups began to appear from all directions, converging on the sound emanating from the base of the Monument. But then Connor was hoisted on to the Monument itself, and stood there, a slender figure against the sky, played beautifully – and Calton Hill was transformed. The ghosts of the past seemed to rush in from all sides to join the tourists, whispering “Our moment is coming …”.

The French group spontaneously broke into a ragged version of La Marseillaise, and a wave of internationalism – the real internationalism of the new Scotland - was palpably present.

If this small scale happening prefigures the September March and Rally, it will be an event of unimaginable power, life, and impact. It is what YES Scotland desperately needs right now – I hope our politicians have the wit and imagination to capitalise on that moment without trivialising it and I hope our Scottish media have the good sense to cover it fully.

On the way down from the Calton Hill, I fell in with a group of Danes. We talked Borgen and rhapsodised over Sidse Babette Knudsen, then came the $64,000 questions (the 364,560.60 DKK questions?) – what are Scotland's chances of voting YES in 2014? What are the arguments for and against independence?

It was a short walk down, but a long, long moment …

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