SNP leadership campaign

[RoyalCorgi]

I thought it would be fun for the leadership campaign to have its own thread.

According to Wikipedia, the timetable for the election is:

"Nominations opened on 16 February, and will close on 24 February. Those nominated will then be put forward as options in a ballot of party members, which will open on 13 March, and close at noon on 27 March, with the result announced on the same day by the SNP's national secretary, Lorna Finn."

So quite a short campaign. I don't completely understand how the voting works - it's not first past the post, but a "type of single transferable vote", according to Wiki, which is clear as mud.

Kate Forbes seems to have lost some key supporters by saying she was opposed to same-sex marriage, which perhaps means some of them will transfer to Ash Regan. The only other candidate is our old chum Humza Yousaf, author of one of the most deranged and authoritarian pieces of legislation, the Hate Crime and Public OrderAct, to pass through a UK legislative body in the past 100 years.

Those of you in Scotland, how do you see this playing out?

The SNP in its current iteration and driven by the Greens is an extreme anti business, anti capitalist party.

In some ways it will be a relief to Kate Forbes to be able to distance herself from this government. She also has a small baby who I am sure she will be pleased to spend more time with while things unravel in the party.

The SNP have always said they are a broad church. This notion that the membership were very left wing and "progressive" was always smoke and mirrors.

Yes, it was a strategy imposed top-down. There's a lot you can get away with while pretending to pursue independence.

The "progressive" claim I think was taken on to differentiate the SNP from nationalist parties elsewhere which tended to be hard right and sometimes racist. One of the few things the SNP leadership can be credited with is that it has kept "blood and soil" types firmly in the box. One particularly nasty anti-English tendency was banned.

I agree with @NatashaDancing that the current SNP/Green govt is pursuing some stupid policies that hurt business without actually benefiting anyone else. But I don’t think that makes them anti-capitalist, it just makes them incompetent.

Patrick Harvey is openly anti- capitalist and he at the moment is still in the driving seat.

The SNP are not and never have been "extreme left". The only extreme factions of the SNP were the misogynists, racists and Wings wankers who went to Alba.

Absolutely

It seems a fair few misogynists stayed with the SNP.

The SNP is an extremist, hard left party with no interest in business except for what it can extract in tax. It is not supportive of business and currently is happy to play along with the Green's anti- capitalist agenda.

I've no interest in Alba, although I doubt very much that the defections to Alba cleared the SNP out of racists and misogynists.

No doubt, misogynists are a problem in all political parties in Scotland (and UK-wide and internationally). I'm not a "party person" and the jury's very much still out on Alba; they've only been around since 2021 and obviously their main point is Scottish independence, so Scots opposed logically won't support them.

BUT they HAVE consistently and vocally spoken out for women's rights in ways that the other centre-to-left parties in Scotland fail/refuse to do. So it looks like so far they are not giving their misogynists free reign to drive party policy, which is good news for feminists even if all it does is set a little bit of a higher bar for the other parties in that area!! Just for some well-known examples:

They issued a statement denouncing misogynist abuse and intimidation of their candidates in the last Holyrood elections.

They issued a statement condemning the misogynist violence in Arthur Park this past Saturday.

They hold separate women-only events which drive the party's policy on women's rights issues. Here's a pretty detailed comparison of their approach vs that of the competing parties.

Well-known local women's rights activists have joined and stayed in the party and seem to feel welcome and effective.

They were the only party given full marks for defending women's rights in a comprehensive review of policy by For Women Scotland.

Their MPs have repeatedly spoken out in the HoC and in the media about the failure to listen and consider women in the setting of policy and law in Scotland and the wider UK. Recently, one - a former ScotGov Justice Secretary - has admitted that the current prison policy did not take women's needs into consideration and recommended that it be reviewed.

I remember there was a lot of respect here on the FWR board for an early campaign video of theirs with clips from several of their candidates with feminist backgrounds explicitly defending women's rights:
Of course, invididual SNP (and Labour) politicians have also consistently spoken up for women, but most don't seem to get much support for it from the top; there have been persistent rumours that too-vocal feminists are sidelined and threatened with deselection. And the SGP, of course, famously kicked out Andy Wightman (a radical and dedicated campaigner for land reform) for voting against removing the right of rape victims with RSS to request a female caregiver.

The SNP is an extremist, hard left party

Thanks for the laugh 😂

To be fair to Andy Wightman, I think he voluntarily left the Greens, rather than being kicked out, although I'm sure they would have kicked him out if he hadn't left. I only mention it as I think it demonstrates his integrity, which is important considering how little of that we see these days. I remain disappointed in Alison Johnstone.

Why ? Are you seriously suggesting the SNP is moderate? Or pro business? It certainly is not. It's anti- landlord, whether of residential property or farmland.

It's currently embarking on another ridiculous, extremist "land reform programme"

Oh and thanks for the laugh there. As if Alba cleared the SNP out of extremists.

The whole raison d'être of the SNP is blind adherence to the ideology of separatism. It's a collection of extremist, single issue ideologues.

No, I'm not suggesting anything. I'm pointing and laughing at your utterly risible nonsense 😂

SNP policies are utterly risible -blind, unthinking, irrational, bigoted ideology.

The SNP supporters criticising Alba is hilarious by the way. Each party is as demented as the other.

The SNP is an extremist, hard left party

Genuinely one of the most ridiculous, hysterical and ignorant things I've seen posted on this site. Really, no awareness.

I think the problem for the SNP is that more and more of the members they have got left have got extremist views.

I don't think supporting self id is an extremist view , but I think pushing it through without consideration for women and categorically saying trans women and women in every way us an extremist view.

I don't necessarily think Yousef is extreme at all, but he seems under the control of some who do hold some views that I think are very damaging.

The Scottish Greens are bat shit crazy and are extremist.

I think the SNP have the same issue as the Tories / Labour.

There are members who do not allow dissent. They have managed more and more to get to positions of power and control the narrative. The broadchurch is no longer welcome and those who do not agree leave (many of them the moderate members).

The SNP / Tory party are having the biggest issue with this at the moment and it is extremely damaging. I think Labour are further along the journey and they are managing to grapple some power back from Momentum.

I don't think what is happening in any of our parties is food for Democracy.

I think we will also get to a point where fewer and fewer people will be long term party members.

Tories are nothing like the SNP; they have always had masses of dissent. They are constantly struggling to manage the rebellion in their ranks. Brexit referendum was an attempt to deal with the split in the party. Even the last couple of days the head.Ines have been about Tory rebellion regarding immigration.

The SNP in recent years have deliberately hobbled the party structure so that all decisions and control are in the hands of a tiny, tiny wee cabal. Secrecy and lies. It's corrupted from the top, basically. I look forward to seeing what shakes out of the various related police investigations.

You don't want independence fine, you don't like the greens fine (neither do I) but your bias seems to be preventing you from engaging in informed and rational opinion.

The SNP supporters criticising Alba is hilarious by the way. Each party is as demented as the other.

I'm a Labour not SNP supporter, although I have voted for them on occasion.

You're posts are somewhat frenzied and all over the place, so it's a bit rich of you to accuse so many of being "demented".

That was clear when even their finance committee had to resign because the controlling cabal refused to let then see any financial information.

Yes. Eyes on a recent FOI regarding Salmond's fabricated prosecution, too. I've been wondering for ages whether anything will happen over that.