Bankcrupties, as Ernest Hemingway put it, happen “in two ways — gradually and then suddenly”. That quip captures the tragi-farce playing out in the SNP. The party which rode the high horse of Scottish nationalism as the governing party at Holyrood since 2007 also captured support south of the border. Those southeners enjoyed seeing a punchy Nicola Sturgeon give the Tory government a bloody nose over everything from Covid regulations to Boris Johnson — “a disgrace to the office” — and gender politics.
Now the boot has switched foot. Even the native Glaswegian Armando Iannucci’s comedies about the pile-up of absurdities which politics can produce look like pale imitations of the SNP’s plight. The “in previous episodes” review tells us that Sturgeon resigned before she was pushed. A heady mix was brewing of internal score-settling and concerns over allegations of financial mismanagement aimed at Peter Murrell, her husband and chief executive of the party. An ongoing investigation into Murrell’s activities has resulted in the police towing away a large caravan from his parents’ home in unexplained circumstances. The hastily elected new SNP leader, Humza Yousaf, is starting to look like a transitional candidate. He had the humiliating task of revealing that he had no idea that the party’s own financial auditors had resigned six months ago — and no other firm could be found prepared to take on the job.
Kate Forbes, narrowly defeated in a leadership contest held at breakneck speed, was iced out for her fruity fundamentalist views on abortion and divorce. She is now rattling out columns and speeches urging the party to “disinfect” itself of the taint of sleaze.
This is before we get to the polarising matter of the SNP’s prospective challenge to the Government at Westminster over transgender matters. Frankly that is now looking like a sideshow to the main event of a wholesale implosion of the governing party in the Scottish parliament.
Given the haste with which the election to succeed Sturgeon was held, Yousaf may soon find his position challenged and a call for the contest to be re-run.
Murrell has been released by the police after questioning and investgations continue. He, along with Sturgeon and others caught in a whirlwind of accusations, deserves a fair hearing. But what Forbes called “the disinfectant of sunlight” is rarely a benign dousing for parties as long in power and rigid in their hierarchies as the SNP. The Sturgeon era has ended in an almighty splat — and a reality check against predictions of imminent Scottish independence.
The idea that the UK was about to break up on the ragged shores of Brexit was always more wishful thinking than settled direction. A combination of deeper geo-political challenges over Ukraine and China/Taiwan and more threadbare economic times mean the EU has urgent preoccupations greater than its dwindling interest in secessionist movements. The SNP is a lonelier force than it likes to imagine — and the more so now that it has Augean stables to clear out.
A “machine politics” approach to wielding unchallenged power — with little room for constructive criticism or fresh policy thinking — alienated many natural independence supporters. The beneficiary, ironically, is Labour, which saw its vote base collapse when it too was seen as the one-party state of the Nineties and early 2000s in Scotland. Now it has a chance to go all out for the confident win it needs there to gain an overall majority at the next general election.
Chaos, infighting and a cloud of suspicion over alleged malfeasance make the SNP look less like the party that is “dug into” its fiefdoms. Instead it looks more like one which is strugging to dig itself out of a multiplying number of holes, with members leaving in disgust.
Whatever the outcome of the present reckoning and whoever finally carries the can, the movement for more self-rule for Scotland is foundering on arrogance and a leadership cult indulged for too long. The Sturgeon fan club around London and beyond is a smaller association than it was too. The SNP built itself a fortress of opaque dealings, rigid authority and unquestioned practices. But when the rot sets in, walls come tumbling down. Somewhere in the rubble, truths will out.
Anne McElvoy is Executive Editor at Politico
