Is the SNP falling apart?

The SNP should be basking in its recent formidable polling success. Not only does support for independence appear to be on the rise – with 56 per cent in favour, according to the latest Ipsos Mori poll – but there is evidence too that the SNP could win an outright majority in the next Scottish parliament elections. So why does the party appear to be falling apart? Three front bench resignations in as many days doesn’t look like a party at peace with itself.  

The Westminster group of SNP MPs is roiled by divisions and rancour. The palace coup by the 34-year-old Stephen Flynn against veteran Westminster leader Ian Blackford has caused a whole lot of upset. Long-time frontbenchers, like Perthshire MP Pete Wishart, are resigning en masse at the new boy and his 28-year-old deputy Mhairi Black. Wishart, the SNP Defra spokesman and former Runrig musician, declared he was ‘bemused’ by the removal of a ‘successful’ leadership team – and at Flynn’s failure to explain his ‘new direction’. 

He wasn’t alone. Wishart’s walkout was followed in rapid succession by that of Stewart McDonald MP, the defence spokesman and architect of the leadership’s pro-Nato policy, and the longstanding international development and climate spokesman, Chris Law.

The official line? Nothing to see here. It is, of course, perfectly normal to eject the Westminster leader only days after he’d announced he was confidently continuing in post. All is well between the parliamentary rebels and the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, even though her last-minute stand-in candidate Alison Thewliss MP was decisively rejected in last week’s leadership election. If nothing else, the 44 MPs have served notice that the First Minister can no longer rely on the nodding-dog support to which she has been accustomed.

The problem is partly generational and partly political – not that the two things can easily be disentangled. Independence is a young person’s game. 70 per cent of under 34-year-olds in Scotland now support the Yes campaign. The rather patrician former investment banker Ian Blackford did not cut the right youthful dash. Indeed, he had allegedly committed the cardinal sin of being friendly with Tory MPs.

Younger nationalists are eager for action. They despair at Nicola Sturgeon’s gradualism even as they respect her qualities as a leader. The SNP’s activist base is intensely frustrated at the failure to secure a second referendum, which was to be provisionally scheduled for next October. Now, a majority of Scots have told Ipsos Mori that they now want one within the year. 

Sturgeon’s plan to turn the 2024 general election into a ‘de facto’ referendum is, moreover, fraught with difficulties. In particular, there is the question of whether the UK government would even recognise the result in the event that the SNP wins a majority of votes. After all, the Supreme Court has emphatically ruled out any referendum not authorised by Westminster.

Keir Starmer made clear last week that he would not recognise the de facto plebiscite which he said ‘defies common sense’. Nor of course would Rishi Sunak, should he remain in No. 10 after the general election.

The people with most at stake should the de facto ploy backfire are the SNP MPs in Westminster, who stand to lose their seats. They are prepared to sacrifice all for the cause of national liberation, but they may not wish to go down in a kamikaze electoral raid for no purpose.

Other aspects of policy have been frustrating, especially to new Westminster leader Stephen Flynn. He has been critical of the SNP policy on North Sea oil, reportedly describing it as ‘crazy’.  He even argued, initially, against a windfall tax on oil companies in case it damaged investment in the North Sea. Many of Flynn’s constituents owe their prosperity to the oil industry and believe it makes little sense to rely on imports of oil and gas from abroad, at greater cost to the environment, instead of developing Scotland’s own reserves.

Under pressure from the Scottish Greens, Nicola Sturgeon has opposed UK government plans to develop the Cambo oil and gas field off Shetland and the Jackaw gas field off Aberdeen. Flynn says he supports the ‘just transition’ to renewables but clearly believes the SNP is too hostile to fossil fuels at a time when many Scots cannot pay their bills.

It is not as if the SNP climate policy is in good shape right now. The Scottish government was censured this week by the influential Climate Change Committee for repeatedly failing to meet its own emissions targets. The SNP has also been forced to admit that its longstanding claim that Scotland has 25 per cent of Europe’s offshore wind protection is false. The true figure is 6 per cent. The SNP’s entire ‘green’ agenda is looking rather sick. On top of that, there is the chaos in the health service, rolling strikes and the endless row over ferry contracts. 

There is no profound ideological redirection being demanded by the new guard at Westminster. But they evidently feel there is an absence of grip at the top. No one dares to criticise the leader overtly, but there is much speculation about just how long Nicola Sturgeon will remain in charge nearly ten years after she entered Bute House.  

A generational change is taking place in the independence movement. A repeat referendum appears to be the settled will of Scots. Stephen Flynn looks to be spearheading a change of culture in the House of Commons, keen to prove to the party in Scotland that SNP MPs are not just ‘playing the Westminster game’.

Many in the SNP yearn to see a policy of parliamentary obstruction, like that pursued by Charles Stewart Parnell over a century ago in pursuit of Irish Home Rule. The youthful rebels will find, however, that parliament is far harder to disrupt today – partly because of the reforms that followed Parnell’s campaign. They’ll also find that leading the second largest party in the House of Commons is not as easy as it looks.