It seems the SNP’s prospects are as gloomy as the Granite City. Day one of the nationalists’ shindig in Aberdeen has already seen a range of, er, unorthodox contributions made on the main stage. It turns out that there are people madder than the SNP politicians: the party’s membership. From furious talk of ‘treason’ to a star turn from an SNP activist who recently launched a leadership bid to topple Humza Yousaf, it’s been another stellar outing for the self-identifying ‘natural party of government’.
Today’s members’ discussion was focused on – what else? – independence. Lowlights included both independence minister Jamie Hepburn and Scotland’s First Minister being forced to defend their current approach as not ‘flatulence in a trance’, in the words of one delegate. Talk about hot air…
And if that wasn’t strange enough, an SNP activist used the rest of his time on the main stage to call for economic anarchy:
We must become ungovernable, we must make the economic and social cost of keeping Scotand in the union greater than the cost of letting us go. In short, we must be willing to adopt a fully treasonous attitude towards Westminster.
Put that on a camper van. A chronic lack of sanity wasn’t just confined to the delegates. Veteran MP Pete Wishart, a man who has never met a camera he didn’t like, told his party’s conference that the best approach is ‘all about realism’ before pondering aloud whether the SNP is ‘scared of success’. Given the calibre of the current frontbench, that’s not a bad shout actually Pete…
But today’s big news is, of course, the SNP’s brand new, shiny independence strategy which very much looks like the strategy of old. Members voted in favour of the party beginning independence negotiations if the SNP wins a ‘majority’ of 29 or more seats at the next general election. That’s despite the party winning a respective 56, 35 and 48 seats at the last three contests and negotiations with Westminster remaining very much closed throughout that time.
Sadly, it seems a decreasing number of nationalists are willing to listen to hapless Humza’s increasingly desperate attempts to hold his party together. Steerpike’s spies tell him that the conference hall attendance was down on last year, with audience applause notably more muted. We really do seem to be witnessing the dying days of the SNP. Couldn’t happen to a nicer party eh?
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