[A-List] Scotland: SNP disintegration, SSP intervention

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

That John McAllion lost his parliamentary seat can hardly be put down to the
SSP standing aside on his behalf, unless we are to believe that this somehow
tainted McAllion beyond the tolerance levels of the electorate. All sorts of
rumours concerning the deliberate sabotage of McAllion's campaign by his own
party have not been properly investigated, and no wonder -- if even
partially true, they would provide a much more convincing account of why
McAllion, a very popular local MP (who originally unseated the very popular
former SNP leader Gordon Wilson), should have lost.

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SNP conference: Battle to keep healthy membership rolls  ROBBIE DINWOODIE
and MURRAY RITCHIE
The Herald, September 24 2003

TOMMY Sheridan taunted the SNP leadership last night, urging dissident
nationalists to defect to his Scottish Socialist Party if they wanted to do
more than just "swop flags and anthems".

The SSP leader will join Alex Neil, the SNP MSP, at a meeting on Friday on
the fringe of the party conference in Inverness to speak in favour of the
proposed independence convention, based on the constitutional convention
which led to home rule.

Mr Swinney is to snub the meeting and will press on with his own plan for a
referendum bill.

Mr Sheridan told Nationalists critical of Mr Swinney: "If you want to be
part of a radical, left-wing, pro-independence party, join the SSP."

He said he was opening the SSP's door to those wanting to go farther than
"just swopping flags and anthems", and taunted Mr Swinney, claiming: "The
SNP no longer has exclusive ownership of the cause of independence. And on
its own, the SNP cannot achieve
independence."

Both the SSP and SNP favour an independence referendum. Mr Swinney wants his
bill within three years of a coalition for independence controlling
Holyrood. Mr Sheridan believes the convention could by that time have drawn
up an independence blueprint and that a referendum could be organised
"within weeks".

Mr Sheridan said he would not rule out electoral pacts against Unionist
candidates from Labour, Tory, and Liberal Democrat parties.

"It is not our position just now but there is a case sometimes for someone
standing down in favour of another candidate," he said.

He cited Strathkelvin and Bearsden, a supposedly safe Labour seat, where
Jean Turner, the hospitals campaigner, won after the SSP stood down.
However, he conceded the idea had backfired in Dundee West when John
McAllion, the independence-friendly, left-wing Labour MSP, lost.

Some Nationalists favour targeting Unionists and believe Mr Sheridan would
win Glasgow Pollok from Labour if the SNP stood down, while the SNP could
win Glasgow Govan if the SSP stood down.

An SNP-SSP understanding seems unlikely in the current climate. Recent
hostilities included the Scottish Socialists goading Mr Swinney about SNP
membership allegedly slumping to 8000, which prompted him to break his
party's normal reticence and lay claim to a figure of double that.

But, to paraphrase David Blunkett's comment earlier in the week on the
number of illegal immigrants in the UK, Mr Swinney probably "doesn't have a
clue" about the precise number of members the SNP actually has.

All he can know is the aggregate total claimed by local branches, which are
responsible for recruiting and maintaining members and collecting
subscriptions. As in all parties, some members drift out of involvement and
others join, but as this is logged locally in the SNP, the overall picture
is difficult to track.

The SNP leader believes that holding the records and collecting
subscriptions centrally through standing orders makes sense, and will enable
the party to create a modern recruitment strategy. He said: "Central
administration is about efficient recruitment and retention of members, it
is as simple as that."

But while a centrally organised membership system is seen as simple modern
logistics by the Swinney camp, it is painted as a sinister tool of control
by Bill Wilson, his challenger.

Dr Wilson sees any centralised membership system as being in conflict with
what he sees as the party's democratic tradition, which he is convinced is
"decentralised, democratic, and healthy".

The flow of information, he argues, would become controlled from central
office, he argues, and members would hear a narrower range of views by
having them "prescribed, top-down from headquarters".

The reality is that across the developed world it has never been harder to
recruit people to active political involvement and keep them engaged.

There is no doubt that a decade ago the student political scene was more
active than it is now and, as a result, the visible age profile at party
conferences has risen. The SNP is not immune from that.