[A-List] Scotland: SNP disarray over Iraq

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

The SNP is a bourgeois party, and always has been. Under the leadership of
Alex Salmond, however, it stood out on a number of crucial issues that
marked it out as courageous, not least over the Kosovo bombing campaign in
1999. Swinney's leadership seems to have been relatively inept, although I
strongly suspect some vigorous background undermining going on courtesy of
agents provocateurs of the Sillars-type who are intent upon pursuing
interests inimical to their declared objective of an independent Scotland.
That leaves us free to draw our own conclusions regarding their sincerity. I
don't know anything about this Smyth character, but his contribution seems,
at the very least, a foolish intervention, given the media interest in SNP
disarray (an interest fed and nurtured by the Scottish Labour apparatus,
with which the media has a rather cosy relationship -- after all, for a
while Jack McConnell was employed by pr firm Beattie Media, whose lobbying
of the Scottish Parliament was the institution's first bona fide scandal.).
But it also reflects the sort of pathetic grasp of current affairs that
afflicts the SNP post-Salmond. Of course anyone with any sense would try to
use the upcoming euro vote as a protest against what is going on in Iraq.
The sheer enormity of this, and the British state's pathological prostration
before US diktat, make it extremely relevant as an issue in the European
parliament election campaign. To denounce the SSP's wholly correct stance as
"negative campaigning" or "not intellectually satisfying" is simply the most
degraded, wimpish and spineless "centrism" that could be imagined at a time
when British, including Scottish troops, are implicated in an illegal,
bloody, and grotesque occupation.

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War comments open crack in SNP polls strategy
TOM GORDON, Scottish Political Correspondent
The Herald, May 13 2004

JOHN Swinney's strategy for the European elections was undermined by one of
the SNP's own candidates yesterday, who said voters should not use the
occasion to protest over Iraq.

Alyn Smith, who is ranked second on the SNP list and is expected to become
an MEP on June 10, said he did not believe the poll should be seen as a
referendum on the war and its aftermath.

Rival parties pounced on the remarks, saying they flatly contradicted Mr
Swinney's own tactics for the elections.

In March, the SNP leader hosted a press conference under the heading "Euro
Elections to be referendum on Iraq lies".

Although the council tax and fishing were also part of the SNP's campaign,
he said "above all else" it should be a referendum on Tony Blair's record in
Iraq.
However, at a hustings held by Edinburgh University's Politics Society, Mr
Smith took a different line.

Reacting to a call by Felicity Garvie, a candidate for the Scottish
Socialist party, to focus on Iraq in the election, he said: "I don't
subscribe to the view that you use your vote on June 10 as a protest against
a foreign war."

Mr Smith yesterday reaffirmed his position to The Herald, adding: "If people
want to turn the European elections into a protest vote that's their
democratic right, but it's not intellectually satisfying.

"I don't subscribe to that view. But if people are going to vote for us as a
protest vote then we will take that vote."

He acknowledged there was "a difference of emphasis" between himself and Mr
Swinney on the issue, but denied he was at odds with party policy and said
his remarks were aimed at the SSP.

However, other parties pointed out that the criticisms could equally apply
to the SNP's own strategy.

A Labour spokesman said: "This further weakens John Swinney's leadership.
Campbell Martin (the rebel MSP) said Swinney should go and they suspended
him for six months.

"Can we expect Mr Smith to receive the same treatment for describing him as
intellectually unsatisfactory?"

Struan Stevenson, the lead Tory candidate in the elections, added: "We will
be concentrating on fighting Scotland's cause and Scotland's corner. The SNP
seem more interested in fighting among themselves than addressing the real
issues facing Scotland."

An SSP spokesman added: "This appears to be at variance with John Swinney's
pledge to make the European elections a referendum on the Iraq war. We were
somewhat taken aback that the SNP's candidate should so openly contradict
his leader."

Mr Smith is a commercial lawyer who previously worked in the SNP's central
research unit.

An SNP spokesman dismissed talk of a split between Mr Smith and Mr Swinney
as nonsense. "Alyn agrees totally with what John said in March. He was just
reacting to the complete negativity of the SSP's campaign. The SNP has a
very positive vision for this campaign."