Smears, Lies and a Unionist Feverdream
Much focus has been laid on the Daily Telegraph’s disinformation promoting racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia in an attempt to smear the First Minister Humza Yousaf. The First Minister was forced to respond saying: “I don’t usually respond to smears against me or my family, but this story is so outrageous it requires a response. Most of my political life, I’ve battled insinuations from sections of the media desperate to link me to terrorism despite campaigning my whole life against it. The latest smear from the Telegraph is just a continuation of these Islamaphobic attacks. To be clear, the Scottish Government gave money to Gaza, like virtually every Government in the West, because of the unarguable humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded there.”
The inference was that Yousaf redirected funds in order to get his relatives released from Gaza. He responded: “UNRWA, of course, had nothing to do with my in-laws being able to leave Gaza. They were able to leave Gaza due to the hard work of the crisis team at the FCDO, like every other British national. The FCDO can of course confirm this. To suggest otherwise is a flat-out lie & smear.”
It’s good that such a crude smear has been widely called-out, and it is testimony to the paucity of the Unionist commentariat that they are reduced to this. But there are other media shenanigans going on worth attention. The Sunday Times is as disciplined as the Telegraph in its political focus, a relentless attack on anything that will articulate the case for independence.
Todays there’s a classic piece ‘Alex Salmond has a woman problem in Alba ‘vanity project’ in which the combined efforts of John Boothman, Kieran Andrews, and Alex Massie are employed. The aim of the piece is to elevate the Alba party in an attempt to disrail the SNP which this triumverate are raging are not falling in the opinion polls as they would like.
Apparently Alba’s recent resignations are a sign of great things to come. The trio explain: “It is three years since Alex Salmond broke with the SNP and established the Alba Party as an alternative to mainstream nationalism. Three years in which Alba has struggled for relevance and to be taken seriously. Electoral success has proven elusive and the contrast between the Salmond who bestrode Scottish politics in his pomp and the diminished marginal figure he now cuts is marked. And yet, hope is not all lost. Alba strategists believe the party’s moment of opportunity is only now emerging.”
Hope is not lost.
They go on: “Paradoxically, party insiders believe a week of turmoil inside Alba is also a moment at which a page may be turned. Having attracted a disparate crew of discontented nationalists, many of whom had little in common with one another save their eccentricity, Alba now believes it is on the brink of a newly professionalised era.”
Why would Boothman, Andrews and Massie have such hope in their hearts? Glossing over the internal carnage of the accusations of control and manipulation by the leadership and the resignation of high-profile people like Eva Comrie and Denise Findlay the Times top team explain: “A bitter controversy over the party’s position on sex and gender issues is the improbable starting point for this claimed moment of transformational opportunity.”
If you want an insight into the raging discontent within the Alba Party, you can read Iain Lawson’s ‘Requiem for a Dream’ blog here, which outlines the manner in which the accusations of control and top-down management exactly mirrors the very accusations Alba routinely makes of the SNP leadership.
The Times efforts to boost Alba are amusing.
“Party insiders insist there has been a “surge” of new members” they say and mysterious “Party sources” insist “that pro-independence donors who have tired of the SNP “are looking at Alba for somewhere to put money into” and that the party has already spent “a lot of money” upgrading election campaigning software.”
Multiple defections, we’re told are just around the corner, and magical plans are about to be announced. One such plan is to divide the nationalist movement between a supposedly socially conservative rural group and a progressive urban one. This is a Unionist feverdream.
The Times trio write:
The reason the multiple ‘imminent’ departures and defections the trio whisper about won’t happen is that Alba rarely bumps above 2% in the polls. No-one wants to defect to such an entity which is now imploding in a spasm of its own bigotry. A poll by Redfield and Wilton on August 9 put Alba on 1% of the vote for Holyrood voting intention.
The idea of a rural nationalist movement rising like a John Buchan novel manifesting itself – is a dream sustained only by the writers collective inability to make sense of contemporary Scotland.
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The green and alba rarely run on the constituency vote, so not surprised their vote is so low on that vote. If their vote is 1% on the list vote… that’s something else entirely
The first thing that alerted me that Humza as trouble for Scotland rather than just plain mediocre was his “white” speech, in which he spat out the word “white”. A strange thing to do in a country of almost 96% white skinned people. It was blatantly racist. Using a racism-industry approach to politics was very revealing? In a non-white country doing the reverse (as a white person), he’d have been lynched.
What complete bollocks SteveH. This is becoming really tiresome.
Stevie H is using this site to forward his alt right views blaming graduates, immigrants and other minorities regardless of content of article. He hopes to try and get his views aired and discussed rather than topic. It is becoming very tiresome and it is alsodiverting attention and discussion away from issues that are more relevant to 21st century Scotland.
Mike, steveh really is the classic epitome of the tiresome bigoted pub bore,more to be pitied and best ignored,i’m nearly in my 8th decade and have come across clowns like steveh all my life,as for all his bullshit and bluster he would not have lastet 5minutes in the Gorbals of my youth,we were a fantastic melting pot of people from scots, irish, jewish, and asians, one of my best friends mother was a survivor of a nazi death
camp so i certainly know fascist bigots when they crawl out of the woodwork,more power to your elbow Mike and never hesitate in calling out bigots!
Spot on, John!
Stick to GB News.
Totally out of context -weary of these misinterpretations
I’m not sure how the SNP’s support for the monarchy versus Alba’s republicanism is explained by this alleged polarisation on social conservatism. Thoughts?
I believe FM personally believes an independent Scotland should be a republic but not unreasonably considers this is a decision for Scottish electorate after independence. From what I have read this is not an uncommon position amongst SNP MP’s.
I am a republican who now supports independence but realise that as the FM of the devolved government in Scotland HY has constitutionally to acknowledge as he is acting as the representative of Holyrood and all residents in Scotland.
@John, I understand that, although ‘personal beliefs’ are worth even less than Keir Starmer’s pledges in politics. I don’t favour party politics and I don’t support either option for head of state, but my question is more on the topic of alleged social conservatism/progressiveness. Judging by the content of Alba’s (rather ropey and detail-light) website, their platform seems less conservative than the SNP’s. Which may be partly due to being out of power and having to represent change rather than continuity.
For example, they appear to want to legalise hemp, criminalise the purchase of sex, and get out of NATO (which the SNP wants to be in):
“The ALBA Party does not believe that Scotland should seek NATO membership.”
https://www.albaparty.org/defence
The SNP has also cosied up to the USAmerican Empire while Alba has been opposing the extradition of Julian Assange, who did much to expose USAmerican imperial crimes.
Perhaps it is more politically savvy to look at actual policies and proposals than use this broad-brush ‘socially conservative/progressive’ binary labelling (the Times article was behind a paywall, didn’t read). I think the recent experience of the Irish referendum (maybe worth an article?) suggests that this is an unhelpful framing.
Finally, for the love of accessibility, when will Bella get round to using blockquotes?!? I mean, it doesn’t actually scream ‘socially progressive’, ye ken.
Any mass independence movement has to be a bit of a broad church as the primary motivation is a democratic one.
I will be very surprised if many independence supporters support every policy of SNP – I do not. They are however a broadly left of centre by current UK parties, more so than all other major parties. This is probably more in line with where electorate in Scotland stand than any other party.
I support independence because I believe it will be democratically better for Scotland and lead to a fairer, more prosperous country than remaining in UK.
To achieve independence there needs to be a strong, unified independence movement representing many strands of Scottish society. There also requires to be a strong political party to achieve independence. Are the SNP perfect – far from it.
Have the SNP stumbled a bit in last few years – a bit.
Alba is in existence partly due to disillusionment with SNP party management and personal differences and egos.
In the last 25 years SNP have gone from a minority party to the majority party in Scotland while support for independence has doubled. Within the current political system there is no realistic way of achieving independence in foreseeable future (20 years) without a strong SNP. I would suggest that the failure of Alba to garner any significant support would indicate the vast majority of independence support are aware of this political reality.
@John, well I certainly agree with your ‘broad church’ point. Having a more diverse representation among independence parties should make for more interesting and productive discussions in parliaments, instead of culture wars with unionists or the SNP–Green partnership fearing to attack one another.
As other commenters have pointed out, Bella seems to take delight in excoriating Alba (not without reason) but fails to apply the same standards to the Scottish Greens, who have had similar pogroms and personality-led party politics. Which is really remarkable, given the efforts the England+Wales Greens have gone to avoid leadership becoming cemented and centralised. That there may be a perceived narrowness of the Scottish Green platform, and a history of appeasing corporations, is another source of frustration for voters who want more radical change.
Party politics and disillusionment are perhaps inevitably bonded. I was listening to a piece by Peter Oborne today, who was criticising the kind of modern party management that enforces such narrowness, compared to the Labour Party of Harold Wilson, which was possibly a broader church than several of the main parties combined these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_government,_1964–1970
And of course the funding of parties by the super-rich to influence (and in some areas, control) policy.
Have the Scottish Greens had high level resignations from founding members this week? I must have missed that. But I agree that all the parties suffer (to greater or lesser extents) from the same issues of centralisation and control that is the malady of all parties.
But the story was more about how the Unionist press act so crudely to boost Alba (a party they hate) in order to split the independence movement – and how transparent that is.
@Editor, that may indeed be the Unionist press’ primary intention, but there are obviously already divisions in the Independence movement. Perhaps the Unionist press is trying to set up Alba as a fake ‘radical flank’ in order to narrow the Overton Window on what is deemed acceptable in the movement, so it can ignore anything more radical beyond Alba that might have popular appeal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_flank_effect
What in their discourse do they not want the public to consider as a possible social-political-economic system in an Independent Scotland (that may throw the existing UK in a more negative light)? It would be ironic if Unionists believed that unity was a weakness, of course, and that a real radical flank (not Alba) would energise the Independence movement.
It doesn’t even make sense in its own terms. The idea that Alba would Balkanise Scotland by creating a Highland region and divide Scotland is gibberish. My thinking is they are desperate seeing the SNP holding up in the polls and are raging.
Alba is associated heavily with Salmond. That is why it will always get a slagging here. I understand wanting to cling to the SNP as the only show in town but it is blinkered. The unionist angle is a side show, not the main event but if you want to cite that then the SNP themselves keep leaving own goal after own goal for them and that is far more important than any that Alba leave open. And as for centralisation and lack of internal democracy, the SNP they have an appalling record post-Salmond which again is much more significant than Alba’s troubles. There is a real problem of balance here.
Criticism of Alba does not mean ‘clinging to the SNP’. This does not make sense.
“as for centralisation and lack of internal democracy, the SNP they have an appalling record post-Salmond” – true and during Salmond’s time in charge too.
The Greens, SSP and other small parties support independence but it is not their raisin d’etre. This plurality is beneficial to independence movement and it would be great to see one of the major political parties in Scotland make this move.
The difference with Alba is that like the SNP their primary aim is independence. They are in direct competition to SNP and the motivation for this seems to have as much to do with personalities and thwarted ambition as achieving independence.
The SNP are not perfect and should not be immune to criticism. They are over centralised both in organisation and governance. Many of us would like to see a decentralised independent Scotland and will vote for that when independence is achieved. We also recognise that setting one region of Scotland against an other is a political tactic of opponents to independence which the newspaper article being discussed demonstrates.
@John, and yet, is humanist politics ever really pluralistic enough? Should we not be aiming for Whole Earth rather than Broad Church? An ambition to represent the living planet in governance? Should we be thinking in terms of relations between bioregions and decentralisation exploding outwith Scotland’s borders to embrace the diverse interests and health of the entire world, for now and all foreseeable future?
Sorry Mike, from here in Wester Ross, where we are being deliberately de-funded and depopulated by the SNP and Greens, and the LibDems are campaigning hard on the very issues you refer to, Alba does indeed look appealing.
The truth is that the SNP and the Scottish Government are indeed ‘a metropolitan elite out of touch with the ‘real people’ of Scotland, the salt of the earth rural folk’. It’s actually true.
Scotland has always been divided and ruled by splitting the urban from the rural, the Highlander from the Lowlander. This is nothing new. But if you want the highlands islands to be part of an independent Scotland you need to treat us with at least some respect and listen to us.
People here are increasingly angry at the way we have been betrayed by the SNP and Greens. The LibDems are of course doing their best, as they always do, to use this to try to turn us all into Unionists. Their candidate has been flooding us with junk mail and articles in the local press saying he’ll stand up for us. He was there at this week’s community council meeting, and people were listening. And our SNP Highland Councillor just sat there in silence and looked miserable..
Far from splitting the Yes vote, Alba is our only hope of keeping it alive. Instead of attacking Alba, you should be supporting them and all flavours of indy voices. You need to be aware of how deeply the SNP a Greens have alienated the Highlands and Islands – and indeed all the so-called ‘remote rural’ areas. The Scottish and UK governments have even combined Ian Blackford’s constituency with Inverness so there will in future be a permanent urban majority here. All our public services are being defunded and run down in a process of managed decline and depopulation of the supposedly ‘remote’ areas. We are told it’s much ‘cheaper’ to deliver services in urban areas. Every single frontline public service, from medical care to schools to roads maintenance and the courts, is being withdrawn. The only investment is in ‘tourism infrastructure’ for destructive mass tourism ( drive through motorhomes or cruise ships) that destroy our economy. Any attempt to raise concerns is met with a wall of silence and a flat refusal to engage.
It all reminds Highlanders of the clearances. This is no way to win our votes!
But then of course, our votes are too few, too poor, too wee, too stupid, too ‘socially conservative’ etc to matter at all.
An independent Scotland has to work for and represent the Highlands and Islands too.
So I say, good for Alba. They do have a message that will resonate here and they might be the only way to save the Yes vote here. We don’t want a Government at any level that talks down to us, treats us with contempt or tries to impose a particular (urban) view of what an independent Scotland will look like It is counter-productive. If plays into Unionist hands. We need the Yes movement to sink its differences and work together. Power with beats power over.
There’s a real danger that the Highlands and Islands will be persuaded that rule from London could hardly be worse than rule from Edinburgh. Since we are losing our rural MP here in Wester Ross perhaps the SNP will laugh it off. However, people here, across the social spectrum, are pretty sick of both Scottish and UK governments. And sick of all the mainstream political parties, the SNP included. Like Labour (and here, LibDems) before them they cannot just assume loyalty while betraying people.
The long history here of ethnic cleansing and outright oppression has not been forgotten and it runs deep. We have long since lost any local democracy and our cultural heritage and voices continue to be silenced at every level. The Highlands are promoted by Visit Scotland as a wilderness playground fir urban peiple to escape to – just as they have been for over 200 years. It’s still the Cheviot the Stag and the Black Black Oil.
But from the Land League and the Crofter Wars, Highlanders have stood up for themselves and that won’t change. We are pretty sick of all the major parties. I could never vote for any of them. If not Alba, it will have to be independent candidates in future. And expect a great increase in community level activity. If we have to provide our own services we will. It seems that no-one else will. We will NOT be moved to urban areas and see our land ‘re-wilded’ into the wild west where corporate greed can exploit and destroy it for private profit with nobody to object. If this goes on, there is going ro be trouble, and not just for the Yes movement.
Personally I’d like to see complete independence for the Kingdom / Lordship of the Isles (including the Earldom of Ross). We are to modern Scotland much as Wales is to England: effectively independent until the 16th c. I can see Caithness, Orkney and Shetland feeling much the same way. The Highlands and Islands would be better served by abandoning both the UK and the Central belt and renewing our historical and cultural links with Norway and Ireland.
A lot of wild assertions there about what ‘Highlanders’ think and want and none of them consistent with polling. Where do the Highlands begin anyway ?
Remind me, whatever happened to the Highlands and Islands Alliance that contested the first Scottish parliamentary elections?
In the 2021 Holyrood elections, Alba got 3,828 votes on the Highlands and Islands Regional List. The SNP got 96,433 and the Scottish Green Party got 17,729. Where does that leave your argument?
The Times’s Scottish section serves up a daily diet of ‘this is another bad thing, it must be the SNP’s fault’, mainly, it seems, for the delectation of their dedicated below-the-line haters of anything that isn’t dyed-in-the-wool Unionism. Today, as well as the fantasy political analysis Mike describes, which must have completely exhausted the imaginations of its three contributors, there is an article on ‘how the SNP backed the wrong horse in the Scottish space race’ and another one that seems to argue that sectarian bigotry of the orange kind is all the SNP’s fault. This is pretty desperate stuff but presumably the thinking is, if you keep nat-bashing for long enough everybody will come round to your way of thinking.
James – it is desperate stuff but I think it betrays how scared the unionist establishment and media are of independence. This fear is due to knowing deep down that Westminster is failing Scotland (and most of the UK), independence support being around 50% with higher support amongst younger voters and knowing that SNP are the political vehicle for independence.
They have had some success with resignation of NS, who they were very afraid of, and lowered SNP support but with independence support not falling they are still very fearful. Hence the continuing onslaught on SNP.
Chortle! Boothman, Andrews and Massie is such a dream team, but surely they are encroaching on Kenny Farquharson’s turf?
I suppose that a tin-pot fan club for Britain’s most unpopular politician holds a certain fascination. Thanks for highlighting how odd the Daily Telegraph can be at the moment.