Are they the SNP Sacrificial Lambs?

There was a time when it was said that SNP MPs were going to Westminster to find a way to lose their jobs. It was called settling up, not settling down, a phrase first coined in the early days of the election of SNP MPs and often repeated as a promise (by those seeking election) or an accusation (by those unhappy with their MP’s performance).

Of course, these days are long gone and very few (very, very few) SNP MPs are now prepared to sacrifice their position, their salary and their virtually unlimited expenses just to trigger Scottish independence. Out of the Union or still in a job, there’s really no choice, is there? When you can make all that money and all you have to sacrifice is your country’s freedom, why would you turn down the cash?

“There’s no such thing as society”. So said Margaret Thatcher, and the majority of the SNP MPs seem to be hell-bent on proving that it’s true with their obvious concentration on their own careers, their own positions, and, above all, their own incomes.

But wait. Has something unexpected happened? Have SNP MPs at last found a cause for which they are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, risking all that money for which virtually no work is required? It certainly seems like it.

So, what is this cause that so many MPs are prepared to put their futures on the line, prepared to bet £350k annually on a winner takes all gamble.

They’re enthusiastically supporting a three-way bet on GRRB, Hate Crimes and Jury free trials for sex crimes, and at the moment, it looks like their gamble is going to fail.

They’ve found out that the majority of their constituents are solidly against all three, but that hasn’t caused them to have any sort of rethink. The recent by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton saw the SNP vote fall from 23,775 to 8,399, a fall of almost 65%, but initial reaction from the party doesn’t show any signs of a rethink either. In fact, if anything, the opposite seems to be the case. What they say their loss was due to was Margaret Ferrier, the low turnout, or tactical voting by Tories for Labour. OK, I know parties always blame someone or something else for a defeat, but when combined with no obvious effort to change what they must realise is the basic cause of the problem, it doesn’t bode well.

The only change in SNP rhetoric is the much more frequent mention of independence, though that’s not a surprise. One thing that can virtually be depended on is the party highlighting the advantages of independence as the election looms while, of course, continuing to do nothing to make independence a practical reality and then forgetting all about it once the election is over. The one time they tried to ignore independence before the election, in 2017, they lost half a million votes and 21 seats, so they haven’t repeated the mistake (or haven’t up till now). Unfortunately, they are now finding out that mere mentions of independence, combined with absolutely no effort to make it happen and further combined with a set of policies that only their payroll support is no longer going to cut it.

There have been some changes at Westminster. Steven Flynn, the Westminster leader, has been shuffling his front bench team to concentrate on the issues which he believes will stem the flow of support in next year’s UK election. However, astonishingly, he has chosen to remove all emphasis from independence in favour of today’s issues like energy prices and the cost of living, effectively blaming independence on the disaster of Rutherglen and Hamilton West. Does he not realise that the majority of SNP voters support independence? Does he not remember what happened in 2017 at a time when SNP support nationally was much higher than now? Has he not read the SNP constitution? Without independence, the SNP are just another British party content with devolution and if they no longer enthuse the independence vote, they will fail.

Support for the SNP throughout Scotland is now much lower than last year. In May, 2022, support for the SNP in a Westminster election was 44%, rising to a high of 51% in December. There’s only been one Scottish Westminster poll this month, a YouGov poll conducted between 2nd and 6th, so the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election would have had some impact on the outcome.

If this was the result in next year’s UK election, the SNP would lose 24 of their current 43 seats, a number they’ve already managed to reduce from 48 through a combination of independence inactivity (Neale Hanvey and Kenny MacAskill) and a desire to purge the party of anyone who wants independence (Margaret Ferrier and Angus MacNeil). Feeding the poll numbers into the Electoral Calculus’s seat predictor gives the following:

Image courtesy of Electoral Calculus

The SNP’s pursuit of Margaret Ferrier resulted in the recall petition and their virtual wipe-out in the by-election, something that wouldn’t have happened if Nicola Sturgeon hadn’t been so desperate to get rid of her that she started a witch-hunt eagerly taken up by the rest of the SNP wokies. Only the SNP’s support for her removal kept the issue in the public eye. Without that, the issue would have died following a few obligatory complaints by the opposition parties. As it was, Margaret Ferrier was punished three times for one offence, suspension from Parliament, a community service order from the court and the loss of her job, all for an offence for which virtually no members of other parties were punished.

So, is next year’s UK election going to be more of the same from the SNP? Will they tell us about all the good things that only independence can bring? Will they present the us with what remains of their stock of tired, mouldy old carrots, recycled from 2019, 2017 and 2015 and still expect us to be just as accepting as we were when the carrots were fresh? Do they really think that a lesser emphasis on independence plus the continuation of unquestioning support for highly unpopular policies aimed at destroying the rights of women and children are going to lead to electoral success?

Are all the MPs that stupid (hint, some are) or is this just part of some grand woke plan to get rid of the few remaining semi-sensible ones to guarantee a continuation of the woke dream for years to come?

Is this what the so-called leaders of the independence movement have come to?

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