Jim Sillars: SNP's '˜cult of personality' led to tragedy engulfing party

The SNP placed too much power in the hands of Alex Salmond and then Nicola Sturgeon, writes the party's former deputy leader Jim Sillars

Allegations that Alex Salmond sexually harassed two women have been followed by an outbreak of civil war between two factions in the SNP (Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images)

A tragedy is engulfing the SNP from the conduct of the Salmond and Sturgeon warring factions. The previous basis of public support, competence, judgment and stability, is laid bare as bogus. A tragedy that was inevitable.

While Alex Salmond, John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon must shoulder a great deal of the blame, so must the party membership which has been happily complicit in its own emasculation and its contribution to the cult of the personalities.

Political parties play a significant role in a democracy, and getting right the balance of power and influence between the parliamentary wing and the membership is a difficult but necessary task. In the parliamentary forum, the MSPs and MPs, especially when in government, have to respond daily to issues that arise, and have to do so on their own judgment at the time. Inevitably, they will claim the greater power compared to the party membership. But it is foolish for them to claim all power, because the membership has talent and opinions too, and is a useful corrective when a parliamentary bubble is created in which MSPs and MPs live in a world not necessarily connected to the real one.

All power is what the leadership of Salmond, Swinney and Sturgeon have taken. The SNP as a party is controlled by its leadership now in a way never experienced before the creation of the Holyrood parliament. The annual conference is a travesty of a policy-making body. More like a low-grade US convention where the leader could recite “Mary had a little lamb” and get a standing ovation. Party members, MSPs and MPs know this to be true, but have done nothing to correct this gross imbalance of power. In pre-Holyrood times, the National Executive Committee was the power centre. Last Saturday, with the party facing a crisis, the leader didn’t bother to turn up at an NEC meeting.

It will be a long way back for the party out of this mess, which begs the question of what therefore lies ahead for the wider independence movement which has relied so heavily upon the electoral success of the SNP? We should not kid ourselves. The SNP and independence have been so conjoined that problems with the former damage the latter. The only answer now is to build the Yes movement as an entity in its own right, with its own strength not dependent on the SNP.