The SNP Cursed by The Strong Leader Fallacy
“Strong leaders” gain acolytes and adulation. They dominate their colleagues and policy-making, and become immune to any serious criticism.
Part 1
Humza has gone as First Minister. There is a mess to be cleared up. This first part is about how the SNP got into the mess. It is a salutary tale, which requires us to go back to the days when, for the first time in the party’s history, it embraced the Strong Leader Fallacy, which led, again for the first time, the development of the cult of personality around the leader – Alex Salmond.
I left the deputy leadership in 1992, to seek work, after being defeated in the general election. That left Alex Salmond without any serious counterweight in the party. By the annual conference in 1993 two journalists, Joanne Robertson and Peter Jones, noted: ‘A jubilant Alex Salmond stamped his personal authority on the Scottish National Party yesterday by publicly ordering party dissidents to shut up.’ That trend of single authority, brooking no opposition, became entrenched over the years. By the 1998 conference, the headline over journalist Iain MacWhirter’s report was: ‘Cult of personality is the only show in town.’
“Strong leaders” gain acolytes and adulation. They dominate their colleagues and policy-making, and become immune to any serious criticism. In Alex Salmond’s case the classic example was his “common currency” proposal in the White Paper he produced for the 2014 independence referendum. He was oblivious to a stark reality those not in his fan club knew: that a common currency, like a dance such as a tango, needs two to agree; and that if one says no, then it cannot happen. The Westminster Chancellor sized the chance and said no. Collapse of policy, and defeat in the first, and seminal debate, televised debate with Alastair Darling.
No collegiate policy-making group could have failed to see that glaring error before the White Paper was published. But in the Strong Leader fallacy, only the leader counts.
It’s the Constitution Stupid
In the years leading up to 2014 and afterwards, unnoticed by commentators, and not understood by card carrying members, the SNP as a party became completely subordinate to the leadership by changes to practice and changes to the constitution. What had once been one of the most democratic structures, where the leadership’s accountability to the members existed, were no longer operative. The annual conference went from a serious debating forum to a happy- clappy event where, as I once joked, the leader could recite Mary had a little lamb, and get a standing ovation.
The membership became docile followers, intellectually hollowed out, and learned to do as they were told by a leadership in complete control of the conference and the National Executive, with the leader in the final stages of non-accountability appointing the person to chair it. Game set and match came when Nicola Sturgeon, a Salmond acolyte, became leader with her husband Peter Murrell as the party Chief Executive. With him in charge of the machine, she took the Strong Leader Fallacy to a new dimension. Her coronation was celebrated with a Hollywood style jamboree at the Glasgow Hydro, with 12,000 men and women acting like groupies while she stood alone on a spotlighted platform, with a giant NICOLA in the background, as one newspaper wrote, like Kylie Minoque, Beyonce and Lady Gaga before her. In the following Westminster election, although not a candidate, the people were asked when voting to do it for Nicola. Usually, political parties say they want to do it for the people.
From then on a two person family controlled the party, carefully vetting candidates to ensure they knew how to toe the line; while one person, the Imperious Nicola, ran the government and created her own group of adulatory acolytes as Ministers, and special advisers.
There Could Only Be One Strong Leader
Nicola had a potential problem, however, in the shape of the other Strong Leader, Alex Salmond. He had not gone away, but fortunately he was out of the Scottish parliament and an MP at Westminster. A safe distance from Holyrood, it seemed to give her a clear field of control.
Then Salmond lost his seat as an MP, and the assumption was that he would stand again for the Scottish Parliament. Salmond on the backbenches, still the commanding figure in the party? Two Strong Leaders cannot co-exist. Nicola’s premier position had to be protected. Bring Salmond down was the answer.
Salmond when First Minister had misbehaved in a sexual manner, in Bute House, with female career civil servants. He subsequently apologised to them, with apology accepted. A sleeping dog that was best left to rest. But it was kicked into life when Nicola and the Permanent Secretary initiated a new policy on conduct, and made it retrospective, thereby catching Salmond in the net. He was now subject to a Scottish government internal inquiry on the conduct he had already apologised for.
But, if the purpose was to bring Salmond down, that would not be possible if, as it should have been, the inquiry remained a confidential internal matter within the Scottish government, with Salmond’s apology a matter of record. The answer was to leak the reason for the inquiry to the Daily Record and expose and fatally damage Salmond. Once the Record published, Salmond resigned from the party. His legal fight-back, his win at the Court of Session, the subsequent action taken to lodge a criminal complaint about him to the Crown Office, his trial and acquittal on all nine counts, need not be detailed here, because the only relevant matter in this analysis of the party is that the original objective – the elimination of Salmond within the SNP, had been achieved. There could only be, and there was, only one Strong Leader, Nicola Sturgeon.
The importance of this mini-Game of Thrones is that it was fought entirely within the confines of the SNP in the Scottish Parliament, not the within the party. The parliamentary party and she who controlled it, while her husband “managed” the members, was where all power lay – and therein was the reason Nicola ultimately failed, as has her successor. There was no balance of power between the Party and the Parliamentary party. No voices came from below where the people lived day-to-day lives and were in daily touch with their fellow citizens. The leadership came to live in world of its own making, and the wake-up call when it came, came too late.
No One Noticed That The Party Had Been Relegated
The power balance between the party per se and the parliamentary leadership is a matter no one has given attention to, despite it being crucial to the parliamentary leadership exercising good judgement, and why its judgement was anything but good.
When a party has only a few elected representatives, the party is dominant in decision-making. Take the example of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. There were four SNP MPs then. I was foreign affairs spokesman. I was in favour of using military force to expel him from Kuwait. At the National Executive meeting, the majority were strongly against going to war against Saddam. Not that they liked the man, but were opposed to war. I, not they, was going to be the person on the spot in the House of Commons debate. I had to offer the NEC compromise: that I could state my own opinion in the debate, but the group would abstain on the vote to endorse war. In the debate there was a contraction between what I said and yet not voting. Something George Galloway took pleasure in pointing out. I had to live with what the balance of power required.
But when a large parliamentary group is formed, as happened when the SNP gained 35 MSPs in the first election for the Scottish Parliament in 1999, the balance had to tip towards the parliamentary party. They had to make day-to-day decisions, they had to respond to events, and it was not possible to consult the National Executive, representing the members, as circumstances emerged that called for quick response.
While that shift should have meant an adjustment to the party’s role in having a say and being able to challenge and criticise the leadership and parliamentary party, it was total. The party’s role was eliminated for all practical purposes. And it is in that failure to realise a balance was necessary and wise, that today’s mess has its origins.
Adjusting the Balance Of Power: A Lesson From History
There is an interesting historical comparison when we look at the Labour Party, of which I was once a member. In the 1935 election, Labour started a recovery from the catastrophe that ensued when Ramsay MacDonald, then the Prime Minister in a minority Labour Government, ditched the party and entered a National Government, which slaughtered Labour in the subsequent elections. Labour went from 52 seats in 1931 to 154 in 1935.
After 1931, because of the experience with MacDonald, the leader who betrayed the movement, the balance of power swung back to the party. That did not change in 1935. The memories and lessons of 1931 remained. When Churchill asked Attlee to join his coalition government, Attlee had to consult and get approval from the National Executive. Later, after victory in Europe in World War II, Churchill wanted the coalition to continue until the Japanese were defeated. Again, Attlee had to ask the NEC. It told him no, we want an election, and that is what he conveyed to Churchill.
The election produced a Labour landslide (393 seats) and the balance of power shifted again, back to the parliamentary party and its leadership. But unlike in the SNP, the Labour party had strong independent institutions: the trade unions, vibrant politically switched on local and constituency branches who engaged in political education, and an NEC that had powers and was willing to use them. There was, therefore, a sensible balance of power. The Party’s National Executive, and its General Secretary, had to be taken into account, and listened to, by the government. That remained the case until Tony Blair. He changed the practices and constitution, and diminished the role of the party. Today, Starmer can do as he likes.
Part 2
How is the mess to be addressed successfully?
The Government
The new SNP leader faces a double problem. The government needs to be reconstructed, and simultaneously the party needs brought back to life, able to contribute to policy, campaign to build support for independence, and feel free to criticise the leadership when necessary.
If the new leader tries personally to tackle both problems at once, it will sap energy and deflect from what should be the first priority – clearing up the mess that is the government, and addressing what are the people’s priorities, not gender, but education, the economy, NHS, jobs that pay.
That will have to be done as a government just one short of a majority, assuming the Alba MSP will support them. Even if she won’t, such a minority government is easier than the dismal jimmies are suggesting. There are four opposition parties. Skilful engineering of the budget, where you build-in room for negotiating, means you only need to reel in one to abstain, and the budget goes through
With legislation, again if you pick the right priorities, you can make it impossible for at least one of the opposition to vote you down. For example a bill for more housebuilding would put Labour on the spot; help for the small business community would do the same for the Tories. The Libdems are located in Highlands and Islands, and they can be invited to contribute ideas on how to deliver public services to their constituents. If the opposition don’t like to be seen supporting you, you get them into an abstention position. The skill is in ensuring you never give all four opposition parties a joint reason to vote against you.
On top of what you can manage on the budget and legislation, the Scottish Government has enormous executive power, based on all the laws already on the statute book. Executive powers were what Alex Salmond used when his first government was in a much smaller minority than today, when there were only 47 SNP MSPs in a 129 seat parliament.
The Party
If the new leader wants no change in the constitution which gives him/her complete control of the party, the SNP will have elected a fool, with a price to be paid again in future. A wise leader will appoint a group drawn from those with a long hinterland in the party, who know the value that was inherent in the original constitution, both in terms of internal democracy and accountability of the leader and office bearers, taking account that we now have MPs and MSPs. The remit should be to review and recommend changes to the present constitution to restore democracy and accountability; review and recommend internal management structures, including which if any executive official should be appointed or elected. I am not a candidate for the review group. There are a number of other people of experience and ability, with a long record of membership and service who could undertake this task.
Leaving the review group to attend to the party would allow the new leader as First Minister to concentrate on getting the government onto a competent level. A competent SNP government is the best thing MSPs could do for the independence movement.
What would also be a plus for the independence movement is a reversal in the role of government and party in policy-making in advancing the arguments for independence. Right now it is from the government that documents about independence have come. Civil service stuff. I doubt if anyone can remember a single one of them. I venture to suggest that it is from the party not the government that well researched papers should come, framed in the political context of the struggle we are engaged in: easily translated to campaigning literature, with a political education aim at their centre.
What this analysis calls for in short is a parliamentary party that pays attention to its principal responsibility: addressing the needs of all of our people; and a party that has again got fire in its belly and is, from the talent among its members, pouring out policies that will advance the cause.
Postscript
In this analysis I have been critical of Alex Salmond. I regret where, I beleve, the Strong Leader Fallacy took him, because he is someone gifted with outstanding political ability. Alex Salmond can hold his own, and be better than many, on any national or international platform. Whatever differences we have had in the past, I have not hesitated to share a platform with him in recent years. There is a rule in politics: today’s opponent can become an ally tomorrow, and vice versa.
Nicola Sturgeon? I never rated her, other than as an articulate master of a brief.