God bless the SNP, may it rest in peace

This is possibly my eulogy to the SNP. A once great institution led by political giants with a clear sense of purpose that captured the hopes of a people and carried a nation to the brink of independence. But as hubris turned to nemesis, like the last days of Rome, it was destined to end in the usual political ignominy with backstabbing, scandal, and in a battle of inflated egos. God bless the SNP; may it rest in peace.

And while it may be premature to mourn the passing of a party that is still mandated to govern for another year and a half and still polling neck-and-neck with Labour, there is no doubt in my mind that, like the parrot, it is no more. It may still be in office, but after 17 years it is a hollowed-out carcass of the formidable force it once was, no longer a serious player as it waits to be buffeted by events it can no longer control.

It’s hard not to grieve for the good old days. To look back with rose-tinted spectacles on those more intimate gatherings in Inverness and Perth when energy, enthusiasm and unbridled hope for a better future fuelled conference debates and kept the bar tabs flowing. To a time when politics was gentler and when there was a kinder discourse, where disagreements could be done well and when the leaders of the future were being shaped and moulded into something resembling greatness. When central figures would not be hidden away but would engage fully, expansively and with just an important hint of humility forged in the backrooms of endless electoral counts where defeats far outweighed successes and helped temper any flirtation with arrogance.

To look back with fondness on a party that, yes, overplayed its holier than thou morality but was also powered by a maniacal desire to make Scotland better – its success rooted in a creative exchange of ideas and a laser-like focus on the prize. To remember with affection the people who were well-intentioned, politically astute, and some set to become the great orators, strategists, and thinkers of our time. And to reminisce on how a long opposition forged a solidarity of purpose and a thick skin, wedding many to the seemingly romantic notion of being locked in a David and Goliath battle that, with effort and persuasion, could be won, which seemed as fanciful then as it ironically appears now. 

It’s hard to believe that the party that was once flooded with donations, and ran a slick operation that could stage rock-star-like events in Glasgow’s largest venues, is now the same party struggling for the survival of even its own HQ. It’s mind-boggling to compute that this is the same party that had a leader so bullish he had the chutzpah to declare power by just one seat back in 2007, went on to defy the electoral arithmetic and gain a majority in 2011 and then led the country into an independence referendum in 2014, and despite that result helped galvanize an electorate around a ‘no’ vote and return 56 of the 59 possible seats at Westminster the following year. 

How diminished it all now seems. A party reduced to just nine MPs, a fractured group of MSPs including two former first ministers, one still under police investigation, who can lecture about the tax and spend decisions of a Labour-led government while at the same time set up stand-alone companies that allow them to stash the cash from outside interests and potentially avoid making greater tax contributions to the public purse themselves, whilst rarely attending parliament and not even deigning to put in the hard-yards of committee work. 

A party where in-fighting, financial mismanagement, cowardice, political missteps, ministerial arrogance, policy failure and scandal now dog its every move. A party that is home to both Michael Matheson and Neil Gray, two men who I always held in fond regard. Decent, hardworking, well-motivated and with seductive back stories rooted in family hardships that propelled them into believing that independence would be fairer for all. Now mired in the same old impropriety that has sunk so many others before. And with a first minister whose only line of defence is to plead for a line to be drawn.

The best thing Flynn could do was to back down and say he got this wrong. Flynn thought he was the oxygen needed to breathe life into a moribund party, but he could yet prove to be the final nail in its coffin. 

A proud party, a well-oiled machine, a tight ship with an enviable grasp on its own messaging, now looks tawdry, amateurish and cheap. And yet the stunning sense of entitlement prevails with Stephen Flynn becoming the very embodiment of all that is wrong with a party that has for too long allowed substance to be subsumed by style.

The best career move Stephen Flynn ever made was shaving his head and starting to dress like a cut-price Zelensky. Walk around Westminster and the leader of one of the smallest groups represented there is greeted warmly by all and sundry, not because he’s a better politician than most (he isn’t) or been around for a long time (he hasn’t) but because he’s carved out a discernible identity – even if it is a largely fictious one – of a football-loving hardman, a cheeky chappy unafraid to promote his own ambition.

Flynn’s mistake was that he began to believe in his own hype. He misjudged his popularity, underestimated that of his colleagues, ran roughshod over party loyalty, and risked tarnishing reputations to enhance his own. I like Flynn. I was with him on the day that the news broke that he planned to challenge Audrey Nicoll for selection in the seat she already holds. And in doing so, also retain his seat at Westminster – i.e. double jobbing. He knew that was cause for consternation. And he didn’t care. 

I said to him then, and I say it now, for a male to challenge a sitting (and well-respected) female MSP in his own party who herself was selected via an all-woman shortlist was never going to sit well. Flynn hasn’t just exposed a personal hypocrisy and managed to tacitly criticise the abilities of a whole swathe of MSPs, but he has also amplified another nagging issue in his macho attempts to muscle in. That this is a party that has a problem with women. And not just in defining what one is. 

I have never heard so much anger in the Holyrood SNP group as I have over the last week. If Flynn has been successful at anything, it has been in finding consensus among an already splintered body of MSPs in their anger at him. The best thing he could do was to back down and say he got this wrong. Flynn thought he was the oxygen needed to breathe life into a moribund party, but he could yet prove to be the final nail in its coffin.