Lesley Riddoch: The Salmond vs Sturgeon battle is lose-lose ... but the party can be fixed

That’s not too strong a word for the way many independence supporters currently feel. Watching these two erstwhile allies taking lumps out of one another is like watching your political mum and dad split up. Even if it was always inevitable, it’s still horrible to witness, especially for those emotionally invested in the cause of independence and the family-like sense of “belonging” that used to characterise the SNP. Massive figures in the party and the history of devolution are now at daggers drawn. And they can’t both be right.

The on-off-on publication of Alex Salmond’s evidence has been woeful. Recent interventions by the First Minister (even answering Salmond-related questions in yesterday’s Covid briefing) have been odd. And no matter how high falutin’ his legal language, the Lord Advocate responding to Jackie Baillie was evasion personified.

Maybe there’s a justification for the Committee’s limited reach and tortuous approach to evidence. But Scots expect more than obfuscation, side-stepping and non-answers.

We expect a proper, honest process. God love us.

And maybe that really is our problem. The Holyrood inquiry has exposed an innocence and even a naivety amongst Yes supporters about the messy process of real politics and the misplaced hopefulness the whole complex issue might somehow just disappear.

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Clearly, at some point after 2014, relations between the two giants of the SNP broke down completely, causing their supporters to fall into camps. With no honest broker universally respected enough to mediate, things festered. Now, whether he manages to take the case beyond a diary dispute to prove a conspiracy or she manages to tie up every loose end, it’s clear that neither party can possibly “win”. Innocence has gone and the SNP leadership – past and present – looks a bit tawdry.

Of course, that’s no worse than other political rivals. Labour MPs schemed to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn and the Tory Party pulled itself apart over Brexit. In Scotland, every party bar the LibDems has experienced a headline-grabbing bust-up and two party leaders were forced to resign in the last 12 months.

Labour's internal row over Jeremy Corbyn caused real issues for the party's public perception

But folk had much higher expectations of the SNP. It may not be fair, but it’s true. A large part of the SNP’s success has been holding itself to higher standards than the shabby stuff that passes for democracy south of the Border.

So Boris Johnson appeared for Covid briefings once in a blue moon but Nicola Sturgeon appeared virtually every day. Boris Johnson hung onto his special adviser Dominic Cummings after a breach of Covid regulations, but Nicola Sturgeon regretfully let her errant chief medical officer go. Labour condemned cronyism in the House of Lords yet continued to nominate peers, but the SNP have simply boycotted the chamber altogether. David Cameron made a great song and dance about English Votes for English Laws in 2014, but the SNP had quietly abstained from votes that didn’t directly affect Scotland for years. Labour and the LibDems have talked about PR to improve fairness, but Scotland is actually using it. And the MP expenses scandal found no real echo at Holyrood.

Right now, Boris Johnson is reeling off dates for easing lockdown in England without data, scientific backing or any track record of good guesswork behind him, while Nicola Sturgeon has taken a tougher path – refusing to “make up” dates to get the media off her back and pointing out (gently) that the same approach last time ultimately kept Scotland out of lockdown for longer.

WATCH: Lesley Riddoch: The UK Government has form for acting unlawfully

When Tory-dominated Westminster takes the Low Road, the SNP-run Scottish Government has taken the High Road.

That’s the way it’s been.

It’s what we’ve all come to expect: better behaviour, cleaner politics and less abuse of power at Holyrood compared to Westminster.

Why these Great Expectations?

Perhaps it’s the enduring echo of Jimmy Reid, urging the best behaviour during the 70s UCS sit-in. Perhaps it’s a version of the old adage that newcomers in any arrangement must always work twice as hard to prove themselves.

Perhaps we’re just horribly smug.

Or perhaps, over 20-plus years, law-abiding, consensual Holyrood has been a constant contrast with the everyday, rule-breaking elitism of Westminster. And of course, let’s not lose our perspective. That general description of the law-abiding Scottish Parliament still holds.

Compare and contrast Matt Hancock – found to have broken the law by concealing Covid contracts, awarded to chums who were 10 times more likely to be fast-tracked and successful. Ditto, Home Secretary Priti Patel – found guilty of bullying; the DWP, judged to have acted unlawfully over Universal Credit; the Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick who unlawfully fast-tracked a Richard Desmond property deal, saving the Tory Party donor £40 million in community charge payments; and let’s not forget Dominic Cummings with his regulation-busting trip to Barnard Castle and Boris Johnson’s unlawful proroguing of parliament.

Matt Hancock was found to have broken the law by concealing Covid contracts

To gain alpha male and female credentials in the Nasty Party, serial rule-breaking is the order of the day. If you aren’t prepared to run rough-shod over procedure, make it up as you go along, insist white is black and black is white and stab the next guy in the back to “progress”, then you aren’t really the right kind of material for Johnson’s inner circle. Look at the wee smirks when they’re caught red-handed. Governance, for the ruling class, is just a game.

But for everyone else, for progressive parties, it is much more.

Especially in earnest, Presbyterian Scotland. Especially in the SNP.

It may not be fair. But there it is. So what can be done?

Nothing much about the fight between the Big Beasts of the SNP. But quite a lot about the state of the party.

Whether folk are on the side of Nicola or Alex, the membership needs to exert some control over the leadership; the party of government needs an immediate spring clean and the party, parliament and government need some clear and urgent lines of separation.

The SNP needs vibrant annual conferences that are not corporate schmooze fests but feature genuine open debate about power relations in feudal Scotland not just tentative discussions about (essentially) managing decline.

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The SNP urgently needs to lose its paranoid wariness of “interference” by other Yes supporters, fellow travellers, think tanks, campaigners (and this newspaper). It needs to become clubbable and gregarious again, reach out to the whole independence movement, stop taking support for granted and treating critics with wariness and suspicion. Degrees of separation between the party and the Scottish Government are urgently needed – and that simply isn’t possible with the current CEO at the helm. I’ve nothing against Peter Murrell. Indeed, despite a lengthy involvement in Yes politics and an even longer one in Scottish journalism, I’ve never actually met him.

But with growing complaints from party members about resources, strategy and direction, the SNP’s fanbase appears to vary from sceptical to downright hostile. Just as Neil Lennon recently decided defeat by Ross County was the last straw, so a conscientious long-term manager of the SNP would survey the damage his party is currently sustaining, and realise the time has come to move on. A generous act in the midst of this bitter SNP battle would be a welcome and constructive gesture – acting for the greater good and long-term interests of independence, instead of guaranteeing a prolonged field-day for critics, at such a pivotal time.