Why the SNP's shift right runs contrary to all I believe in

I have spent those years campaigning fiercely for the principles that I hold dear. Equality, fairness, progression. I believe in those values to my core, and they underpin the very fibre of my being.

I have taken some personal hits for being so fiercely protective of them – my personal safety and mental peace at the hands of online abuse being the biggest sacrifice of all.

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But, even if sometimes it feels tempting to capitulate when you are in the throes of 300-plus responses to a fairly innocuous tweet, I am physically incapable of doing so.

That’s the thing about being an autistic person in this space – the political realm is not exempt from my black and white perspective.

My inner sense of right and wrong, just and unjust, is ingrained so deeply that it is unshakeable, whether it puts my safety at risk and makes me unpopular or not. People often seem perplexed that I continue to be vocal or to do what I do. They ask me if it’s really worth it. My answer is that I don’t have a choice. I am hard-wired to oppose what I believe is wrong and to stand up for what I think is right.

Which is why I find myself today almost paralysed. Confused and disappointed by the direction of the party I have given so much of my life to.

Watching as that party leans into something I can’t and have no willingness to defend. Feeling at odds with the party I have had so much faith in. Reading as those on the outside of it criticise the progressives on the inside, forgetting that for some of us, change isn’t quite so easily swallowed or processed.

I fiercely opposed a Kate Forbes (below) leadership bid last year, and remain very much of that persuasion. I think she is in many ways a capable leader, and can understand her appeal. But I will never support a candidate that vocally opposes social progress, and have seen the pockets of the right-wing that this kind of narrative appeals to.

I don’t believe a party that is meant to be progressive or left of centre should appeal to those pockets in any circumstance, regardless of the political appeal of the attempt to. There is being a broad church, and then there’s just being a political party with no solid identity. Malleable to lurches in both directions of the political spectrum, and the inevitable erosion of public trust that goes with that.

Despite what my Unionist critics will say, I don’t want independence because I want to wave a flag. I want independence because I truly believe that it is the only route to the progressive, internationalist and forward-thinking nation that I know Scotland can be.

I think, as do most indy supporters, that for as long as Scotland is weighed down by an outdated political institution like Westminster, its potential will be stifled.

And I believe independence is not just a want, but a political need for the most vulnerable in our society who are failed unforgivably by our current political system, and who without independence will see little radical change in their circumstance.

Progressing that core belief, however, cannot come at the sacrifice of social progress. What is the point of independence for our nation, if not to make it a better place? And why would anyone vote for it if the independent nation we are offering to the electorate doesn’t offer the radical change they want and need?

I understand the predicament politically that the SNP find themselves in. It has, without question, been difficult times for the party since the departure of Nicola Sturgeon (below). 

It was always going to be. But with a new leader at the helm, and the promise of stability going forward, it was also an opportunity for the party to re-cement its progressive values.

To undo at least some of the damage that has been done to our progressive reputation over the past few years, and to re-affirm that the SNP are the party of progress. Fairness. Equality.

Instead, and in the sole interest of saving our political skin, we now have a Deputy First Minister who has said she “couldn’t conceive of having an abortion”. And who would not have voted for equal marriage.

A Deputy First Minister who said that her beliefs would influence her vote on such matters. I can’t, in good conscience, defend it. I think the SNP have sold their soul in the interests of appeasing conservative voters. But winning an election won’t matter when we look around and have abandoned our values.

When we look around and the young progressives – the independence generation – have deserted us because we sold out their core beliefs for votes. When, perhaps most unforgivably, we look around and the LGBTQ community have lost the faith they once had in us.

When we lose the vision for a progressive independent Scotland, we lose the debate. We are fighting for nothing if not progress – and if we lose sight of it, our argument collapses.

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Sometimes the right thing to do is not the easiest, and I am positive a leadership contest would have been unhelpful for the party at this point in its journey – but a leadership contest, fought on the back of the values and principles I joined the SNP to promote and protect, would have been far more respectable than a back-door deal with social and fiscal conservatives to preserve our vote share.

Integrity is the hallmark of a good and trustworthy politician. In a society so jaded by politics, and so fed up with the grubbiness of it all, the worst possible move you can make is to sell yourself out for your own political gain.

Not only is it morally wrong, it is entirely transparent – and the electorate will see it for what it is. It is the kind of politics Keir Starmer is a professional at. Not the kind of politics that the SNP indulge.

The SNP are the party I call home, and have done for a relatively long time. I have grown up in the party, and I have given a lot to it. Despite it all, I can’t and won’t be blindly loyal when I know in my heart that we have taken a wrong turn.

The SNP were once a safe space for marginalised groups, for people who believe wholeheartedly in the progressive argument for an independent nation. I think today yesterday finally eroded the very last of what was left of that reality.