DESPITE coming a close second to the Labour Party in terms of vote share at July's Westminster general election, winning just over 30% of votes cast, the SNP was left with just nine seats in the Commons.
Now the Labour Party has stitched up the allocation of MPs to the important Scottish Affairs Committee in order to exclude the SNP as best as possible. The Lib Dems, who have just won 9.7% of the Scottish vote and returned five MPs, have two seats on the committee, as do the Tories, who have five Scottish MPs gained by 12.7% of the vote. Labour, which won 37 seats in Scotland on 35.3% of the vote, has given itself six seats on the 11-seat committee.
In September, Labour's Patricia Ferguson, the MP for Glasgow West, was elected to replace the SNP MP Pete Wishart as chair of the committee.
The Labour Party has signalled that it aims to use its control of the committee to put pressure on the Scottish Government, and will call SNP ministers to give evidence. The Times newspaper reported in August that Labour were looking to use the committee to prepare for the next Holyrood election.
READ MORE: Tributes paid to 'dear friend' Alex Salmond at funeral
"There is crucial ground to be laid for 2026," one source told that paper.
Labour has now effectively turned the purpose of the committee on its head. The Scottish Affairs Committee was supposed to give Scottish MPs a forum in which they could question and put pressure on British Government ministers on matters relating to Scotland.
The Labour Party has now turned it into a forum in which MPs from the party of the British Government can question and put pressure on the devolved Scottish Government, turning what was a means for Scotland's voice to be heard in Westminster into yet another instrument of British Government control to be deployed against Holyrood.
Vote share is irrelevant to the Westminster Parliament, but had Labour allocated the committee seats proportionately according to the number of Commons seats won, the SNP should have been given two or three seats on the committee. But it's a safe bet that Labour was eager to avoid giving Stephen Flynn (below) a platform from which to eviscerate Starmer and his woeful ministers. Labour and the Tories were still given places on the committee when the SNP dominated the Scottish representation in the Commons, but Starmer's Labour Party could not be pettier if it tried.
Labour isn't interested in fairness, it isn't interested in giving Scotland a voice in Westminster, it is interested in crushing the political voice of pro-independence sentiment. The Tories have appointed Jack Rankin, their MP for Windsor to sit on the committee for some reason, Rankin was born in England, brought up in England and represents an English constituency, maybe he has a Scottish granny. That seems to be the main qualification for having the right to pontificate on Scotland if you're a British nationalist. Windsor is the seat where Eton is located, the upshot is that Eton now has more representation on the Scottish affairs committee than the party of Government in Scotland.
We can now look forward to the Scottish Affairs Committee being used to manufacture a series of gotcha moments at the expense of the Scottish Government which will be gleefully reported by BBC Scotland. Meanwhile, any minuscule hopes there had been of Scotland being able to hold the Westminster government to account have evaporated. It's no longer really the Scottish Affairs Committee, it has become the Scottish Colonial Office Committee.
Former Scottish First Minister and leader of the SNP Alex Salmond has been laid to rest in a private funeral ceremony near his home in Strichen in Aberdeenshire. He famously became estranged from his former party and at the time of his death was the leader of the Alba party, a party which, despite initial high hopes, has so far failed to make an electoral impact.
However, he will always be remembered as a giant of not just Scottish politics but of Scottish history, a man who changed Scotland forever. His great achievement was to take the idea of Scottish independence from the political margins and to make it not just mainstream but the central defining issue of Scottish politics in the 21st century.
At the request of his family, the service was a quiet and private affair to which only family and close friends were invited. Those in attendance with his widow Moira and other family members included former MP Joanna Cherry, former MSP Alex Neil, SNP MSP Fergus Ewing, and former speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. Alba Party MSP for Edinburgh Eastern Ash Regan and Alba general secretary Chris McEleny were also in attendance.
The eulogy was delivered by former MP Kenny Macaskill who has been the acting leader of Alba since Alex Salmond's death. He hailed Salmond as a "giant of a man, the leader of our country and the leader of our movement." He also described him as an "inspiration, a political genius, an orator, debater and communicator without parallel".
READ MORE: Alex Salmond's friends and family gather for funeral in Strichen
He added that his predecessor as Alba's leader was “the outstanding political figure in Scotland not just of his generation but for generations past and likely for generations to come”.
He continued: "The legacy he bequeathed is all around. From roads and bridges to rights such as free prescriptions and no tuition fees."
At the request of the family, no representatives from the Scottish Government were present. The bitter falling out between Salmond and his former party is still very raw and a number of issues arising from it remain unresolved.
A public memorial to remember Salmond will be held at a later date while tributes will also be paid to him in Holyrood on Wednesday, when a motion of condolence is expected to be held.
Whatever your views of him, his passing represents the end of an era for Scotland and Scottish politics.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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