Widening The Split
Posted on November 25th, 2023
by Rab Bruce’s Spider
Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot
Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider
I will admit I was very surprised to learn that Alex Salmond has decided to sue the Scottish Government. Since there is now a legal case under way, I’m not going to comment on that aspect, but I am wondering about his motivation.
Clearly, an experienced politician like Alex Salmond is not going to begin any court action unless he feels he has a good chance of winning, but I do wonder why he has taken this action now. It certainly flies in the face of his appeals for all pro-Indy Parties to work together, but perhaps he has decided that, since all of his requests have been rebuffed, he has nothing to lose.
I’d venture to say that the rest of us have a great deal to lose because this is only going to split the Yes movement even further. And if Alex Salmond plans to effectively bring down the Scottish Government with the aim of replacing the SNP with Alba as the primary Party of independence, then it is going to take a long time because the case won’t be heard for several months at least. By that time, we may already have been through the next UK General Election.
Or perhaps Mr Salmond is playing a long game, having already decided that the SNP’s plan for turning Scotland into a normal, self-governing country is doomed to failure, and he is positioning his own Party to step into the breach that such failure will bring.
Whatever his thinking, I’m afraid this isn’t doing the Yes movement a great deal of good at the moment. And if Alex Salmond really is trying to bring Alba to the fore by bashing the already struggling SNP, then he will have another fight on his hands. That’s because the UK media in Scotland may be happy to promote his action against the SNP, but the moment he begins to look as if he might have a chance of persuading the Scottish electorate to switch allegiance (which is a major task in its own right), the media will turn on him just as they have done before.
As ever, all we can do is look on, scratching our heads and wondering where we go from here.