Upset and depressed after being barred from the SNP candidates’ register by the hierarchy for “lack of commitment to group discipline”.
I was asked at assessment whether, as part of a Westminster deal with another party, I would agree to vote for the bedroom tax if instructed by the Party. I replied “No.” End of SNP political career. Problem is, I really believed we were building a different kind of politics in Scotland. I also knew that a simple lie would get me in, but I couldn’t bring myself to utter it.
I had very, very strong support from ordinary members to be the candidate in Falkirk or in Airdrie, and had 17 requests to stand from other constituencies, several from branch meetings. I wonder what the SNP new membership will think of this?
I had intended to keep this a private grief if possible, but I was phoned at 8am this morning by the Scotsman, who had plainly been briefed in some detail from within the party hierarchy. I was also phoned by the Sunday Herald, who were coming from a different direction, having picked up a whiff of Tammany Hall about the SNP selection process in several constituencies.
In the interests of full openness, these are the complete communications I have been sent regarding my rejection as a candidate:
Craig
Thanks for coming along to the Assessment Day on 6 December and apologies for not being able to get back to you before now.
I’m afraid to say that the Panel did not feel able to recommend you for approval as a potential parliamentary candidate at this time. While you showed excellent qualities, you could not give a full commitment on group discipline issues, and for that reason the Panel could not recommend approval.
There is scope to appeal this decision, and if you wish to do so then contact my colleague Susan Ruddick – (email address deleted) – who will be able to put that process in train.
Best wishes
Ian
Ian McCann
Corporate Governance and Compliance Manager
Scottish National Party
Then:
Dear Craig,
Thank you for attending the Appeals Panel yesterday.
Unfortunately your Appeal was not upheld.
I wish you luck in your future endeavours.
Sue
That is it. I have asked for more detail of why I was refused, but been given none. All I have is “you could not give a full commitment on group discipline issues”, and the only question to which I gave an answer that could possibly be interpreted that way, was the one above on the bedroom tax. There was, incidentally, no corresponding question designed to test the loyalty of right wing people.
I should note that I was astonished by the hostility of the appeals board, chaired by Ian Hudghton MEP and flanked by two MSPs. They could not have been more personally unfriendly towards me if I were Jim Murphy: their demeanour was bullying. They were less pleasant to me than was Jack Straw or anybody in the Foreign Office when they were sacking me for blowing the whistle on extraordinary rendition and torture. It was a really weird exercise in which these highly taxpayer paid professional politicians attempted to twist every word I said to find an excuse to disqualify me. I found it a truly unpleasant experience.
My analysis is that those in the SNP who make a fat living out of it are terrified the energy of the Yes campaign may come to threaten their comfy position. I think there is an important debate here on how the 80% of the SNP who are new members can affect its existing gatekeeping structures. No new members were involved in deciding if I was a fit candidate, and the 1500 new members in each of Falkirk and Airdrie were denied any chance to vote for me as their preferred candidate.
This also makes a complete nonsense of the SNP’s much publicised move at the Perth conference to allow non-members to stand as SNP candidates in an “opening out” to the wider Yes campaign.
I do worry that the idea of Whitehall ministerial limousines in a coalition is of more interest to some in the SNP than independence. I also am really concerned that the SNP has become, like other parties, a source of lots of taxpayer-funded careers. A significant proportion of those that do pass the vetting process are Special Advisers or work in SNP MP’s, MSP’s or MEP’s offices. The SNP is developing its own “political class” which is the opposite of the citizen activism of the Yes campaign. It became clear to me that a lot of SNP insider thought around the selection process is not about furthering independence, but about jobs for the boys (and girls).
Every candidate for selection is allowed a 350 word statement including cv to be given to members with their ballot paper. This is the 350 word statement which I had submitted to HQ for distribution to SNP members in Falkirk, prior to my disqualification. It has never been distributed, but I would like every SNP member to read it. If you know one, send it to them:
My aim is to achieve Independence. The Smith Commission shows we will never be given the control of our own economic resources required to achieve our aims of social justice, or to stimulate the economy, within the Union.
I think we have to avoid the trap of managerialism – of being just another political party but a little more competent and fair. We should maintain a firm thrust towards the goal of national freedom.
I will vote with the SNP group, but my voice within the party will be against any coalition agreement with Labour or Tories.
I want to defeat Labour, not sustain them. I want to end the Union, not to run it.
Within the SNP we must guard against success leading us to develop our own careerists. Professional politicians in Westminster have become a parasitic class with interchangeable beliefs, out for themselves. There are too many of them – Special Advisers, research assistants etc. The number of politicians paid for by the taxpayer has quadrupled in 30 years.
The best MPs contribute from a wide variety of life experience.
I want the dynamic citizen activism we saw in the Yes campaign to lead to a new kind of politics in Scotland. Bubbling up from ordinary folk. And I want that energy from the people to defeat the forces of the mainstream media and the unionists here in the coming election.
Together, we can do it.
If selected as our candidate I will immediately move my family home to Falkirk and begin campaigning. Once elected MP, my home will become my constituency office and open to all, and no MP will work harder for his constituents. No Scottish MP will have lower expenses. I shall regularly attend the Commons and speak in debate.
Craig Murray
Writer, Human Rights Activist.
Chairman, Atholl Energy Ltd
Rector, Dundee University 2007-10
Honorary Research Fellow, University of Lancaster School of Law 2006-10
British Ambassador Uzbekistan 2002-4
HM Diplomatic Service 1984-2005
MA 1st Class Hons Modern HistoryDeclined LVO, OBE and CVO as a Scottish nationalist and republican
Maybe that statement is what really got me disqualified?
Craig.
An enterprising person who is unemployed starts their own business.
There is plenty honest people in Scotland who could become MPs to stand beside you in the new Independence Party.
On the “bedroom tax”, BBC Radio 5 Live carried a story at that time about a woman from London who could only find a house in Kalkirk. Now if you live in Falkirk and are homeless, just try and get a house from Falkirk Council. Further more, if you bought your council house and you wanted a smaller house from the council. You could sell your council house for say,£100,00 and move into a flat at around £50.00 per week rent. Falkirk Council had to stop this bad behaviour after too many complaints.
Too many people always come up with, what about benefits,and pensions and the like? Stop being such cowards, the sky will not fall down when Scotland becomes Independent.
Clark, is spot on when he says people are already suffering. In fact, I console myself by knowing the “English Government” are doing the same same to eleven times more people in England than in Scotland.
Clark.
Thank you very much for your comments on a previous thread about the “Official Secrets Act” could be the reason why child rape and murder is being covered up. That is exactly what I have believed all along. Who wants to be part of that? And rendition and torture? Is that why others want to be part of this Union?
If that is you, away and live in England.
I asked the local police Chief Constable under the “Freedom of Information Act” what the police have or think they have on me.
Can,t tell you “prevention of crime laws”. ME,PREVENTION OF CRIME??? Away ya baw heid!
I do not have as much as a “parking ticket” to my name.
Can I get The Scottish Government to correct this wrong? I will tell you all when I receive a reply. I think it will be much the same as Craig’s.
A new Party with no Monarch over the top of us and criminals prosecuted and not protected by Official Secrets Acts and Prevention of Crime Acts and all the other methods to cover up crimes by Establisment emloyees.
I suppose one could call that a Democracy.
The problem is England does not have a Craig Murray to lead them out of the terrible mess they are in.
Does anyone know when World War three is going to start?
Hmmm. Political party decides maverick former Ambassador is not a team player. Any analysis of Craig’s path over the last 15 years would confirm that view. That’s actually much of his attraction! But very worrying that their style of appeal is so threatening and heavy handed. Craig might not be who they want as a candidate. But SNP have not done themselves any favours here.
Another YCNMIU
Nigel Farage: Ukip leader named ‘Briton of the year’ by The Times
The Independent – 5 hours ago
Nigel Farage has been named “Briton of the year” by The Times, which hailed his “game-changing” politics.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-named-briton-of-the-year-by-the-times-9946110.html
Can I assume you’re a public sector employee?
No I’m not – not that I’ve got anything against the public sector.
The hostility you describe reminds me of that I witnessed between an entirely innocent appellant and a high court judge. It struck me that the judge was acting in such a hostile manner because he knew that he had to condemn the man who had been set up. To declare the man innocent would have revealed state crime.
In your case I have no doubt the panel was touched by the hand of the Establishment, who do not want you anywhere near Parliament.
just got in touch with the SNP. Told them they are making a big mistake and if it is not sorted. they can stick my membership up their arse!!!!!
Craig, I think your retort to Peter Bell’s questions are spot on.
There is no point in having the discipline of a lemming.
However as to Hugton’s question to you re the bedroom tax, I smell a dirty trick.
I think they wanted you to fall into an elephant trap for some other reason. That was why you were asked a question you could only answer in the negative. It crossed my mind that maybe they might think you were a liability for other reasons, for instance, you have a certain notoriety in the right wing press. Maybe they thought that could potentially damage the party. Fair enough, but If so, they could have just been a bit more up front about that.
Reading your 350 word statement I agree with it. But it also reads as somebody who is an individualist first and a party member second. Morally, I see not much wrong with that – provided you pick your fights well. So I think you could have been a bit cannier in disguising your individualism – just to get through the selection process.
But then maybe you didn’t want to?
I just hope you don’t give up. You have so much to contribute. Very sad to hear all this.
I’ve been knocked back all my life for being too much of an individualist. At a certain level the entrance stakes are just a bit of game you have to play to get past the first round.
Lack of compromise actually helps people work together in real life. People feel individually worth something within whatever group. Or it turns to conformity and some minority (normally the most established, richest) set’s the rules.
I don’t see people really working together in many political party’s, it’s really not about that. Hence it’s a shambles. I see headless people.
…..Being asked if you would theoretically agree with something that should naturally be opposed within any (even loose) democratic mandate is quite something.
Say Not The Struggle Nought Availeth – Arthur Hugh Clough 1819 – 1861
Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labor and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been, things remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain
Far back through creeks and inlets making
Came, silent, flooding in, the main,
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hugh_Clough
I don’t think you should be depressed at all.
On the contrary, you are much better off not linked to any political party.
Because sooner or later +all+ parties expect their MPs, MSPs or whatever to lie when it suits the party as part of some nasty little political manoeuvre.
This could be so that they can get money off some doner or other, so they can fool voters into backing something that will actually hurt them or perhaps to woo some nasty regime that has offered them a military base or some other kind of bribe.
For your own integrity you are much better on your own, able to say things as you see them without looking over your shoulder at some party whip.
Mr. Murray,
In my view, your reaction to this episode more than justifies the party’s decision to disqualify you from candidacy.
Being a leader is not about blindly displaying your ideals, it is about playing a longer tactical game in solidarity with the rest of your team to achieve more tomorrow than can be achieved yourself today.
Upon hearing “No”, barely after the race has started, your emotive reaction is to damage the SNP who represent part of the Yes cause. You accuse, speculate and ultimately complain about your ideals not guaranteeing you an entry that you incorrectly assumed was assured. The way you have handled this, to me, entirely vindicates whoever made the decision.
You have no self-restraint. You, in anger, attack your own team, undermining your own goals. Your followers, many of whom have commented here, now do the same thanks to you.
You are not party political material, period.
I was quite happy to hear you speak up on the CIA torture episode a few weeks ago. Now, though, not so much. You’ve ended your career in politics before it even begun. No one is to blame for that except yourself.
Well done Craig!
John Hilley
Great integrity @CraigMurrayOrg. The true Yes movement must stand above and beyond the SNP and managerial politics. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/12/disbarred/ …
https://twitter.com/johnwhilley/status/548895435856035840
Craig ,your talents should not be shackled by party discipline. Go for it as an independent.
Speaking of group discipline issues, you must never forget that you’re up against a regime that will stop at nothing to choke off self-determination. The UK is the most bestial regime in Europe. They’re tickled pink to see people boiled alive.
So when some nitwit lectures you about the rules, ignore him. There are no rules.
Craig, your reaction to rejection has probably confirmed to the SNP that they made the right decision. Your great strengths are more appropriate for a role other than SNP MP. As someone else said you make yourself a ready target and that is unhelpful. This is not what we need right now. If you go on and continue to criticise after things didn’t go your way it will doubly confirm the decision was right.
Best wishes for whatever direction you take now.
Craig, your experience with the SNP hierarchy doesn’t surprise me, given the party hierarchy’s recent disciplining of some Glasgow councillors who burnt a copy of the Smith Committee’s report. The SNP is a party no different to any other, where candidates are expected to toe the line, no matter what. The SNP is cashing in on a YES Movement which was a genuine people’s initiative. After the lost referendum many joined the SNP as a gesture of their ongoing support for Independence. But Independence and the SNP are two different things indeed. Witness the SNP’s track record in privatising in all but name of the Scottish water industry. And then again its ambivalent attitude towards TTIP. For all its posturing on the NHS the SNP is no less a neoliberal beast than any other rUK parliamentary party. Even if you had been selected, and subsequently elected, as an SNP MP it’s difficult to see a person of honesty and conscience having lasted very long in the atmosphere of dirty political horse-trading the SNP will be involved in after May 2015. How much this will be about Independence as opposed to the SNP and the interests of its hierarchy remains to be seen. After your own experience I think you have good reason to feel depressed.
‘Maybe that statement is what really got me disqualified?’
Yes, it probably was. Seriously, did you think statements like that were not going to be a problem?
Mary writes:
“Another YCNMIU [I believe this is text speak for You Could Not Make It Up]
Nigel Farage: Ukip leader named ‘Briton of the year’ by The Times”
It should be pointed out that the Times, along with the rest of the Murdoch stable, has been engaged in a relentless smear campaign against UKIP all year long, which is perhaps the only reason for being surprised by this award.
As Farage tweeted, “Despite all, the Times has made me Briton of the year. Attacks aside, I am grateful. Thank you.”
Whatever your views on Farage, any dispassionate observer would have to accept that he has achieved an awful lot this past year, most notably in winning the European elections and in taking his party from almost nowhere to replacing the Lib Dems as the third party in British politics. Even someone who hates the man’s guts would have to accept that he has had a tremendous year.
So I’m not quite sure what Mary finds so unbelievable about the matter, except perhaps that Dr Mads Gilbert or ‘The Editors’ of MediaLens message board, or perhaps even her good self for her tireless campaigning here, did not receive the award?
Craig
You are an independent. C’est tout.
“You’ve ended your career in politics before it even begun. No one is to blame for that except yourself.”
He has had a more significant input in politics than most any politician in the modern era. Most of who measure up to nothing. Who i’ll certainly never remember the names of, if I ever paid attention in the first place.
“You are not party political material, period. ” Yes exactly.
Isn’t it nice, actually, to have it confirmed.
Firstly Craig I, wish to say, I’m surprised to say the least that the SNP found you unsuitable, its their loss and its a big one.
On that matter I wonder if Whitehall had a hand in your non-selection, after all a Craig Murray back in politics, who knows how the Westminster system works would be a formidable foe.
your 300 word submission letter is admirable to say the least, it sounds as though it comes from the heart, if only more Scottish politicians including the SNP had such honest desires, this country would be a far better place to live in.
Craig, maybe you should stand as an independent or under another indy party in Dundee. You’re well enough known. There would be an army of helpers.
Which troll is hiding behind the ‘Anon’ handle?
JG
“Craig, your reaction to rejection has probably confirmed to the SNP that they made the right decision. Your great strengths are more appropriate for a role other than SNP MP. As someone else said you make yourself a ready target and that is unhelpful. This is not what we need right now. If you go on and continue to criticise after things didn’t go your way it will doubly confirm the decision was right.”
This is probably correct. I think we all know that had Craig been accepted it wouldn’t have been long before he started falling out with people and causing ruptures, becoming the centre of attention rather than the issues being promulgated. The blog would have been full of long-running spats and infighting, ill-concieved attacks on opponents, hot-headed and uncompromising posts and such like. It wouldn’t have done the SNP any good and they saw it coming.
I think Craig is more suited to independent roles than any position within an organization.
Ishmael,
Putting Mr. Murray above “most any politician in the modern era” is frankly ludicrous.
I admire his tenacity and energy. I admire his principled exposure of the UK Government’s complicity in torture.
However, he isn’t the only person in Scotland who was hoping for a Yes vote. There are another 1.6 million of us, and more, who are now in pursuit of that goal. He isn’t the only person that the SNP will have knocked back, nor are they beholden to anyone’s standards other than their own.
They’ve been in this game for decades. Mr. Murray, an ex-ambassador, has not.
To watch him elevate himself and score a goal for the other side in this manner simply because he didn’t get what he wanted is maddening.
His background and the platform that it grants him could have been an asset in the movement. He has instead turned it into a liability where a handful of sheep are ready to toss their SNP membership because one unqualified guy was refused candidacy. Bottom-feeding newspapers are now contacting him to get a story of SNP “hostility” (his word) and forcing members to vote against their principles.
If you doubt any of this being damaging to Yes, just consider that the Scotsman newspaper was the one trying to get the story. When you are attracting that sort of attention to your cause, then it’s safe to say you’ve fucked something up.
“Maybe that statement is what really got me disqualified?” The last line of your blog, Craig. That and perhaps how you came across to a party which has a very short time to pull its candidates “together” for the GE. The question about the bedroom tax was probably not the killer blow to your prospects, but, for all I know it could have been handled differently too, perhaps by asking in what circumstances that would ever be proposed?
I am disappointed in this blog entry. This is like a foot-stamping exercise. Having joined the SNP, you now seem to be attempting to pull that party down because of their decision to reject your nomination. There is a defiant, adversarial and uncompromising tone to your 350 word submission as though you know best. I wouldn’t expect anyone to agree 100% with every party policy or decision, but, I also wouldn’t expect someone seeking position in a party to more or less insult them in the process, lecturing about what they shouldn’t be. There is a veiled warning in your mention of what other new SNP members might think. Why did you/they join a party?
The SNP has had to be very disciplined and cohesive – we would never have got as far as the Referendum otherwise and that effort is something new members should respect too. Because of them and the grassroots activists, politics and voters in Scotland have already changed and they know that. That discipline is necessary at Westminster where almost every party will try to damage them and Scotland.
Having said that, I speak as someone who backed your right to put yourself forward for candidate nomination. I have listened to you in person and read your blogs, etc. I respect your principles, passion, commitment to social justice and your efforts in Scotland’s cause. I am sorry that the SNP could not back your nomination and I do believe you would be a powerful addition to Westminster or Holyrood, but, probably not flying any party colours.
I wish you well and hope that your continue alerting us to the injustices of our society.
SNP hierarchy have fucked up, the massive increase in support for them shown in all the recent polls for the GE 2015 is because an awful lot of that new support believed that they were “different” to other UK parties.
The decision not to select Craig Murray is idiotic. If you fail to see that, then I pity you.
Mr Murray is what is called a “useful idiot” for the SNP. His support was useful during the referendum campaign to bring in left-wingers, but now they’ve been fooled into supporting the Nats, Murray’s actual presence is an embarrassment to a right-wing party like the SNP.
It’s called Stalinism.
To be fair I was surprised you made it to the Hustings.
I tell you what, I learn a hell of a lot from this blog. I Hope other onlookers do also.
I’d hope some links are formed by those supporting, particularly on this thread who I don’t see often. I suspect most are just full of it…
“Which troll is hiding behind the ‘Anon’ handle?”
Cheap bait.