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?
I’ve been worried about the SNP’s position for some time actually. (Though speaking as a member of a different party within the former Yes Alliance, it’s not always good to say such things openly. My patience has limits however!)
I think some of the people at higher positions are in serious danger of becoming arrogant and complacent by their surge of popularity during the referendum campaign, and as a result they now believe they can achieve independence without needing anyone else’s help or having to placate those who might still be unwilling to vote for them.
Personally, I think that’s an unacceptably risky course they’re taking, particularly as they are seen by many as the main route to independence and if they screw things up through their own stupidity, it’ll cause so many people to lose hope that the general feeling on Sept 19th will look like a party atmosphere by comparison!
Sometimes I’m seriously tempted to get in touch with someone in the SNP and say something along the lines of “What the **** do you think you’re playing at? You need to pull it together NOW or you’re going to blow this chance for everyone!!!”
Though I suspect such a message would just end up in the bin mostly unread…
Well Mr Murray, I’m sure there are other independence-minded parties who would be more open-minded. Wishing you luck with whatever you decide to do next 🙂
Just out of nosiness, who were the two MSPs?
It was a bit fishy how the SNP quietly accepted the inordinate postal “vote” during the referendum. CM may be barking up the wrong tree. With the surfeit of miniature electronics really nobody is above blackmail anymore, what all organisations need is standard polygraph vetting and annual retesting. There must be high level traitors in the SNP. Burns only knew too well the Scottish propensity for English gold, politics has always attracted more than its fair share of mcshanes, and the SNP is no exception.
Putting Mr. Murray above “most any politician in the modern era” is frankly ludicrous.
Well perhaps you think that higher prise than I meant.
I did not say “above”, thank you very much. I believe I said significant input, and I did mean uk. Off hand I can’t think of many more so. I also think his role continues to hold significance, much more than most others.
It’s no big deal, get over it.
Alex Gallagher, plenty of useful idiots in Labour. They’ve been conning Scotland for 70 years at least.
“Get over it” would have been advice better directed to the author before this blog entry was posted.
This episode does bring to light something that may be a problem as time goes on: New members and the expectation of the SNP being fundamentalist and idealist in their pursuit of independence.
That will be followed by those same people’s subsequent tantrums when far more productive realism and gradualism are found instead.
Mary.
I love your posts even though they make me cry sometimes. That one about the the five year old school boy shot on Christmas day in Palestine. What kind of people do that and think it is right?
We must always “criticise” otherwise “they” will think wrongly, that we agree and “they” have got it right.
I notice my own voting behaviour is akin to the “store horse” voting behaviour of a certain group who’s Party has wrecked the country again. My SNP member is not worth a ####. However, I must make my “little squeak” be known. Not for any Party now. I have always known they are in it for themselves. I just wanted my “freedom from England, equality and the Right to choose what I and others here want. A fair and just country to live in, rather than war, war and more war. No homeless people out in weather like this, no hunger or the need for food banks, education that fullfills everyones needs.
If you think about, tell us what you want that is different.
My council says it needs to save £40 million over the next three years, and has asked for suggestions. Would the C.E.O. need to use the local food bank if she had only £65,000 p.a. instead of £130,000 P.A?
Who votes in the “pay scale?” Other public employees.
Furthermore, everyone everywhere in the world is a “bad egg” when they want their Independence. They cannot breathe in and out properly, so say the “vested interests” who wish to keep the status quo. Are you one of them?
@ alex gallacher, right wing as opposed to new labour? Let’s face it that would be very difficult as they are neo con thatcherites. It’s called fascism. Useless idiot.
Thanks for posting this, it strikes me as quite important, that which a good many recent members would be interested in reading. I hope and have a feeling yet that you’ll have an important role to play in the years ahead in Scotland – as long as you’ve compelling truths to tell, as has been the case to date, there’ll be people, like myself, who will want to listen and support. Best wishes.
Mary, although Anon and I do not get on, his comment is consistent with other comments he has made in support of the human face of fascism. I do not think it is anyone but Anon. Like all people who are not prepared to disclose their identities they lose a lot of my attention. I like to know who I’m dealing with and for that reason do not hide my identity. I concede that some people need to conceal their identities. Women in particular are vulnerable to abuse. Of those who are clearly here to disrupt a number may work for secret services, though few have shown they have the intellect to be codebreakers.
Have a good new year when it comes Mary.
Oneionaut.
Do it!
Make your feelings/opinions be known. Whether they bin it or not, if more people have the courage to tell them what they think, it can reach “critical mass”.
We don’t complain enough, apathetic gutless wonders, some of us, not all, but too many.
Happy New Year, if that is possible under all the financial cuts coming our way.
Never ever give in!.
I like to know who I’m dealing with and for that reason do not hide my identity.
So you only started posting as yourself once you reached retirement age?
I don’t think they are big enough to handle you Craig
@Alex Gallagher
As much as I disagree with this idiotic decision, my hatred for what Labour has become is far greater. They will never see my vote again but also the SNP need to learn not to take people for granted as Labour have done for decades.
David Lyon
In the immortal words of Paul Simon “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”. You have entirely ignored the fact that I had kept mum until I received a call from The Scotsman, who had been given the news and briefed against me from within the SNP.
Would you care to address that and how it fits with your limitless stores of worldly wisdom?
Clark
27 Dec, 2014 – 2:51 pm
“…maybe your answer should have been “well, it depends…”.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
A typical politician’s answer would be…”I don’t answer hypothetical questions.”
“So you only started posting as yourself once you reached retirement age?”
Not true. I am still on the same company’s books I was on before reaching retirement age. I ma not ashamed about what I write.
One thing Resident Dissident. We do not share the same views as to who the fascists are in Ukraine, who downed MH17, and lots of other issues. But we once found common ground regarding Anna Akhmatova and poetry of the Silver Age. So I hope you and your family have a happy yuletide sitting by your yelochka and that the gifts of frankincense (harmony) and myrrh (peace) are yours and all the peoples of Ukraine and Russia and the world trhoughout the coming year.
David Lyon
I fully agree with your comments.
Reading this thread I have found it remarkable how easily so many of the contributors dismiss the SNP because they are acting like a sensible and popular Political Party. It is only after the SNP showed it could provide good government from 2007 – 2011 that in 2011 the SNP won the mandate from the Scottish people to hold a referendum on Independence.
The referendum was not won in September but the cause was certainly not lost. The cause, however, will only continue if the SNP become a strong force at Westminster and maintain a majority position at Holyrood in 2016.
Locally in our SNP branch immediately after the referendum I had to fight off efforts by members of the YES Alliance with whom we had worked during the referendum campaign and who wished to take over the local campaign for Westminster; they wanted to use the local SNP organisation and data base ( and finance) but not be bound by SNP “dictates” from above. They had difficulty understanding that in the Westminster campaign we had to get votes from those who voted “NO” but wanted more powers for Holyrood. Fighting under the YES banner was not going to get those votes. Friends from the YES Alliance were bringing enthusiasm and had a clear goal; but there was no thought-out plan on how to achieve that goal and the enthusiasm alone would have counted for very little.
Independence will only come through the political process and for that a strong SNP is required with internal discipline. It will not come through any other Political Party and I certainly do not believe in an emotional campaign hoping for UDI. The latter might provide a lot of personal satisfaction but to very little effect.
Some supporters of Independence may not particularly like the SNP but, like it or not, it is only through a powerful SNP that Independence can be achieved.
Craig.
Lemmings do not do what the BBC said all those years ago. Why that rubbish has stuck in peoples minds beats me.
MBC.
I have suffered and I am still suffering the same badness for being an Individualist or, maybe being honest?
Ruth.
Nae Justice then in Court?
Christmas Rising.
“There are no Rules”.
Unless, I made them for me.
Not me personally.
Establishment me.
Ben the Inquisitor.
“Maybe you could call your Party the Youth party”.
How about the “Truth party?”
Craig.
One honest man or woman for each constituency in Scotland for the G.E. can be done, or can it not?
For the new “TRUTH” party.
Craig.
Further more, political partys need us more than we need them.
My moniker is not that of a Prophet for nothing.
This is what I wrote on the “The Way Forward” thread on 9 November (at 19h20 UCT):
“It may be that finding a constituency to adopt him as its SNP candidate would be easier than the prior, obligatory hurdle of getting onto the SNP’s list of approved candidates.
Why?
Because while there are some on here who see the SNP as a ground-breakingly different – and more elevated – party in its morality and ethics, there are others who are convinced that the SNP consists of politicians, that all politicians are the same (=bad) and that the SNP is no different morally and ethically than any other political party.
I happen to hold the second of these two views. If that second view is correct, is it entirely certain that SNP “Central Office” will wish to run the risk of taking on board a potential MSP whose conscience might just, one day, lead him to turn against the party/party policy in the same way as he turned against his former employer, the FCO?
Of course one could argue that SNP “Central Office” might think that a candidate with Craig’s views on several aspects of UK foreign policy might play well with the Scottish electorate, but against that must be set the risk that it will think “once a “traitor”, always a “traitor”….”.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I say it without joy but it looks as if I was right.
I think I’m more of a political realist than Craig (which is probably to his honour).
Clachangowk
You drip contempt for the Yes campaigners in your area. Not pleasant.
Dear Craig
I’m so sorry you weren’t approved as a candidate; it must have been quite a blow. However, you will know better than most that when one door closes, another opens. In the long run, this will probably turn out to have been for the best. If it’s any consolation, you would have had my vote! I have to say that your inability to lie is something you should be incredibly proud of, and it speaks volumes for your integrity.
I know I don’t have to tell you to keep fighting for justice – that would be like telling you to keep breathing! – but please take comfort from the knowledge that in the end you did the only thing you could, which was the right thing, and that many, many people are inspired and encouraged by you.
By the way, I do really dislike people who post as ‘Anon’ – it’s so cowardly.
John Goss
My identity is known to the moderators. I would rather not expose it to some of the nutters on here like Giyane/Guano, if you don’t mind. Ask Res Diss why that might be a concern.
Whatever it is you are suggesting about supporting fascism is horseshit.
Some of the stuff you’ve come up with such as advocating left-wing control of the media would place you in that category. Your uncritical attitude towards Putin and your nostalgia for the former Soviet Union are well known.
Re the secret services trying to silence you show you up as another paranoid loony. Your efforts here hanging on to the coat tails of another blogger are of no consequence to anyone.
From Resident Dissident
““Stupid idea. Let’s make the union ungovernable and end it.”
As you said stupid idea – unfortunately ordinary people, not those in Westminster, would get hurt while you play such stupid games.”
_______________
I entirely agree (once again).
Ask the people in Northern Ireland what it was like to have lived in an ungovernable part of the Union.
That’s an enormous disappointment, Craig. But let me tell you, were you telling us you’d answered ‘yes’ to the question of whether you’d accept the Bedroom Tax as condition of supporting another WP party, I’d have been far more disappointed still, though not so much in events, but rather in you.
My immediate thoughts going on from this is that it will damage the SNP, a reminder as it is of the broad spectrum of political views held by its members and the not entirely easy consensus they manage to find on right-left issues. The big question must be whether it can hold itself together right up to the point of achieving its goal of independence. Episodes like this will be of great comfort to the Jim Murphys of this world. And, of course, the MSM will be in there, like a rat up a drainpipe.
Resident Dissident
27 Dec, 2014 – 3:19 pm
“How about the democratic idea of seeking to convince people of your beliefs and getting them to vote for them. Personally, I prefer politicians who seek to use democracy rather than destroy it.”
…………………………………..
So I take it you support President Maduro of Venezuela and his predecessor Hugo Chaves?
Democracy (as you know ResDis) only has meaning when the electorate are well informed on issues that matter.
However, public are fed a diet of lies, half-truths and other forms of misinformation, not only politicians but also (and more so) from the corporate media. Democracy is anathema to global capitalists; it takes second place to profits.
You, like Habbabkuk, only believe in democracy if it gives the “desired” result; otherwise regime change is set in motion.
Mr Goss
“all people who are not prepared to disclose their identities they lose a lot of my attention.”
_______________
In that case, Mr Goss, you are not giving much attention to the great majority of people on this blog.
Do drop that crap about identities, will you?
The only people I can think of who who have identified themselves publically, credibily and verifiably on here apart from you – are Iain Orr and Robert Halpin (apologies to any I missed).
Why do you give attention to Republicofcotland, Fedup, Passerby, Herbie, Jives, YouKnow My Name, Jemand, Doug Scorgie, Natasha, Ishmael, Guano and so on and so on.
And who exactly is “Mary”??
So I say to you : chuck it, Smith!
“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.”
As one who has been given both the “useful idiot” tag and “Stalinist” tag it would appear this statement has more than a modicum of justification. They used him but they never wanted him, probably because he would always speak the truth as he saw it. Alex Salmond is well-known in Westminster. He is one of the establishment, and of course that means they may have something on him. He, and the SNP, do not want an Inquiry into who did Lockerbie. American international lawyer, Francis A. Boyle, who called the show-trial at a US military base in the Netherlands “Stalinist” wrote: “Mr Megrahi was an innocent man who had been railroaded by “Scottish justice” – an oxymoron to be sure – into spending the rest of his cancer-free life behind bars.” Boyle is not alone. Human rights’ lawyer, Gareth Pierce, has said a similar thing.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/gareth-peirce/the-framing-of-al-megrahi
Yet Alex Salmond is happy to let an innocent man (now deceased) take the rap for something clearly done by someone else. That was what told me he was an establishment figure. It was further confirmed when he did not ask why the ballot boxes for the referendum were sent to England. Or perhaps he knew. Craig gets it right when he talks about how comfortable it is for these well-entrenched politicians.
A wise decision by the SNP. You would only have been using them as a vehicle for your advancement – hence I thought it telling (and wrong) that you intended to stand for Westminster. It’s obvious you’re more interested in rattling cages in London than toeing any SNP party line. You should have stood for Holyrood but that isn’t a big enough stage for your ego – I can’t see Jack Straw tuning in to watch you there.
Stand as an Independent candidate.