SOME of those from a Labour tradition who seek Scottish independence have often had their commitment to self-determination tested.

You’d expect that over a ten-year period this allegiance would come under pressure from various forces such as the entreaties of old political allies and those dark nights of the soul when you wonder if it’s all really worth it. I mean how bad would it be really to remain in the Union? England isn’t exactly Ceausescu’s Romania and we’re not exactly being occupied by a force intent on suppressing our freedoms.

But you keep your eyes on the prize; stick on some YouTube videos of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Dominic Raab making speeches and tell yourself that anything’s got to be better that than this.

Lately though, it’s not the prospect of an independent Scotland that gives you The Fear but the prospect of the SNP still being in charge after it happens. This party has been running Scotland for close on 15 years now and yet there has been no discernible improvement during that time in the lives and prospects of Scotland’s poorest communities. And let’s be frank here: it was the promise that devolution would give us the chance to plot a course away from neo-liberalism and the increasing marginalisation of disadvantaged people that drove support for it.

The SNP, by presenting themselves as the champions of this and portraying Scottish Labour as footstools of a UK party seeking refuge in the Union Jack, have swept home comfortably in every election across four jurisdictions since then. They’ve been bolstered by the votes of former Labour supporters in Scotland who can’t understand why their party has adopted wholesale the doctrine of the Tories on constitutional change.

Nicola Surgeon has asked us repeatedly to judge her on her party’s pledge to reduce the yawning attainment gap that exists in Scotland’s schools between the haves and the have-nots. It hasn’t happened and doesn’t remotely look like it will happen any time soon. And on health, even when you strip out the effects of coronavirus, the A&E waiting times remain stubbornly high with no sign of improvement in what passes for a Covid recovery plan which seems to have been stitched together from the spare parts of other plans and the discarded minutes of old task forces.

As the SNP’s unelected officer class and advisory executive has swollen to the size of a small army, the party has become more vindictive and snarling to anyone from within its ranks who dares question the route of travel. In the face of reasonable criticism their instinct is to defame their opponents and whistle up a posse of social media warriors for reinforcements.

Rarely has this strategy been more apparent than the ugly and unsophisticated attempt to smear the respected Labour MSP Michael Marra last week. Mr Marra, as a local authority councillor, represented Dundee’s Lochee ward, a neighbourhood with a large Irish Catholic population.

Mr Marra had criticised the historic conduct of an SNP council candidate, Siobhan Tolland, who had admitted travelling from Dundee to Edinburgh to verbally abuse Pope Benedict during his visit to Scotland in 2010. For expressing these concerns Mr Marra was slandered by an unnamed SNP spokesperson who asked if he condoned child sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

This was sinister stuff and for many Catholics will have brought to mind old SNP associations with anti-Catholicism which the party’s former leader, Alex Salmond (and others) had worked hard to dispel. That it also sought to weaponise the evil of child sex abuse for political ends was probably the worst aspect of it.

I have no idea which of the SNP’s many, many spin doctors made this remark or even if it was endorsed by the party leadership. Nor should anyone lose their job or be formally disciplined for responding in this manner. A quiet and simple apology would suffice.

The SNP under Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t do apologies, though. If it did then an acknowledgement that it has permitted a climate of intimidation and sexual bullying towards dozens of its female members to take root in its party by trans activists would have been forthcoming years ago. There would also have been apologies for the way in which prominent politicians like Joanna Cherry and Joan McAlpine have been victims of an orchestrated campaign of harassment designed to drive them out of political life. But when the architects of this wretched operation exist at the top of the party you know that there will be no acknowledgement, far less an apology.

You wonder too how long the SNP can march its most loyal followers up to the top of the hill behind its increasingly threadbare independence banner and then back down again. How many people still think the SNP is serious about having an independence referendum by the end of 2023? In the eight years since the last one there’s been no work done on currency or on post-independence cross-border trade with England and nothing serious about how and when we might return to the EU (or even if it’s unavoidable).

This will be apparent over the next few weeks as the local authority elections come into view and SNP figures, who have forgotten how to spell independence, suddenly fill their social media timelines with the word.

It’s surely only a matter of time before pro-independence supporters begin to face a chilling truth: that even if independence is actually gained, this shower will probably still find a way of insinuating themselves into the top jobs in civic and political Scotland afterwards.

Yet many pro-indy supporters face the same dilemma in every election: that though the SNP is a failing government which harbours a collection of misogynistic bullies, con artists and opportunists, what other option is there?

What I think may be required for the SNP gravy-train to remain on track is for their existing MPs and MSPs to make a simple pledge that in the event of independence being secured they will guarantee never again to stand for public office. In the absence of any achievements, this at least would make some of us feel better about voting for them.

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