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?
Some great comments above. bang on. It’s nice to see the support.
Thought, An amazing ability not to have. Holding two conflicting ideas simultaneously….
That Peter A. Bell, the one up there with no neck and a bulbous head, is using a lot of the cheap tricks of US politics. First, the immaturity slur for anyone who doesn’t comply with the party’s efforts to circumscribe discourse. Second, the almost religious acceptance of the UK’s perverted rules, because, in a queer, wordy non sequitur, you have “no choice.” Then, a bit of third-rate speechifying based on contentless repetition of the word rabble. (You can almost see the stilted gestures that go with it. In my mind’s eye the hand looks like an inflated surgical glove, to go with the fat head.) US hacks would use the word populist, which seems to them pejorative.
This Bell character is sound on many issues, but he needs to stop equating the cause of independence with a worthless trimming party built to British specs.
My experience of these things is that politicians of all parties are usually too Machiavellian to give the real answer – my guess is that Craig’s statement about no voters in the referendum played a bigger part than he is letting on.
“Your question about the bedroom tax is interesting – given that the only party now supporting the bedroom tax is the Tories it does lead to one questioning whether the SNP might be contemplating a coalition with the Tories?”
In the bill which overthrew large parts of the legislation two thirds of SNP MPs did effectively abstain by not bothering to attend.
Resident Dissident, 3:43 pm, Craig said “the union”, not “the country”. I think you’re being over-dramatic, probably to prop up the status quo. There would be no great disaster; various Westminster votes would go a different way, but there’s no reason government should perform any worse than it was at the moment the SNP initiated such a strategy.
Where’s your concern for the millions of victims of the UK’s atrocious foreign policy and support for the arms trade?
Resident Dissident, 3:49 pm:
You obviously haven’t been in Scotland much. That would be political suicide for the SNP.
A real “no shit Sherlock” moment. The SNP is just another political party with the accompanying feet of clay.
Calling those whom you should be aiming to convince,
“Either evil, or quite extraordinarily thick”
as well as other loose cannon moments, probably doesn’t help your chances.
(Just a tip. Don’t bother to thank me.)
Clark
When you make things ungovernable it becomes rather difficult to decide what bits function and what bits don’t – all I know is that it is usually the less well off who tend to suffer the most. Well at least you could probably send out the redundancy notices by email rather than taxis these days. Being a democrat I am not too keen on any minority seeking to use blackmail as a political weapon.
You obviously haven’t been in Scotland much. That would be political suicide for the SNP.
Depends what they think they could get in return – politicians do commit political suicide from time to time – remember Nick Clegg
Resident Dissident, 4:06 pm, it would not be “blackmail” as you put it for the SNP not to prop up the Labour party – very melodramatic of you. Can I assume you’re a public sector employee? I know your lips are sealed on that matter, but maybe you should ask yourself if the source of your salary affects your political stance.
It makes me wonder if ‘independence’ could be achieved. A “once in a generation/lifetime thing”, or whatever he said. So effectively kicked in the long grass.
…….
lol
Look, dear boy. we just want you to co-operate with our system, then you can have your freedom.
I am a new SNP member. Without knowing both sides of the issue it’s difficult to comment. However I joined SNP because I believed it to be a party of integrity. I would strongly oppose any formal coalition with any other Westminster party (especially Labour) and would certainly terminate my membership immediately if that were to be regarded as the way forward. I guess tests of loyalty are necessary to some extent but I think any support for the ‘Bedroom Tax’ would represent loyalty to a deeply unfair, ideologically corrupt, austerity agenda which seems to be the antithesis of what I understood the SNP to believe in. I think you have behaved with integrity and commend you for your position. I would echo the comments of other respondents who have highlighted other political options through which you could give your nationalist and republican views an airing without the compromise of the trappings of power.
Resident Dissident, sorry, I have to go now.
Falkirk? I thought it was Kirkcaldy or somewhere in Fife you had hoped to stand.
Just seen a copy of the Johnstone and Renfrewshire Gazette someone left in my house after a visit, complete with sanctimonious god-bothering fully unhinged blather from Douglas Alexander, in the form of a ‘christmas message’, it’s truly nauseating stuff, the guy must be on powerful drugs to come out with such contemptible rot, his glassy-eyed stare too is nothing short of terrifying, it’s demonic, there must a pungent whiff of scandal brewing. Labour are on the ropes completely, it’s like a contagion now, everything they touch turns sour. The late Gordon McMaster’s once 26,000 or so majority, in neo-con lickspittle Alexander’s hands at last test was down around 5000, next time round, this May, he’s toast, it looks like he’s already angling now for a new career in the pulpit.
David Anderson,
Thank you. I do hope that the SNP will respond with their view of the matter. The only explanation I have been given is in the very brief communications above.
A shame, but hardly surprising unfortunately. We are talking about a party after all where only one MSP has EVER voted against the party line since they formed their minority government. I believe (although I could have it the wrong way round) that not a single one has since they have had a majority government. that is not healthy democracy, whips reign supreme there. Historically little long term good has ever come from governments that effective at dispelling dissent in their ranks.
Green all the way for me!
Right Craig, listen up … stand as an Independant Nationalist for the Berwick constituency, the perfect place from which to launch an attack on Tony B Liar’s theft of 6000 sq. miles of Scottish waters !
Alternatively, see if you can contact Telly Kojack on facebook ref forming a party in the NE of england, he’s absolutely howling for such a movement in the NOE … there’s more than one way to skin a cat!
Hopefully this, with a fair wind from Wings, will go viral and a wee reversal will be good for the SNP as a whole as they can then turn round and say ok, we made a mistake the same as the suspension of the councillors who were disciplined over the burning of the useless Smith thing.
Did Bruce give up? Did Ghandi? Mandela? Mujica? Modi? ……. ad inf !!
Very sorry to hear that, Craig.
It will be interesting to see how many previously non-member, prominent, Yes campaigners get approved. I am sure that there are lots of longstanding members who feel that they should have priority.
It should be blatantly obvious that you would put conscience ahead of career. ‘Towing the party line’, is the most damaging aspect of politics.
Members should always feel free to put conscience ahead of party manoeuvring, they are supposed to represent their constituents.
I do hope that you will stand as an independent list MSP next year. We need people who will speak out without fear of favour.
I’m sad for you about this, Craig, as I am sure you had your heart set on being part of a new kind of politics and seeing Scotland lead the way in this. I had hoped Scotland would be a beacon of hope for other countries eg England in this.
However I’m not in the least bit surprised. The closer any movement gets to power, the more it attracts those whose for whom personal power and proximity to greater power (ie toadying)are the main attractions. Likewise, the more it will exclude those who want the public to empower themselves, and who are guided by unbending principle.
This process can be seen in the history of every political and religious movement that I’ve ever studied or been part of. All institutions function as a living entity or group-mind, and like all living beings they prioritise their own survival, irrespective of any other “function” in the greater scheme of things.
That’s why the ideal social/political/religious movement should be designed to have a short life-span, easily dissolving from within (with minimum violence and destruction of resources)as soon as it loses sight of its real nature.
@Cearc
“Members should always feel free to put conscience ahead of party maneuvering, they are supposed to represent their constituents.”
My thoughts exactly.
“I was only following orders” is never a satisfactory excuse.
Incidentally, the very existence of a “Corporate Governance and Compliance Manager” would have rung a lot of alarm bells in my mind!
So this SNP selection thingy – success would result in getting funded to stand for 2015 GE at no risk of losing deposit, having to pay for publicity etc as that would be paid by SNP from members’s subs?
The only REAL benefit to Craig standing as a member of SNP as opposed to standing as an independent is that he would be able to access party funds for promotion, leaflets, travel, volunteers expenses, candidate deposit etc. Such support does need rules and there was a chance to amend the rules at the recent conference, wasn’t there?
Having been a member of SNP for decades I would expect my hard earned subs to be going to support candidates that agree to follow the party. I fully agree with reviewing what the party line should be in the light of such a growth in membership, but all candidates should follow the line agreed by members at conference and on other occasions. That’s what having a political party means.
If you don’t agree with that, Craig, best idea is to set up your own party and raise your own funding. I rate you highly as a speaker and think you would be very adept as an MP. However you have a history (with Labour) of being a maverick. Standing as an MP for SNP would be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
Entrepreneurs generally find out the hard way that setting up their own business is best for them as they find it difficult to follow the rules employers lay down. Neither the employer nor the entrepreneur are wrong – they just don’t fit well together. Neither should denigrate the other just because there isn’t a ‘fit’. So neither the SNP nor you should denigrate the other that there isn’t a fit in this case. This is no different. Rules can be changed from inside, but that takes patience, time and collaboration. There isn’t time now for that approach so best stand on your own merits as an Independent on your own platform..
Good luck and great appreciation to you for your dedication to the independence cause.
“Ungovernable “
What kind of government is there? While your getting the shit beaten out of you, when you being painted black by every major institution. When benefiters are being cut and opportunity’s straggled. When money is taken from victims to continue the victimisation. Who are in truth most of us.
What kind of government needs everywhere to be”governable” . What they mean by that is perceived control over it. Conformism. No freedom what-so-ever.
I guess it’s true though, they need to keep services under their control. Reap the profits.
Craig,
I have been discussing this issue on Twitter with other candidates who were selected. The question about Bedroom Tax was to highlight if you were a team player. Apparently other candidates were asked similarly controversial questions.
But it still would be good for you to get more feedback.
Perhaps running as an Independent is your best option.
Wow Craig, I am sure sorry to hear that. Please don’t give up on Scotland. You would be an excellent candidate. There must be a home for you somewhere.
I never liked that Ian Hugton. He is too comfortable by far. He has been an MEP forever but he could just as easily be a tweeddy Tory for all the frisson of liberty that is in him. The Scotsman used to have a spoof columnist called Kirk Elder who lived in a pebble dash bungalow in Peebles and it could have been Hugton it was based on.
Iwas once a member of the SNP in the 1970s. I have always been for independence, but I ceased being a member in the 1980s and have never rejoined though I always voted SNP – for independence, rather than them as a party.
Though put off by something that never quite smelled right about the party rather than the indy principle my antennae started really twitching after Alex Salmond started laying into Margo Macdonald about 2002 I think it was, on Newsnight, I think. Now maybe Margo is not a team player, Jim neither, maybe Salmond had issues about them self-indulgently doing their own thing, being loose cannons, whatever, being ‘wreckers’ but the brutal putdown of one of Mothers of the Nation put me right off Salmond’s SNP and I wondered how far he had moulded it into an autocratic machine. There was also some nastiness about Margo’s health problems which were not made public at that time, but rumours started to circulate and she was de-selected.
She then became ‘the independent voice of independence’. Can’t say I warmed to some of the issues she raised since as an independent, but in general her common sense, warmth, and sharp intellect and sense of social justice were always a welcome counterpoint.
One of the reasons I have not joined is that like you I am too independent minded. I could never toe the party line if it meant compromising my core beliefs. I could just about manage to shut up, out of loyalty, but I could never compromise my values by espousing those contrary to them.
About 1992 I ran into Margo at an event. She said Salmond was every bit as bad as other Westminster politicians, totally into the political machine system, which was why she said she was stepping out of it. She was working for Shelter at that time.
I’ve been giving it some thought since I first saw the news… My initial reaction was disappointment. But having mulled it over… it’s I think it’s probably better to stay an activist and not be censored as to what you can say or do as you would be as an MP… plus sitting in Westminster as an MP would probably piss off a few enemies and not help Scotland’s cause….
What we want is not always what turns out to be for the best… maybe being an unaffiliated voice will be more productive in the end.
” we have no choice but to operate as a political party within the very system that we are trying to escape from. ”
Ah working to destroy the system from within. I’ve not heard that one for a while.
Don’t get too hung up on the bedroom tax, the issue was whether Craig would tow the party line on a controversial issue. It could’ve been Trident or fox hunting.
I think they must’ve known the answer in advance.
Sorry to hear you didn’t make the candidates list.
I suspect that was always going to be the case because you are too high profile and independent-minded to fit into the mould of party politics.
The intriguing thing is that mould is precisely what the voters don’t want now, hence Farage doing so well in England (and he’ll gut the Tories).
The SNP would be best advised to pick you up as a spokesman and speechwriter- but they won’t, of course.
I have to say that I was not at all surprised to find that you didn’t make it through the vetting process. To be truthful, I would have been concerned for you and for SNP if you had. I don’t envy the candidates who are selected unless they are hard realists who are prepared to compromise in the short term for the goal of much larger long term gains. I expect you would have problems of conscience in dealing with the the level of cunning and connivance necessary to be effective in what is in my opinion a totally corrupt system.
Your views are too well known and your principles too strong to make you a good candidate. You would be subjected to the vilest abuse from the WM parties and the media from day one. You would be a chink in their armour and a prime target for a means to break the group.
On the other hand, I would see you making an utterly splendid MSP so I see you running for a Holyrood seat as an Independent. Any really truly democratic parliament needs a few “spanners in the works”, “gadflies” or whatever else you would want to be called, to keep the parties from becoming too disciplined and complacent.