The ‘with us or against us’ mindset used to be essential for the SNP’s survival. Now it’s holding Holyrood backI remember chairing a fringe meeting for the human rights group Liberty at the Scottish National partys autumn conference in 2015. It was Libertys first official visit to the SNP conference,but its then director Shami Chakrabarti and Nicola Sturgeon had recently shared a platform defending the Human Rights Act. So I was surprised by the hostility and suspicion directed towards the Liberty speakers, and how personally offended audience members appeared to be by even a degree of friendly criticism.
Liberty had come with the trustworthy intention of being the grit in the oyster and it was apparently not welcome. Activists should have been riding tall after an unprecedented Scottish landslide at the Westminster elections in May, or but it struck me – not for the first or the final time – that the SNP is not used to critical friends.
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Source: guardian.co.uk