SNP Critics - Finding Their Voice
The SNP's Angus McNeil hasn't pulled any punches with his trenchant criticism of Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf:
"The MP criticised the SNP alliance with the Scottish Greens and picked out what he saw as policy failures, such as plans to protect marine areas, gender-ID laws and what he characterised as the 'shambles' of the bottle deposit return scheme."
Party bosses seem likely to punish, even expel, MacNeil for speaking out, but the problem for the SNP leadership is that on these issues MacNeil standing up for the views of most Scots.
Angus MacNeil criticises Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership on independence
Angus MacNeil attacked Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf in a newspaper column
ALAMY
By David Leask - The Times
Angus MacNeil has launched a blistering attack on the SNP, including Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership, as it emerged he is likely to be expelled from the party for good.
The Western Isles MP — once touted as a future nationalist leader — was suspended from the Westminster group last week after he refused to rejoin it following a week-long suspension for a public row with the chief whip.
Widely regarded as a maverick rather than a loyalist, MacNeil has long taken different stances from Sturgeon, the former first minister, and her successor Humza Yousaf. However, he broke ranks with a column in The Mail On Sunday newspaper attacking both politicians for failing to make any progress to independence.
He wrote: “The public brilliance led to an internal halo effect and a near deification and omnipotence in anything and everything. However, sadly when it came to independence, most activity, if not all, was kicking the can down the road. Activists were lulled into a false sense of security that something was actually being done and there was a secret plan around the corner. The secret was there was no secret plan.”
MacNeil wrote that Sturgeon had no plan when it came to independence - MARK RUNNACLES/GETTY IMAGES
MacNeil also said of Yousaf, Sturgeon’s successor, that his “simple continuity started to turn to dust”. The MP criticised the SNP alliance with the Scottish Greens and picked out what he saw as policy failures, such as plans to protect marine areas, gender-ID laws and what he characterised as the “shambles” of the bottle deposit return scheme.
On Yousaf, he added: “Being a disciple of the first minister past is hurting the first minister present, but all is not lost for him. He could break with the Greens, reset and call an early Holyrood election on independence. I fear, however, that the required boldness, daring to imagine and consult, will leave him a prisoner of the recent past.”
With Labour reviving in the polls, several SNP MPs have announced they will stand down at the next general election. One, Mhairi Black, described Westminster as “toxic”. MacNeil, however, insisted that unionist opponents were “not unreasonable ogres” but democrats who would respect a mandate for independence.
The Herald on Sunday newspaper, citing senior SNP sources, reported that MacNeil would be permanently expelled from the party. Insiders reportedly said MacNeil’s public resignation was a breach of party rules. The MP’s supporters dispute this, arguing he was leaving the Westminster group, not the party.
MacNeil was due to have the whip returned on Wednesday. However, he then announced he had instead decided to sit as an independent MP “until at least October”. He was told this statement broke party rules, it is understood.
Last week MacNeil told The Times: “It’s a bit Stalinist and I’m going to fight this. They can’t just resign me from the party. I’ve been a member since the 1990s at least. I’m not in the group [at Westminster]. I’m agitating for independence and it would be a strange thing to be thrown out of the party for agitating for independence.”
