LEADERSHIP ELECTION WEEK 2 REVIEW.

Leadership election. After a quiet start it explodes down South. Questions over who can vote?

The week started with Humza promising an expansion of universal childcare with no explanation of the source of money, he also had several other spending promises. What they all had in common was a complete lack of explaining where the cuts would come to pay for them. As a devolutionist he must answer that question to have any credibility

He followed this up by issuing an insult to volunteer activists all over the country. He plans to introduce paid organisers across the country. I can just imagine who they would be. Increasing the payroll vote while starving real activists of effective campaign material is just insulting. 

Meanwhile Ash Regan was stealing a march on her rivals hosting a meeting with the Scottish Currency Group then issuing a positive statement that reflected strong support for our own currency as quickly as possible after Independence. By doing so she was respecting a previous Conference decision to follow this route. This was a major departure from the Sturgeon years where that Conference decision had been studiously ignored in favour of the Charlotte Street inspired “Growth Commission Report”

The campaign exploded when Branch Convener Steve Norris revealed that list MSP Emma Harper had driven a coach and horses through the rule book and emailed thousands of members in the South of Scotland, using the Party’s email account urging everyone to vote for Humza Yousef. For the second week in a row Humza’s campaign was caught up following the highly dubious tactics rule book. Last week it was the bot tactic to generate a huge number of votes to conceal he was trailing badly in the National newspaper readers poll. This week it was Emma Harper using the Party email to circulate a support letter for Humza breaking every rule in the book. 

What rules you might ask?

Organisational Neutrality
9.1     All hustings must be conducted in a manner which gives no advantage to any of the candidates seeking selection.
9.2     No resources of the Party, including membership data, may be used by, or made available to, any candidate seeking election.
9.3         No Party meeting may take a vote preferring any candidate in the election.
9.4         No member may use a Party email facility to seek to influence the votes of members in the election.
9.5         Headquarters staff must not act, or be asked to act, in a way which would call into question their impartiality.
9.6         Parliamentarians and councillors must ensure that neither they nor their staff use parliamentary or council resources for campaigning.
If you have any questions, please email me at national.secretary@snp.org

To be fair these rules seem clear enough to me, seems strange that a SNP list MSP who owed her seat to previously dubious rules that allowed her diabetes to leapfrog her over the very popular Joan MacAlpine on the list, was ignorant of them this time round.

I have to admit to being surprised at the rank amateurism of Humza’s campaign

The “ I am backing Humza” campaign involving an array of highly paid SNP MEMBERS is thoroughly depressing. Why? Because these professional stooges are quoting words supplied by others and many lack the skills to do it without cue cards. Hardly inspiring . This has led to the hashtag #TroughersforHumza. Not helpful I would have thought!

The eagerly awaited first hustings took place on Wednesday night. This follows widespread allegations of audience fixing as all the hustings were full up amazingly quickly. How did so many get advanced notice? I have heard from one area where the hall was effectively full before they sent the message out to their members. How does that happen?

At the 1st hustings Kate was best speaker by some distance, Ash needs to sharpen her Independence message, she has an advantage here but she needs to spell it out more effectively, with Humza waffling,and avoiding answering questions. He did justify his Continuity candidate tag however never missing an opportunity to big up Nicola,

Now to what is clearly the most worrying issues in this election. That is just how open and transparent is the process? What steps are being taken to ensure honesty and fairness?

We know that the constitution regulations were sidelined in favour of a much shortened campaign, we know from the National readers poll that on the first day was showing Humza trailing badly in third place suddenly experienced a bot attack with many tens of thousands of false votes being cast in favour of Humza. Worse, subsequent enquiries revealed many of those false votes,tens of thousands of votes, originated “near Holyrood”. I think we can all guess of a building “near Holyrood” that would have had more than a passing interest in that poll. That however must remain speculation.

This is very important. It is scandalous that Peter Murrell still has involvement in this election. He is already under investigation over the missing 600k and the Lord Advocate has stepped aside so not to be involved in determining the further charges that are currently looming. His years in post since his wife became First Minister has been a constant conflict of interest, not least during the Salmond debacle when Scot Gov staff and friends of Nicola conspired with senior SNP HQ staff, including Peter Murrell to try and jail the former SNP Leader. It is asking for big trouble having him head up this election in these circumstances.

Let me put a scenario to you that is potentially explosive. People across the country, like on the first day of the National readers poll, think Humza is lagging behind. Suddenly the votes are “cast” and Humza emerges as the “ winner”. Members across the country meet far more fellow members who voted for the other candidates. Sadly I think this scenario is possible. I will restrict myself to one possible way the election could be rigged.

Why do I think we need independent scrutiny? Well for one thing I don’t believe for a minute the SNP have over 100,000 members, nothing like it. What control is there to ensure every vote comes from a real member and not some voting bank?

I ask that because I speak with many people in the SNP. They tell me attendances at branch meetings are dire. That the level of attendance has dwindled and in many cases are now lower than they were when the Party claimed 25,000 members. They don’t believe the SNP have 100k members so why should I?

If I was involved in either Kate’s or Ash’s campaign I would be insisting on an independent audit of just who is entitled to vote. No excuses, we all know the importance of the Electoral Roll in elections. Believe me they can be crucial in internal elections as well.

STOP PRESS

So John SWINNEY joins Nicola Sturgeon in stepping down, the Chief Constable does the same, the Lord Advocate steps aside so not to be involved in the police enquiry over the missing £600k. Seems to be a cold wind wafting it’s way through the corridors of power. Now all we need is Peter Murrell to do the same!

I am, as always

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