THE SNP ABUSE THEIR OWN MEMBERS

This is the second article from Gordon Millar as he recounts his experience of the SNP Disciplinary procedure which he first experienced a couple of days before the Party Conference in 2021. Getting suspended got him taken out the Party Elections just before the voting started. Nor was he alone.

The SNP Code of Conduct is Completely Unfit for Purpose

I’ve already written about my suspension from the SNP, but that article was mostly about my personal experience and my immediate reactions. I had not really had time to think properly about why things had gone the way they did, about the clear misuse of disciplinary procedures, about how this was linked to the previous year’s “Good Guys” elections or, most importantly, about who benefited for my suspension.

Of course, a lot of this must remain surmise, as direct proof is impossible. But you can draw your own conclusions from the facts and, I think, the circumstantial evidence all points in one direction.

Some Background

With the benefit of hindsight, the story probably begins in November 2020 during the SNP’s on-line conference and internal elections. In November 2020, as a member of London Branch, I stood in the Party’s internal election for a seat on the Policy Development Committee. My name was on both the “Good Guys” and “CWG” slates.

The London Branch Convenor had recently stood down in October 2020, but he was still a very influential figure in the Branch, a member of the branch Committee, and a friend of both Alyn Smith and Fiona Robertson. On 28 November, after several hostile comments about the “Good Guys” slate, and showing no interest in discussing the position, he posted this about the “Good Guys” on the London Committee WhatsApp:

So, it’s clear that, in his view, something organised and endorsed by the grassroots membership was “downright sinister” and that it was inherently wrong that I was exercising my right to promote whatever policies, such as the Women’s Pledge, I thought best.

Subsequently, on the night of 30 November/1 December 2020, after the results of the internal elections had been announced, he posted on Twitter, publicly calling Councillor Chris McEleny and Equalities Convenor Lynne Anderson bigots, and implying that all of us who were elected from the Good Guys and CWG slates were populist bigots. He also retweeted a claim that Lynne Anderson “cosies up to a homophobic, transphobic hate group”. Later, in January 2021, he tweeted that Mark Hirst and Craig Murray were scum, and that Denise Findlay was an antisemitic transphobe. (I have screenshots of all the tweets referenced here). This is a serious breach of membership guidelines that cannot be excused just because it is on Twitter.

Finally, on 6 December 2020 he posted this on the London Branch WhatsApp, publicly calling me a “fucking bigot” and simultaneously managing to support lies about the LGB Alliance, the SNP Women’s Pledge and the SNP Good Guys. He also removed me from the Branch WhatsApp

.

He has never apologised for this behaviour (or contacted me in any way since) and has continued, on both the WhatsApp and the Committee, as if nothing had happened.

I got the following note from a committee member after being removed from WhatsApp: “On a personal note I was somewhat taken aback by the way you were treated during conference and appalled by the comments and actions on our Committee WhatsApp account”

But apart from that, I received absolutely no backing from the Branch Committee over the Conference comments and got (apart from a couple of private messages) no congratulations on my PDC election. Having signed the Women’s Pledge, endorsed the CWG Manifesto for Democracy, and been on the “Good Guys” list, I was clearly viewed as the problem, not the victim. I believe that the ex-Convenor’s actions constituted bullying, but he suffered no sanctions at all for that or for his series of abusive Twitter comments.

The Suspension

So that’s some of the background, which we’ll come back to later. Now let’s look at what actually happened.

On Wednesday 24 November 2021 (two days before the SNP National Conference) at 09:04 in the morning, I received the following e-mail from Stewart Stevenson, the SNP’s National Secretary:

“Dear Mr Millar, I have been alerted to a series of Tweets that you have posted which traduce the reputation of a number of SNP members and question their commitment to independence. I will be forwarding a complaint to the Member Conduct Committee for consideration. In the meantime, I am suspending your membership of the SNP with immediate effect. Yours sincerely, Stewart Stevenson”

I responded by asking for more details of the tweets in question and which SNP members have had their reputations traduced. I also asked why I was not given any kind of warning before suspension, which should be a final sanction, not a first step.

To which I received the following reply:

“Dear Mr Millar, You will have full sight of the complaint, detailing any alleged breaches, at least fourteen days in advance of any hearing by the Member Conduct Committee. I will not rehearse that here. But I do reassure you that suspension is an administrative step at this stage, and not a disciplinary determination. Were any sanction to be handed down by the Committee at the conclusion of a hearing, then time spent under administrative suspension would be taken into account when doing that. Should a complaint be upheld then you would have the opportunity to seek to appeal that decision to the Conduct Appeals Committee”.

And that’s it. Despite sending Stewart Stevenson several more e-mails the only further information provided was that my offence was apparently a “public attack on fellow members and is, if proved, in breach of Party rules”

Code of Conduct

Now, I spent a year in the early Eighties as the Management Inspector of an Aberdeen Tax office, responsible for the internal management of the office. In the Nineties, I was a Senior Tax Manager with Ernst & Young in Reading, responsible for running my own team, so I have a reasonable knowledge of disciplinary procedures. And, apart from the lack of any detail in the accusation against me, two things leapt out at me.

Firstly, the SNP may have a code of conduct, but it doesn’t have the essential companion, a disciplinary procedure. Where are the instructions on dealing with breaches of the code? Where are the notes on warnings, meetings, or the rights of anyone accused of breaking the code? Where are the detailed instructions on how cases are escalated? They don’t appear to exist. 

I had a quick run through the Party’s Constitution and Rules to confirm this and the sections on the Disciplinary Committee and the Disciplinary Rules all start from the position that the procedure begins when the National Secretary reports a member to the Disciplinary Committee.

Secondly, to the extent that they do have rules of conduct, they work backwards, starting from an assumption of guilt. There are no warnings or prior discussions. Instead, the first thing that a member gets is an email telling them that they are suspended without giving any details of why. 

They then must wait for an indeterminate time until the Member Conduct Committee has been convened for a hearing at which the member is treated like a guilty person pleading for mitigation, with the position being no better at the Conduct Appeals Committee.

Of course, all this puts far too much power in the hands of the National Secretary and is just asking for the system to be abused.

No employer could get away with such a poorly thought out, one-sided process. If the SNP was an employer rather than a political party, I think that the National Secretary would be spending most of his/her time in front of employment tribunals.

Misuse of Disciplinary Procedures

And indeed, “abusing the system” would seem to be the only way of describing my experience.

Firstly, in his original e-mail Stewart Stevenson said that he had “been alerted to a series of Tweets that you have posted” and that he was “suspending your membership of the SNP with immediate effect”. So, the decision was his and his alone. But then he says that he “will not rehearse that here” – in other words, although it was his decision, he’s not going to tell me why it was made or what the problem was, which seems ever so slightly undemocratic and against natural justice.

Also, “somebody told me something” is not any kind of basis for starting disciplinary procedures, let alone suspending a party member.

Secondly, the SNP is a political organisation, whose number one aim, as set out in the constitution, is “independence for Scotland.” It is also a members’ organisation, run by and for the membership.

So, even if the tweets and individuals had been identified by Stevenson, why would my alleged suggestion that certain party members were not committed to the Party’s over-riding aim be an offence meriting suspension? Surely such questioning would be part and parcel of the everyday life of a member-run political organisation, and the individuals in question could presumably defend themselves by showing what they have done to further the independence cause. 

And, possibly more importantly, much worse behaviour than that attributed to me appears to be routine in the SNP, provided that you are part of the inner circle. In particular, while not knowing which Tweets caused offence is a slight problem, I could find nothing in my Twitter account which approached the offensive, bullying and threatening comments which have been made, or endorsed, against Joanna Cherry, a senior SNP MP. In fact, roughly at the time of the conference, an open letter with a link to a tweet defaming her was circulating. It included signatories who were parliamentarians, councillors and her parliamentary colleagues and party employees. But, despite complaints being made, none of these individuals have ever suffered any sanction (indeed several were standing in the internal elections at the 2021 Conference).

So, given that no evidence was produced to substantiate the original accusation, that it’s difficult to see what actual harm would have been done in any case and considering the appalling, but essentially officially sanctioned, abuse of Joanna Cherry, it seems most probable that this was not a genuine complaint or disciplinary issue but was rather a case of the National Secretary abusing his powers to force someone out of the Party.

Timing & Impact

And when you consider the timing and impact of the suspension, this conclusion becomes almost inevitable.

Firstly, the timing was linked closely to the SNP’s November 2021 annual conference and internal elections, which in themselves were strongly influenced by what had happened in the 2020 elections. 

The “Good Guys” and CWG slates for the 2020 election had been organised as a protest against the lack of democracy and transparency in the SNP and also as a protest against the lack of action, by the leadership, on independence. The slates were successful and (to quote Wings over Scotland) the party’s members “kicked out three-quarters of the existing committee’s woke faction and replaced them with feminists, socialists and above all advocates of actually achieving independence”.

However, rather than accept that the views of the membership should be taken account of, Nicola Sturgeon and her acolytes dug in to ignore or reverse the results. Nicola Sturgeon herself was unable to bring herself to congratulate the newly elected members, Alyn Smith was in the National claiming that “We were out-organised this time, it is our responsibility to dig in and organise better for the next” and Nicola Sturgeon’s close associate, Mhairi Hunter was soon tweeting that:

Eventually, through a combination of gerrymandering the Associate organisations and simply making life impossible for the newly elected members, they were successful, and the party returned to the pre-November 2020 status quo.

So, when the 2021 elections rolled round, the Party went out of its way to prevent a repeat of the previous year. In particular, the names of those standing were only released at the last minute and no facilities were available to candidates to produce on-line election flyers.

Similarly, the timing of suspensions was also held back, and I believe that I was not the only person suspended on 24 November, two days before the conference began on 26 November. The direct impact of this was, of course, was that I was prevented from standing for the Policy Development Committee and given no time to appeal. 

It is difficult to believe that this was accidental and, taken with the lack of detail in Stewart Stevenson’s initial e-mail and his refusal to provide any further information, the obvious conclusion is that the system was being abused to force an unwelcome member out the Party.

Who Benefited?

So, who benefited from my suspension?

I was standing for election to the “Outwith Scotland” position on the Policy Development Committee. I had held this position in the previous year and was standing again, although I didn’t apply until the final day for nominations. I have an acknowledgement of my application. 

When the candidates list was eventually published, only contested positions were listed. The PDC “Outwith Scotland” was not shown on the published list, so the inference was that I was standing unopposed. This should have been the position of Wednesday morning. However, 48 hours later when the voting schedules were issued at the start of conference, my name was nowhere to be found and another candidate was shown as standing unopposed for the position. 

And who was this candidate? It was Russell McLean, the ex-Convenor of London Branch, and author of the rather unpleasant tweets and messages set out at the start of this article. And also, a friend of Alyn Smith, whom I have openly criticised in the National and Fiona Robertson who has blocked me on Twitter. Although I am sure that this was a pure coincidence!

Now, the NEC elections are a separate issue from the rest of the party management and are, if I recall correctly, administered by a third party. It is just possible that my name could have been removed from the ballot, but I simply don’t believe that, in less than 48 hours, my name could be removed, and arrangements made to substitute a new candidate who hadn’t applied by the original deadline. 

Which suggests to me, at least, that my suspension was pre-ordained some time before I was told of it, as I had to be kept away from the conference so that the “unopposed” candidate could be elected without any problems.

Although I had been critical of Toni Giugliano standing as PDC convenor and open in my opposition to “Both Votes SNP” and the gerrymandering of candidates such as Angus Robertson and Graham Campbell, I never thought for a minute that I was important enough to be stabbed in the back in this way, and I’m aware of the danger of thinking that everything is about you.

So, it may well be that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for my suspension but, given that any such explanation would have to cover the timing, the lack of any proof of wrongdoing, Stewart Stevenson’s refusal to provide any explanations and the impact on the Policy Development Committee elections, it would probably make for a rather entertaining read!

Also, on a minor note, although I said, in the blog post that I wrote following my suspension, that I intended to resign my membership, I never got round to it. However, on 11 January 2022, I received this e-mail:

“Dear Gordon McGreig Sinclair Millar, Thank you for letting us know that you wish to leave the SNP. We’re sorry to see you go. In meantime, please accept my thanks for your contribution to the party. Peter Murrell, Chief Executive, Scottish National Party”

So, somebody was obviously monitoring my social media! Maybe I was more important than I thought. Or maybe I just upset the wrong people – – –

And a final word. Regardless of everything else, when someone who has actively criticised and bullied me benefits at my expense, I think that I am more than entitled to be sceptical of the processes involved.

Summary

So, in summary:

• The SNP do not have a functional code of conduct or disciplinary procedure
• To the extent that the code of conduct exists, there is an assumption of guilt rather than innocence
• By allowing the National Secretary to suspend members without explanation or proof of wrongdoing, it encourages abuse of the system
• It allows the leadership to misuse the code of conduct to avoid democratic scrutiny and remove dissent
• Lack of a written disciplinary procedure is divisive – the code of conduct is applied selectively, effectively exempting those of whom the leadership approve from its requirements
• When it is applied, the code of conduct, with its assumption of guilt, cannot be applied fairly 
• It is misused so that the enquiry is the punishment and suspension is treated as a permanent, not temporary, removal

MY COMMENTS

What happened to Gordon was no accident. In my opinion suspending a candidate a couple of days before voting commenced provided the ideal “result”. A troublesome candidate who was likely to be re elected was removed from the ballot. A favoured “son”, in this case a friend of Alyn Smith, was awarded the post uncontested. What is worse this was not an isolated incident. I am told there were at least another two instances of this happening to other “candidates” on the same day. There may have been others as well.

This is a flagrant misuse of power and is treating ordinary members rights with total contempt. I notice big efforts are being made by some key figures to suggest the membership had a big say on the 2022 Conference Agenda. If so the SNP must have a badly out of touch membership because many of the top issues in the drive for Independence are conspicuous by their absence. Also no moves to follow previous Conference decisions to speed up the introduction of a new Scottish currency. The Party remain wedded to the wholly discredited Growth Commission route that the Conference earlier rejected by supporting an amendment put forward by one Tim Rideout, himself another recent victim of the SNP Disciplinary Committee.

We know the candidate selection procedures were completely corrupted where the “election” for the list seats at Holyrood had to have “ secret” results no member could be told about, as this was the process to promote Woke candidates, often whom had come last in the members voting, to leapfrog every other candidate into No 1 on every list across Scotland.

We have witnessed how Angus Robertson’s move at a previous Conference created the many appointed posts on the NEC. We witnessed how these appointed NEC members made life impossible for those elected by the membership, taking reckless decisions that endangered their personal finances. Many left in despair at how completely corrupted it had become. They watched as Fiona Robertson, dumped in the Members voting, reappeared at NEC after NEC as a “substitute” delegate from one woke associate body or another, taking an “appointed” place completely overturning the ordinary members desire who had voted to see her gone. Likewise Fiona Robertson and her colleague Rhiannon Spear were able to reclaim their positions without election when their unelected colleagues forced out the two elected members the Conference had selected as their replacements. We all know what happened when Douglas Chapman MP was elected as National Treasurer on a platform of finding out where the missing £600k had gone, when he confronted Peter Murrell access to the books were denied and Douglas properly made that public and resigned along with several members of the SNP Audit Committee. The Party reaction was to re appoint the previous Treasurer who had been in post when the money went missing. As usual this appointment was made without any election. The police investigation continues although we now know the money is not “ woven through the accounts” as he had previously advised members. It is gone!

Then of course we had the biggest scandal of them all with a plot devised and operated by people at the very top of the SNP. For a while it looked as if they had got away with it. Yes the jury had tossed out the discredited, contrived evidence but the judge had ensured they were protected. That is true, but instead of staying in the shadows some of them decided to continue their plotting and from behind their cloak of anonymity started trying to use the police and courts to target other opponents. These were equally unsuccessful although they managed to get Craig Murray jailed on a contrived charge that disgraced the Scottish Legal system. It is rare these days in Yes circles to meet anyone who does not have a good idea of exactly who were the designers and operators of this evil plot.

The SNP is being run by a clique, pretty much most of the avenues to reverse the takeover have been closed down so how can they protest, how can members signal their complete rejection of what is going on?

Here are my suggestions

1 Do not elect ANY candidate in the NEC Elections who is a current member of the NEC.

2. Vote against every and all Constitutional amendments listed in the Conference Handbook.

If you do both there is no way it can be hidden. The message to the leadership will be very clear and democracy must be returned to the Party. They will need to sit down and discuss alternatives otherwise the Party will be hopelessly split. That will be the members chance to seize their old powers back. You need to signal that the Party needs much more member input as letting a small grouping have all the power has been hugely divisive.

That is the best I can do. It’s over to you now! Please share this article everywhere you can, it needs to reach the widest audience.

I am, as always

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