THE FIX IS IN
Emma Harper's email underscores allegations of a cheats election with the SNP leadership fixing things for Humza Yousaf
THE NEXT First Minister will face a bulging in-tray bequeathed by the outgoing Nicola Sturgeon. Whomever the SNP choose needs to tackle the cost of living crisis with rapidity. Our nation labours beneath rising child poverty and food insecurity. A&E waiting time targets continue to be routinely missed and the teachers are preparing for mass strike action over pay and conditions. Whomever the SNP membership select becomes our next First Minister and needs to rise to the challenge of fixing Scotland’s myriad woes.
It’s a pity then that we discover heady shenanigans and mischief making compromising the nationalist election process. Evidence has come to light raising serious allegations of wrongdoing to fix things for Humza Yousaf. The timing of the contest, the limited space at hustings for SNP members and an initial attempt to blackout media and public are all troubling enough. But we also now know that internal rules have been broken as Emma Harper MSP touted for Yousaf with mass-emailing; only possible thanks to SNP HQ.
All of Scotland will need to live with whomever wins the in-house SNP contest, all citizen enjoy the fundamental right to insist upon a democratic, transparent and fair election process.
Question of timing
Under the watchful gaze of Peter Murrell - SNP chief executive and Ms Sturgeon’s husband - the election dates, timings, organisation and ultimately counting will take place. And it’s not an accident that nearly half of the campaigning days set by the SNP leadership are taken up by regional hustings.
The shoe-horning of the election into an incredibly narrow window of time is calculated. It’s by design. It pins down the three candidates nominated, reducing their ability to campaign and raise profile. For Kate Forbes in particular it’s particularly gruelling given she only recently gave birth and is a new mother.
I sincerely believe the SNP leadership devised a short, six-week campaign, ending in late March with an aim to hamper Forbes leadership bid. Not least since she was not due to return from maternity leave until April, and we all know she is not Ms Sturgeon’s preferred successor.
I raise this not because I have a pro-Forbes agenda. My usual subscribers are well acquainted with my disapproval of our Finance Secretary. My purpose is simple, all candidates should have an equal and fair shake of the stick. This impacts on all of us, we’re all going to be lumped with the winner.
Limiting access
But reducing campaign time and stripping the candidates of manoeuvrability is made worse by the limiting of access. The Scottish National Party boasts 103,884 members. Sure, that’s down by a fifth in just two years but it’s still a heck of a lot of people.
With this in mind you’d be forgiven for thinking the nine regional hustings would thus be suitably large venues. You would be wrong. Kate Forbes has taken to the media to highlight the problems of accessibility with the SNP leadership race
“I fully believe in democracy and transparency, and I think it would be a positive thing for the hustings to be live-streamed to a significantly bigger audience - the SNP has a membership of 100,000 and most of the venues will only take a few hundred people”
A short six-week campaign, half of which is taken up by regional hustings which are placed in venues to small to accommodate the SNP’s large membership. Reports are that SNP MSPs have been inundated by emails and letters from ordinary members desperate for tickets to the hustings, only to discover they’re all already fully booked.
Attempted blackout
Worse still, the Sturgeonite cabal in control of the National Executive Committee (NEC) even attempted to stymie media access to the 9 hustings in question. We were informed media and public were not welcome, and there would be a prohibition on internet livestreaming
According to the SNP NEC a media blackout was necessary to ensure a safe space…
“It is the members who will be voting for the next leader of the party, so the SNP NEC has designed the party hustings as a safe space”
I don’t know about you, but the only “safe space” the SNP leadership likely had in mind was ensuring a safe space for Humza Yousaf. After all, what is the pernicious threat about broadcasting the hustings online over the internet?
We already know the venues selected to host these hustings are far too small to accommodate the SNP electorate. So why try to reduce online accessibility?
It’s almost as if the powers that be at the top of the SNP really don’t want the electors to enjoy much exposure to the candidates. Something which is obviously designed to benefit Humza Yousaf. Ash Regan has limited name recognition, Kate Forbes is a new mother who is supposed to still be on maternity leave. Humza is the preferred heir, and has a problem with his record as a minister (he’s incompetent).
Thankfully however a swift media outcry and demands by two of the three candidates for leadership (can you guess which two?) forced the NEC to concede. The hustings will all be accessible online to the entire public.
SNP grandee Alex Neil - a former SNP Minister and politician - has insisted he has “low confidence” in the entire election process. Given all the above, he clearly has a point. He told The Times he felt the leadership contest was compromised, the leadership had a favourite and Mr Murrell ought to be out of a job
“It is not really acceptable that the SNP chief executive should be playing such a central role. I am not accusing anyone of anything but it is clear the party hierarchy have a preferred candidate.”
He isn’t alone in believing Peter Murrell should be stepping down from his job alongside his retiring wife. Kirk Torrance, Ash Regan’s strategic adviser, who formerly worked at SNP HQ, said there were “serious concerns about the potential for bias in the counting of votes”.
Meet Emma Harper
The most egregious happening however is the Emma Harper email. But let’s first meet Emma.
Now, for those not in the know Emma Harper is the only SNP MSP elected on the South Scotland regional list. She only has that honour thanks to the Sturgeonite SNP NEC altering rules prior to the last Holyrood election. Previously the top of the South Scotland regional list would have been former MSP Joan McAlpine. But the Sturgeon controlled NEC insisted that SNP regional lists must be topped by disabled candidates.
Thus McAlpine was pushed down the list in favour of Emma Harper. She got to top the list on the basis she has diabetes so that makes her disabled. But why go to such lengths to target McAlpine? Nicola Sturgeon detests her, and she is an opponent of self-identification as part of the Gender Recognition Reform drive.
Ms Harper has become something of a comical figure in recent years due to her blundering. Videos of her arguing that people are getting "more money for 'Scottish' pounds when they're exchanging it" as compared to 'English' pounds quickly sped through Scottish political twitter…
She also insisted “jobs will be created” by a hard border with England post-independence so its all fine and dandy…
Now you may all scratch your head and wonder what on earth the SNP leadership sees in Ms Harper. She has one asset so important for success under the aegis of the outgoing First Minister: she is an uber-loyalist Sturgeonite and the perfect seat warmer of an SNP backbench MSP. She never criticises the leadership and knows how to follow orders.
Emma’s email
According to Steve Norris, Convener of Kirkcudbright and District SNP, Emma Harper breeched the party rules to tout for Humza Yousaf and was facilitated in doing so by SNP HQ.
On February 24, a Friday precisely two hours and twenty-six minutes before nominations for the SNP leadership race closed, Mr Norris reports receiving an email:
“It was from Emma Harper, the sole list MSP for the region, and time-stamped 9.34am. On investigation I discovered the same email had been sent to SNP members across the South of Scotland, whose numbers run into thousands, at exactly the same time.
Members in the three southernmost constituencies, Galloway and West Dumfries, Dumfriesshire and Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, received this email. Ms Harper holds the SNP brief for these seats because these are the only ones where there is no constituency SNP MSP.
I have learned that she spoke to Mr Yousaf about his campaign and strategy for the south the day before she sent the blanket email – a fact of which I have written proof. It transpires that Ms Harper, with the consent of party HQ, has been granted access to the South Scotland membership database, ostensibly to broadcast her work as an MSP. The email was not issued via Ms Harper’s personal account but from “Scottish National Party” with the delivery email of my@snp.org.”
Now the problem here is blindingly obvious. No other candidate had the opportunity to have a supportive SNP MSP send a campaign email out to the thousands of SNP members spread across the South of Scotland region.
Furthermore, there is no way the SNP HQ were uninvolved.
Ms Harper reportedly had the consent of party HQ to gain access to the South Scotland membership database. The official reason for granting such access is facilitate her ability “to broadcast her work as an MSP”.
I draw your eyes to where this email came from. It does not read ‘from Emma Harper’ it instead reads “from Scottish National Party”. That the SNP leadership granted Ms Harper access to send an email to everyone in the South Scotland region - and oops - didn’t realise she would campaign for Ms Sturgeon’s preferred successor is incredible. It’s the stuff of fairy tales.
It’s also in total contravention of SNP rules:
9. 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.
The fingering of the scale to benefit Mr Yousaf was so egregiously blatant that Emma Harper eventually had to apologise for doing it. But the apology doesn’t change the tipping the scales against two of the three candidates. The damage has already been done, the fix is clearly in.
Alex Neil has since taken to twitter to demand urgent emergency measures to rescue a leadership election run by an SNP headquarters that “isn’t trusted enough”.
Not good enough
It’s beyond intolerable that our next First Minister is being selected in an election process so open to serious allegations of politically corrupt behaviour. In my personal view, the fix is very much in to aide Humza Yousaf and to hinder Ash Regan and Kate Forbes. You don’t need to be a nationalist (I’m not) to feel aggrieved at the injustice and unfairness. All of us, whether SNP, Labour, Tory, LibDem or something else has a right to expect an above board election. The SNP are electing our next First Minister, and the process in question is exposed to legitimate allegations of cheating.
All of Scotland will need to live with whomever wins this SNP contest and all have a right to expect a democratic, transparent and fair election process. There are reasonable grounds to doubt that this is indeed the case.
Good grief! They really are shameless 🤬