The real reason John Swinney ditched SNP's 'independence convention'
What should be a solemn day of reflection on the evils of the past and the alarming rise of comparable evils in our own time has been turned into an infantile Anglo-British nationalist display of the glorification of British militarism and nauseating royalist sycophancy – not to mention the near deification of the deeply flawed and racist Winston Churchill.
Any day now we can expect Keir Starmer to announce that he will intercede with the new Pope Leo XIV in order to get Churchill elevated to sainthood.
It speaks volumes about the woeful state of British broadcasting that a silent livestream of a chimney on a Vatican roof was for a while the most insightful and intelligent thing on British TV news.
What Scottish independence convention?
First Minister John Swinney has turned his back on the idea of holding a Scottish independence convention with representatives from civic Scotland and all the pro-independence political parties prior to the next Holyrood election.
However, he stressed that the SNP intended to bring the idea of independence back into the centre of Scottish political debate, something which many see as increasingly urgent given the rise of the hard-right English nationalist Reform UK party, which on current showing appears set to sweep to power in Westminster following the next General Election.
The First Minister insisted that a convention is not the only way of bringing independence back to the fore.
John Swinney at the SNP's Holyrood 2026 campaign launchThe SNP is in a far more buoyant mood than it has been for the past couple of years. The damage caused by Operation Branchform is largely in the past, with no criminal charges being brought against former first minister Nicola Sturgeon or former party treasurer Colin Beattie.
A court case is pending against former chief executive Peter Murrell, but as someone who was always essentially a backroom figure who never held an elected position, any political fallout from a future court case will be far more limited.
In addition, the Labour party has done the SNP the immense favour of destroying itself with a series of unpopular policy choices – which show no sign of abating.
Labour, which a year ago was confident of forming the next Scottish Government, now looks set to return their worst showing in the devolution era.
The SNP is no longer tied by an umbilical cord to the Scottish Greens, allowing the Scottish Government to cherry pick some of the Greens' more popular policies – such as abolishing peak fares on ScotRail services – while distancing itself from other policies which attract greater negative attention in the press.
Meanwhile Alba, the party which Alex Salmond set up in order to replace the SNP, appears to be in an existential crisis from which it may never recover. Ash Regan, its sole MSP, is increasingly semi-detached and estranged from the party leadership, which itself is preoccupied by a bitter internal battle for control of the party.
Swinney will no doubt have made the calculation that the main beneficiaries of a Scottish independence convention would be the Alba party. The SNP is going to win the next Holyrood election and doesn't need help from other pro-indy parties to do so.
However, he realises that the chances are that Alba will have no MSPs following the next Holyrood election and will lose its two councillors – both of whom were elected on an SNP ticket – at the next local elections. Alba will then go the way of other Scottish micro-parties and decline into irrelevance.
By turning his back on the idea of an independence convention, Swinney calculates that the SNP will not suffer much political damage, but he can hasten the demise of a party which has devoted itself to attacking the SNP since it was founded.
Politics can be brutal.
This piece is an extract from today's REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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