COLIN CAMPBELL: SNP election plan does no favours for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey MP Drew Hendry
One SNP politician who I suspect will have his doubts over the decision by Humza Yousaf and the SNP to turn the next general election into their “independence election” is Inverness constituency MP Drew Hendry.
And that view is not entirely based on guesswork. During the 2019 poll campaign I received one glossy pamphlet from candidate Hendry. That offering wasn’t destined immediately for the junk mail rubbish bin. I read literally every word of it. And the word I was primarily looking for was “independence”. It wasn’t there. There wasn’t a single mention of the “I” word, or a referendum, or the ambition to break up the UK, or the urgency for a “free Scotland”.
There was plenty from Mr Hendry about what he considered his achievements on local issues, on bringing investment into the region, on improving broadband connectivity, on trying to end unfair postal charges. But the core purpose of the SNP and the reason he automatically gains many votes, support for independence, didn’t get a look in, not a single word. No matter, the SNP was riding high, and he swept to victory with a substantial majority.
As the voters’ verdict in the recent Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election confirmed, the outlook for the SNP is very different now.
Drew Hendry will already be working on his strategy for the upcoming poll with his campaign team. But there will be no room for mixed messages, ambiguity, or picking and choosing what to highlight to the voters this time around. The SNP strategy has already been decided.
A vote for Drew Hendry or any other SNP candidate will be a vote for independence. The first line in their election manifesto will be: “Vote SNP for Scotland to become an independent country.”
Whatever happened to a general election being about a broad range of issues like health, education, taxation, public services and a host of others rolled in?
Furthermore, they want voters to support them on the basis that if they win a majority of seats that’ll be a “mandate for independence”. They could and probably will lose both votes and MPs compared with what they have now but that doesn’t matter, apparently. Fewer MPs and maybe a 40 per cent share of the vote will be enough to start negotiations with Westminster on breaking up the UK, as they see it.
Of course there will be a wide range of views about this. It strikes me as being so utterly nonsensical that I wouldn’t be surprised if current SNP MPs aren’t already squirming with embarrassment over having to campaign on it.
There is absolutely no upside for them. Voters who want independence will back them anyway. But Drew Hendry is liable to lose the support of those who don’t want to see the UK broken up but who in the past may have voted for him because they consider he’s a good MP.
And there should also be no underestimating the vote-losing resentment directed at the sheer arrogance of the SNP in trying to hijack a general election and change the rules as they see fit.
Humza Yousaf is a flailingly incompetent shadow of what Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond assuredly were and is unlikely to survive as SNP leader after the next election if it turns into the disaster for them polls are predicting.
He’ll be gone. The question is how many others – potentially including Drew Hendry – is he likely to bring down with him?
