Achi news desk-
If we can take one thing away from this weekend, it’s very easy to have a run at the SNP leadership.
All you need is 100 members from 20 different branches to sign your nomination papers. Manage that and you’re in.
Given that the leader is technically re-elected every year, it wouldn’t take much for a determined activist – and the SNP has many determined activists – to give it a go.
We saw one such activist this weekend. Graeme McCormick had the nominations to trigger a leadership contest, but pulled out after a “long and fruitful” discussion with John Swinney.
I don’t think he ever thought he would win, but I admire his enthusiasm.
One of the problems of the SNP is that it has never caught up with itself. Many of its fixed rules and regulations seem to date back to when it was more of a specialist concern, not the behemoth it became after the 2014 referendum.
Although it may not have the 125,000 members at its peak in 2019, it is still a huge movement with the latest figures available showing around 69,000 members as of December.
That means that the support threshold for entering the leadership contest is equivalent to gaining the support of just 0.14% of the party’s membership.
There is something quite nice about the fact that you don’t need the support of any senators.
By comparison, to take part in the last Labor leadership contest you needed to be nominated by 20% of Labor MPs, 5% of constituency parties and at least three affiliates.
However, it looks like the SNP rules will change.
Read more:
Unspun | There may not be a leadership race, but can Swinney finish the independence marathon?
In its interim report last June, the governance review published by Humza Yousaf said that “new rules are needed for any leadership contest” and that anyone challenging the leadership should “need to be supported by a sufficient proportion high of the membership and elected. parliamentarians”.
Which is a bit of a shame, but understandable given that leadership contests have cost the party between £160,000 and £180,000.
But as the SNP’s leadership crisis subsides, the Tory’s leadership crisis is growing.
Except they don’t seem to be getting rid of theirs.
Read more:
Unspun | Neil Mackay: Swinney wanted an election with a change of Tory leader. He should call one.
Despite last Thursday’s local election disaster which cost his party almost 500 council seats, and the West Midlands mayoralty, and the historic loss in the Blackpool South by-election, Rishi Sunak is still going strong.
He is sticking around even though he has accepted that his party is on track to lose the general election.
Last night he told The Times that Thursday’s results suggest the country is “going for a hung parliament”.
He said Keir Starmer’s government would be “happened up in Downing Street by the SNP, the Lib Dems and the Greens”.
It sounds very similar to David Cameron’s “coalition of chaos” claim from the 2015 election. You will remember the billboards with Ed Miliband in the pocket of Alex Salmond and then Nicola Sturgeon.
Will the result really be that close?
The claim is based on analysis by Michael Thrasher, Professor of Politics at Plymouth University and regular Sky News commentator.
It is based on Labour’s share of the vote on Thursday, which Professor Thrasher said could leave Sir Keir with a 32-seat majority and force him to rely on the SNP, the Lib Dems and others.
However, the big assumption – and it is a huge assumption – in his analysis is that the vote in Wales and Scotland will remain as it was in the 2019 election.
That is why Professor Sir John Curtice called the claims unreliable. He knows this because he made a similar projection based on last week’s election.
“We felt it might not necessarily be the most reliable piece of information,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He also pointed out that the way people vote in local elections “does not necessarily reflect exactly the way they would vote in a general election”.
Professor Curtice also said that Reform UK only stood in one in six council seats.
A hung parliament is not possible, but Graeme McCormick probably has a better chance of becoming SNP leader.
