Some free advice for the biggest Alba supporting website

In the wake of Margaret Lynch’s alleged comments at the Alba women’s conference, a number of the party’s most vociferous critics seemed to think it was a natural progression to ask me whether I was now going to “disassociate” myself. The answer is of course “no”, because there’s a lot of heated rhetoric on both sides of the trans debate, and if I was going to distance myself from all of that I’d have to distance from both the SNP and Alba, and just about every other party too for that matter. If Margaret Lynch’s comments about the age of consent were overblown, they were no dafter than certain aspects of the SNP’s absurdly broad definition of “transphobia”, which seek to pathoĺogise the expression of legitimate opinion, or than the embarrassing claims that the moderate, centre-left social democratic Alba Party is some kind of “far-right hate group”.

My own view is that there’s no prospect of the SNP government reducing the age of consent – although that isn’t necessarily because nobody wants it to happen. Reading between the lines of some of the carefully-worded comments that have been made, it looks like there are indeed advocates of a change to the age of consent, albeit perhaps not quite as dramatic a change as Margaret Lynch is concerned about. For example, the suggestion is that sex between fourteen and fifteen year olds should be decriminalised, but that it would still be illegal for adults to have sex with them. But the reality is that the government wouldn’t be able to go even that far, because they know they would pay too heavy a price with public opinion.

Now that I’m back on the same side as Wings Over Scotland (albeit ‘co-belligerent’ rather than ‘ally’ is probably the correct term), I’d like to offer Stuart Campbell some free advice. He’s unlikely to take it, but I’ll offer it anyway. Stuart, you lost faith in the SNP, and you lost faith in Nicola Sturgeon. But against all the odds, the creation of the Alba Party has given you an opportunity to go back to what you do best – campaigning passionately for a pro-independence mandate, and without having to compromise your principles. Don’t squander that opportunity by wasting the next three weeks talking about nothing else but the trans issue. I know you think the public are on the same page as you on that subject, and I would agree that polling tends to bear that belief out. But there’s a difference between voters holding a certain view and caring enough about it to allow it to change their vote. If Alba are going to succeed, it won’t be primarily as a family values party, or even as a feminist party. It’ll be as an independence supermajority party, and that’s what we need to spend the remainder of the campaign getting people excited about.

* * *

You can catch-up with Episode 6 of the Scot Goes Popcast, in which I speak to Alba Party leader Alex Salmond, HERE (with video) or HERE (audio only).

* * *

If you find Scot Goes Pop’s coverage of polls helpful and would like it to continue, I’m currently running a fundraiser HERE.