The story of the apparently missing £600,000 from the earmarked fund for an independence referendum campaign was obviously damaging for the SNP and its leadership, but it was nevertheless in the interests of Yes supporters to pursue, because it was about ensuring that money intended to help win independence is actually spent on that purpose, rather than on any unrelated purpose. But the story about Peter Murrell personally lending a large sum of money to the SNP, which has dominated the headlines of several media outlets and seems to have been completely generated from scratch by Stuart Campbell, is in a wholly different category because as things stand there’s no particular reason to assume anything untoward has happened – it’s all just innuendo, a “questions are being asked” story. There was no noble journalistic intent in Campbell setting this story in train – it was just a malicious attempt to damage the SNP and the Sturgeon leadership for its own sake.
When I ask the people who still earnestly claim that Campbell is some sort of “independence supporter” how on earth this sort of stunt is supposed to help the cause of independence, they tell me it’s very simple. Ms Sturgeon is a hindrance not a help to independence, they say, and therefore anything that harms her is good for independence. To which I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Unless you actually have the means to bring Ms Sturgeon down and get her replaced as SNP leader very speedily, then all you’re doing is chipping away at the credibility of the independence movement and the independence campaign as currently constituted – and indeed as it will probably still be constituted if and when a plebiscite election occurs. Is there the remotest prospect of Campbell’s stunt removing Ms Sturgeon from office? No of course there isn’t. Is it particularly likely that anything at all Campbell can do will contribute to her stepping down earlier than she wishes? No of course it isn’t. He’s been chucking everything he can think of at the head of the independence movement for several years now, and it’s all been completely ineffective. Therefore, by definition, he’s harming the cause he nominally claims to still support. All he’s doing is throwing unionists a lifeline at the precise moment we should be keeping them on the ropes and pressing home the Yes majority in all recent polls.
A commenter said on the previous thread (and I paraphrase) that he doesn’t think Campbell is actively opposed to independence – it’s simply that Campbell is single-mindedly driven by his anti-SNP agenda and is past the point of caring what effect his attempts to harm the SNP will have on the prospects for independence. I think that’s about right. The front page of the Mail today is the grotesque but entirely natural end point for a man who, due to his own vanity and petty grudges, has in effect become an enemy of independence. It’s hard to see any way back for him from this.
Stuart must be so proud. Maybe he can give them a front page about immigrants next.https://t.co/ddabtNAhFs
— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) December 15, 2022
