SOME context is required when analysing the strange case of the shrinking SNP membership. The Herald reported last week that the party had lost 25,000 members between the end of 2019 and the end of 2021, a 25% reduction from the 125,534 figure on December 31, 2018.

There are several mitigating factors for the decline. The party pointed out that all of those cancelling or lowering their membership payments listed the pandemic as the main reason. And that, despite the fall, it had increased its membership income from £2,247,344 in 2019 to £2,516,854 last year. And besides, the SNP remains the UK’s third-largest party following a period in which Labour has suffered a far worse haemorrhaging.

Yet, if the SNP is genuinely serious about fighting an independence referendum any time soon, the figures ought to be concerning for party managers. Of those 25,000 who have quit the SNP, how many are simply scunnered by the recent direction of travel taken by the leadership and the state of open warfare in the party?

Another question is even more pertinent. In two years when the UK Government has been exposed as a corrupt cabal of self-enriching opportunists why has the membership not increased? You might reasonably have expected a few more people to have registered with the SNP over the last couple of years.

Over the last few months I’ve discussed the state of the SNP with several friends and family, all of whom – by degrees – can be considered pro-independence. All of them voted Yes in 2014 and all of them will probably do so again (if they can be bothered). They range in age between 25 and 83 and are split roughly equally between male and female.

Some common themes united them in their slow retreat from the SNP. They have all been troubled by what they regard as an orchestrated campaign of violent intimidation and defamation towards gender-critical feminists. The fact that several SNP staffers and members of their NEC have advanced their careers while publicly participating in the bullying misogyny have added something more sinister to this poison.

There’s also concern about a paucity of talent which has seen Nicola Sturgeon place personal loyalty over basic, professional competence in a spate of bizarre cabinet appointments. The SNP’s Westminster group is seen as particularly mediocre, seemingly more comfortable yelling adolescent insults at Alba party members than advancing the cause of Scottish independence. As one activist said last week: “It can often appear as though some of them are more concerned with Ukrainian nationhood than Scottish independence.”

The failure to address Scotland’s drugs death crisis or bridge the educational attainment gap after 15 years of continuous power were seen as “embarrassing”.

Also cited was the absence of any forum for holding the party executive to account. Several areas were of particular concern: the missing £600k that was ring-fenced for fighting an independence referendum; the manner in which legitimate questions have been squashed over the Scottish Government’s early pandemic policy of sending elderly patients into Covid-infected care homes; and the callous refusal to investigate complaints of bullying and harassment by known party members.

There was also a marked lack of enthusiasm about attending October’s SNP conference and disquiet about the absurd levels of managerial control which will operate in Aberdeen. There was disbelief at rejection of the SNP trade union group’s motion to debate initiatives that might ease the economic burden faced by low-income families during the cost-of-living crisis.

You might argue with a reasonable degree of justification that those facing a daily challenge of heating and feeding their families care little about the cut-price auction of Scotland’s marine assets to energy companies for a fraction of their annual profits. Or the stealthy courtship with NATO and nuclear weapons.

But they notice when the Scottish government votes a £65m aid package to Ukraine while simultaneously asking the UK Government for increased funds to ease the cost-of-living crisis. And they notice that SNP figures are posted missing on picket lines and Nicola Sturgeon is gaining a platinum loyalty card for attendance at the Edinburgh Festival.

Party loyalists will argue that, despite all of this, the SNP swept home comfortably at last year’s Scottish election, just as they have with all of the others in the various UK electoral jurisdictions.

Elections, though, are called and then immediately fought over a few weeks, with the governing party enjoying the advantage of being able to set a date already many weeks in the planning. The SNP are virtually unassailable in Scotland, a position they owe mainly to the failure of Scottish Labour Party to put any distance between themselves and the synthetic Toryism of Sir Keir Starmer. It will not be as easy as this in the next independence referendum.

This will be fought over several months and will require the party and the entire movement to be lean and nimble. As in 2014, the formidable fury of the British state will be brought to bear in this campaign. All of the main UK political parties will come together and all levers of influence will be pulled. Business chiefs, the army, academia and the law will form a powerful alliance to protect the state that has always protected their interests.

Every one of the UK’s biggest-selling newspapers will act as a voluntary PR alliance for the No side. It will be a dirty campaign where every flaw and weakness on the Yes side will be probed to breaking point. If you thought the 2014 campaign was nasty, then saddle up: the next one will make 2014 look like a high school prom queen contest.

It will require its most senior players to be at the top of their game and for the best people to be given key roles.

Among the best people are those willing to volunteer a year of folding campaign leaflets and engaging with voters on their doorsteps. If my purely anecdotal evidence offers any indication, the SNP may struggle to replicate the enthusiasm and joyous self-sacrifice which characterised 2014. Perhaps though, this will suit the First Minister. The status quo has been great for her and her chief acolytes.

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