One Westminster leader gone and three front bench resignations … what’s really going on with the SNP in London?

Well, here’s the gossip I’m hearing from within the party. The bottom line is: there really wasn’t any discernible split before Ian Blackford was jockeyed out of position as SNP leader in Westminster and replaced by Stephen Flynn … but there’s certainly splits now. The manner of Blackford’s unnecessary departure has caused genuine animosity to develop.

One very senior SNP source told me that the trouble really started because the Westminster group was just bored. They feel overlooked as there’s no real power to wield in London unlike in Edinburgh. The devil makes work for idle hands. Cue plots.

Read more: From The Herald's writer-at-large, Neil Mackay

SNP MPs with a portfolio that’s mirrored up in Edinburgh are always checking over their shoulders. There’s not much they can do to deviate from the party line in Holyrood. So a sense of ennui and frustration crept into the London party.

Of more concern to the hardline nationalist base is claims that the Westminster group has gone native in London. They’ve fallen into Westminster culture, I’m told, and that means plots. The great irony is that most of them don’t like the way the Commons operates, but that hasn’t stopped them becoming thoroughly assimilated.

One interesting comment I heard was that this was the same problem which affected Scottish Labour before its implosion. They got detached from what really matters. No wonder the term ‘it’s f**king depressing’ floated past my ear.

It seems few in the Westminster group really know how matters will unfold over coming days. However, it’s likely that unless there’s more resignations, a clear out is coming by the new leader, with the departed replaced by his backers.

Crucially, none of this mess can be lain at the door of Nicola Sturgeon. She tends to leave the SNP Westminster group to its own devices. Perhaps that was the problem. She was too hands off.

So the idea that Blackford’s departure and the recent resignations reveal Sturgeon’s loosening grip on power isn’t the full story. It’s as much about ego-driven petty games as it is about building alternative power bases or rival ideologies. It’s a rebellion by the restless and ambitious in a fractious far-flung imperial outpost. 

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