The Party Line

Jim Sillars, a former deputy leader of the SNP, accused the current leadership of operating the most authoritarian regime in British politics by exerting “totalitarian” control over backbenchers.

Sillars pointed to the absence of dissent within SNP ranks over the recent legislation to create a single national police force, adding there had been an “astonishing spectacle” over “many years now of no rebellion against leadership policy and opinion.” He added: “If I did not know better, I would easily believe the leaders had been schooled in the old communist party, where the top, the elite, made the decisions and the rest fell into step automatically, with not a word of dissent. Totalitarian would be a fair description of Scotland’s majority party.”  It was “not possible” for all the SNP’s MSPs to be “in total agreement with Salmond, Sturgeon and Swinney, yet no-one has dared tell them to get lost. Those willing to be told to shut up seem happy to wait until the leadership issue edicts and statements – and follow whatever line is laid down for them.”