The following is an open letter to First Minister Humza Yousaf (the prospective candidates for First Minister) and the SNP National Executive Committee, from Eilidh McIntosh, Former Political Education Officer & Former Youth Officer, SNP Sauchie Branch, Clackmannanshire.
The last few years have been incredibly testing and trying for Scotland’s LGBT community – not least for myself.
I have been in and out of the party – an organisation that I first became an associate member of at the tender age of 13. I started taking part in Scotland’s largest political exercise – our Independence Referendum, long before the vote in late 2012, becoming a fully paid-up party member not long after my 16th birthday.
In the halls and corridors of my secondary school – with a catchment area serving one of the most deprived post-industrial areas of Scotland, I maintained a steady beat, extolling the virtues of an Independent Scotland run by the Scottish National Party at every opportunity, to every 16-year-old and adult voter who would give me the time of day.
The virtues of a progressive democracy. Of a welfare state. Of something new and fair that would put Scotland’s future into the hands of the people of Scotland.
In the wake of our unfortunate defeat in 2014 – Over one hundred thousand people came together to transform a regional political party of only a few thousand into one of the largest in the United Kingdom.
I like to think that they joined for a vision of the future that emphasised social justice – of egalitarianism, of fighting back and resisting the reactionary institutions and donors of the Better Together campaign and the elites within the British system of governance who were content to keep our country ‘too wee, too poor, and too stupid’.
The decade since has been one of consolation prizes. If we were not able to win the war, then we certainly won the peace. A progressively nationalist government at Holyrood, and at one point – all but three Westminster seats in our hands. We sat proud as punch atop Scottish society, with nearly one in every 50 Scots being a member of a Social-Democratic organisation seeking to restore our country’s sovereignty and ensure that aforementioned sovereignty would be well utilised to change things for the better – for the common good.
The jewel in that crown was the knowledge that among the younger voter demographics, Independence and Scottish National Party support was at its highest – that it would be the next generation who would lead Scotland to Independence. Young, educated people who saw the promise of Nicola Sturgeon’s progressive lead on LGBT and women’s issues – and how this combined with seizing our constitutional future could usher in a new golden age for our own ‘Athens of the North.’
Yet, the last few days have revealed a betrayal of the Sturgeonite legacy that you campaigned on in the leadership election – and this rests solely at the feet of yourself and the National Executive, First Minister.
We were faced with a stark choice. A continuation candidate who would continue to champion LGBT rights and ensure an unbroken continuity in young people’s faith in Scotland’s fledgeling political institutions – or a social conservative proponent of austerity with deeply concerning ties to America’s Evangelical Right wing, through her connections to the ‘National Prayer Breakfast’ – a worldwide initiative to bring the principles of extremist (by Scottish standards) Christian Fundamentalism into secular governance.
When the results came out my partner and I breathed a sigh of relief. The party had made the right choice in order to secure its future – a future in which Scotland would continue to be governed by the enlightenment principles that our nation has birthed.
First Minister, Members of the NEC,
By aligning yourself with Brian Souter, you seriously risk your voter base among young people.
I’m aware that the political calculus at the moment still leaves you paying more heed to older voters, and I’m aware that the party’s finances are leaving you in dire straits.
But Scotland’s Independence – our very nationhood, the soul of our country. It depends on the young. It depends on the referendum generation.
In the same way that I will never vote for the Labour Party for their repeated betrayals of our national and constitutional interests, you too run a VERY SERIOUS risk of throwing a decade of goodwill and positive polling among young people down the drain if this course continues.
Losing an election, or even the next few elections will be nothing compared to that. We are talking about fundamentally changing the statistics, beliefs, and party allegiance of Scotland’s progressives and Social Democrats.
In our present retreat – Do not make the same mistakes as the Conservative Party. Especially with a Labour government on the horizon. There could very well be a shift in the winds for a key part of the demographic mathematics that allow the SNP to maintain a controlling plurality of votes in Scottish elections.
Yours in the best of faith,
Eilidh McIntosh
