What are you so scared of?



Why does Alba and the potential of Alex Salmond returning to frontline politics scare such a wide gamut of the Scottish and UK political establishment.

To be universally feared by not just the expected unionist parties, but fellow independence supporting parties such as the SNP and the Greens is quite a feat.

Is it simply the fear of losing seats, and therefore power, influence and for some, political careers?

Is it the fear of being held to account and being pressured into actually delivering on manifesto promises on independence?

Both of those, are of course, factors.

I'm sure many considered the SNP reaction to be the most puzzling.

Because even if you fear losing seats, surely the overriding objective of realising independence should outweigh anything so petty as sacrificing a few seats from your own party in order to see a massive increase in independence supporting MSPs.

And this is where it gets interesting.

Remember the outcry when David Davis used his parliamentary privilege to reveal messages that allegedly revealed a conspiracy against Alex Salmond.

It does not matter if you believe the conspiracy or not, what matters is what followed.

David Davis made some recommendations, one of which was that Scottish Parliamentarians should be extended the same parliamentary privilege as Westminster and be able to speak freely without the fear of prosecution.

This was denied to Holyrood because Westminster feared it could be used to further the case for independence.

But for a properly functioning democracy parliamentary privilege makes perfect sense, because how can the legislators of a country make informed and good law if they are not able to hear all facts and opinions because of potential legal ramifications to them personally.

But the SNP reaction to this suggestion was extreme - how dare David Davis interfere in our parliament. 

Why would the SNP want less rights and protection than their Westminster counterparts, does that not strike you as strange?

This brings us neatly back to the start, what are they scared of?

Imagine Alex Salmond becomes a MSP, imagine Westminster extends parliamentary privilege to Holyrood.

Consider the evidence withheld from the Holyrood committee and the redactions to the Hamilton report.

To be clear we are not talking about identifying the accusers in the Alex Salmond trial.

We are talking about the exposure of the running of the Scottish Government in the whole affair.

If I was the SNP, that would certainly scare the **** out of me. 

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