Alistair Carmichael explains what is going wrong for the SNP

Writing for The Scotsman, Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael says:

Nationalist MSPs are starting to look around at each other and realise they have little in common besides the nationalism. SNP members who see themselves as progressive found earlier this year that almost half of their fellow nationalists wanted to be led by Kate Forbes, someone so conservative that, were it not for independence, she could comfortably fit within the Tory party…

For evidence of this, you need only look over to the Western Isles, where Angus MacNeil was expelled after complaining that there was no serious plan for independence – a little like being kicked out of clown school for wearing too much greasepaint. Even those of us who are sick of the nationalist sideshow could see Angus’s point. For all but the most fervent doublethinkers of the SNP, it is clear that independence is on the backburner, and the party is on the backfoot.

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