IT’S the race before the race – selection contests for the SNP are heating up with scores of fresh faces putting themselves forward for the Holyrood election next year.
Candidates must be selected by their local branches to run for coveted constituency seats, which the SNP dominated with just 11 exceptions last time around.
Much attention has been focused on SNP MPs and their comrades who lost their seats in the General Election making the move to the Scottish Parliament.
But there are new faces on the scene seeking to step up to the plate.
We spoke with a small selection of some people hoping to be the new blood of the SNP group in Holyrood.
All four were keen to emphasise that they saw the political success of the party as being inseparable from the cause of independence.
Alex Kerr (below), 30, who hopes to win the selection for the Glasgow Shettleston and Baillieston constituency, said: “The SNP has to be delivering on its commitments, you have to be making to making sure that the public services are the best they can be, because at the end of the day, that’s how we show people that we’re ready for independence.”
Some argue that the campaign for independence, which former SNP policy convenor Toni Guiliano recently declared off the party’s agenda, needs to be revitalised.
Lloyd Melville, 24, is putting himself forward to be the candidate for Angus South. He said: “I think it’s time to inject a bit of new energy into the campaign for independence.”
But how to achieve this? For some it is a matter of getting the basics right in government.
Kerr, who is the SNP’s national convenor and also a member of Glasgow City Council’s finance committee, said that the party should seek to get people into Holyrood who have experience dealing with the day-to-day grind of running an administration.
Given the number of SNP MSPs stepping down at the election, Kerr argued it was vital to have candidates experienced in the “process of governing for people”.
“The SNP is aiming to be the next government of Scotland for a historic fifth term,” he said.
“We need to be serious, we need to be credible. That is the only way we are going to continue support for independence and eventually win what is the fundamental goal of our party.”
Others think the party’s communication with voters needs improving.
“There are ways of reaching people on social media that we haven’t quite made it there yet, I don’t think and that is particularly important when we look at some of the swings among people of a younger age towards extreme parties like Reform,” said Melville (below).
“We need to get much better at engaging with people on the ground that they are on and for young people in particular that’s going to involve quite a lot of social media use.”
Party press officer David Mitchell, a 25-year-old party press officer who is running for the Falkirk East and Linlithgow candidacy, thinks MSPs need to shout more about independence.
“I work with the Holyrood group every single day and I work in the Scottish Parliament every single day and I just think that Scottish nationalism needs to be far more forthright and I think SNP politicians need to be far more assertive and basically really say what they mean,” he said.
Pauline Stafford (below), 40, is hoping to become the party’s candidate in Bathgate and Almond Valley.
She argued that the SNP must reconnect with its grassroots – something the party might be especially anxious to do given declining membership numbers over recent years.
“I think the SNP’s strength is its membership and that’s really what’s going to drive me, is trying to get our membership activated again and really embedded in our local communities and every level of civic Scotland,” she said.
“We’ve got a huge membership but we need them to be more active and we need to give them incentives to get them involved again.”
There emerges a picture of new blood hoping to get into the Scottish Parliament with a mission to revitalise the campaign for independence – which most in the SNP admit has ground to a standstill.
If the SNP can pull off a record-breaking fifth Holyrood election victory, the party will need to find a way to accommodate new talent, its older and more experienced heads and the impatient demands of supporters more desperate than ever for Scotland to strike its own course.
