Regan’s other plan was a Rhodesia-style Unilateral Declaration of Independence (which didn’t end well for Rhodesia).
The only reason the Unilateral Declaration ploy worked for the proto-United States was the great distance between us and the mother country. A distance only able to be crossed by very slow and frightfully expensive small-capacity boats.
All advantages Scotland lacks in spades. I predict that plan will not work for them. 
In the light of a poll of all Scots voters (not the SNP members picking the leader) that has Kate Forbes 8 points ahead of Humza Yousaf, this is a fascinating long read on the Free Kirk, her history with it and it’s role in Scotland and especially the HIghlands.
There is a small but interesting literature on the sociology of schism. The classic studies draw on observations of revolutionary Marxists and Scottish Presbyterians, archetypes of fissile conviction, and show that schism isn’t always a mark of decline. The energy of opposition can bring renewal: Presbyterians sometimes split to survive. In the Highlands rival congregations exist side by side: the Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing), all of which claim to be the true Church of Scotland (these are the main groupings, but let’s not forget the United Free Church of Scotland, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the Associated Presbyterian Churches). It’s intriguing, given all this, that Kate Forbes, a Free Church of Scotland member who is standing to be the new leader of the SNP and thus Scotland’s next first minister, decided to use the pitch: ‘I’m a unifier.’ Forbes, the SNP cabinet secretary for finance, launched her campaign as the favourite of the UK press and commentariat. But almost immediately the scrutiny of her religious beliefs began, and everyone lost their mind. When the press asked what she believed, Forbes set them straight. Same-sex marriage? Nope. Children out of wedlock? ‘I accept them,’ she said of unmarried parents. ‘That’s choices that they’ve made.’ Journalists and politicians were agog. Nicola Sturgeon’s ability to hold rival factions together, to work productively with the Scottish Greens and to survive the fallout from Alex Salmond’s formation of a new party, Alba, may appear miraculous in retrospect. Now is the time of schism.
Also includes some great lines like:
I can’t even remember the last time I heard someone arguing that the pope is the Antichrist.
and
The SNP leadership contest may yet prove to be clarifying, though I never asked to see Scotland as it actually is – who would want that? The point of a delusional self-image is, surely, to keep us all together.
Her relationship with the Free Kirk is very much in the news again after the recent debate, in which she claimed to have responded to a charity which asked all three candidates about their stance on both criminilastion of abortion and the topical of issue of buffer zones preventing protest directly outside abortion clinics.
Within minutes of her making the claim, the charity were pointing out she hadn’t in fact responded. Then a response is sent in 10 mins after the debate goes off air! And who steps forward to take the blame for it not being sent out earlier but her campaign comms manager who it turns out is also head of comms for the Free Church of Scotland. How cosy.
AIUI, it’s been a history of both schism and coalescence, like amoebas, over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - where are the Auld Licht Anti-Burghers now?
(The comparison with Marxist sects seems apt: there’s an old joke that at the first meeting of any new Marxist grouping, the first item on the agenda is The Split).
We are struggling together!
In one of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War sf novels, a planetary government secedes from an interstellar republic despite being sternly warned not to. Troops in orbit, waiting for the anticipated secession vote, drop into the capitol moments after the vote and, guns drawn, force the gathered legislators to unanimously repeal the secession bill. It sure ain’t 1776 anymore!
Of course had Old King George had a couple companies of troops hiding nearby Independence Hall while their commanding officer had standing orders to terminate any overt act of rebellion, things in 1776 might have more resembled the outcome in that book.
Davie’s keeping well, thanks for asking.
One thing I hadn’t appreciated is that Forbes wasn’t raised in the Kirk, she came to it as an adult. Which makes her commitment (and her statements from c. 10 years ago that women shouldn’t be above men in the church) all the more interesting.
However! There’s more to the contest than shining a light on Highland Christianity.
The televised debates have been on this week and they have been fantastically entertaining, as the candidates go at each other like rats in a sack.
Yousaf has been making a big deal about how Forbes doesn’t have a track record if delivery, while Forbes took some pains to point out that Yousaf does have such a record and it’s appalling. She literally went through his roles as Transport, Justice and Health Secretaries and explained on camera for our edification that he’d failed at all of them.
You could gear the opposition parties licking their lips. This is stuff that can’t be unsaid. The money quote was
“More of the same is a recipe for mediocrity”
which I expect to be hearing a lot come the next election. All internal races leave some mess but these guys are trashing their own party’s record in office .
It’s also become clear that no one really knows how to deliver independence any time soon, with the smarter candidates realising they need to persuade No voters, but not understanding how to do it other than repeating all the stuff that hasn’t worked so far, much in the manner if evangelicals who seem to think that the problem is atheists haven’t heard of Jesus.
This thread is in slight danger of turning into a personal blog but I haven’t got where I am today by not assuming that everything I say is fascinating so on with the latest news:
It’s all getting very very funny.
The SNP has long allowed sections of its membership to indulge a certain conspiracist strain of thinking. How else can the failure of the Scottish people to embrace the obvious truth of Independence be explained, except by the shadowy actions of a cabal or two, or three?
From the “secret oilfields” of the 2014 referendum, through to the widespread denial of economic figures produced by the Scottish Government, to dark mutterings about how far the security services are prepared to go in order to preserve the Union, it’s never been hard to find suggestions of behind the scenes jiggery-pokery by Westminster/“the English”. Sadly, this is a tiger one has eventually to dismount and the chickens have come home to roost, if you’ll forgive the menagerie this metaphor has become.
It started with the obvious fact that Humza Yousaf is the preferred candidate of the SNP establishment. This can clearly be seen by the well-timed release of endorsements from senior SNP figures in the past 10 days. That’s fine, as far as it goes. But some people thought that the fact these endorsements were timed to come out in sequence rather than all at once was evidence not of a well run campaign but of a determined and slightly underhand conspiracy.
From there, it’s an easy jump to start asking questions about how the election is run. After all, if the SNP bosses want Humza, and the SNP are running the election, how can we be sure they won’t try to put their thumb on the scales? The running on this was largely made by Ash, but electoral calculus means that Kate needs to be the second preference of Ash’s voters, so in the last couple of days both campaigns wrote to the elections chief asking for an exact count of members, and of ballots issued. Presumably calculating that not joining in would look in some way complicit or complacent, Humza added his own request for these figures.
ETA because I’m burying the lede here: Senior figures of the SNP vying to become Leader of the SNP are accusing the SNP of rigging the election for Leader of the SNP
Hahahahah what a clown show.
The easy move here, obviously, is to be transparent and share the figures thus shutting down the bullshit quickly and letting everyone move on. But no! The SNP did not release the figures, or say why not. Amazingly, this seemed to fan the flames rather than douse them.
And so, belatedly, membership figures have been released. And the reason for the reluctance to share is clear: membership is plummeting. From 103K in 2021 to 72K now, or a c.25% drop in two years. This isn’t exactly a surprise, given the distinct lack of a) progress towards independence or b) competent government but it is embarrassing for an org that paints itself as the voice of Scotland and the forefront of an unstoppable movement.
Kate Forbes was quickest off the mark, with a press release announcing that these figures showed this was no time for complacency, that continuity won’t do, and that change is needed. Regan followed up with further paranoid quetsions about who had access to what data when, and Yousaf took time to do a photo-op with Ukrainian refugees, during which he asked the entirely female cohort where their menfolk were:
That is especially cringey. 
There was an early attempt, in the wake of opposition MPs bringing up his appalling record of delivery, to brand Yousaf as “the one they are all afraid of”. And: no, they are not.
Forbes’ press release
Regan’s response (the paranoid style at large)
I for one am following the thread, so please blog away! I don’t have much to contribute as an ignorant American, but I am trying to follow along regardless
My sentiment exactly. This thread has been a fascinating read. If it’s a blog, it’s an informative one.
Omg ROFL etc etc:
Turns out the SNP were asked a month ago if they haven’t lost, ooh about 30,000 members recently and the denials were emphatic…
I’m always curious about how democratic processes work in other countries. Who knew that anyone cares about party memberships?
It is genuinely excellent, please continue. I wish I had more to contribute but I live in southwest England so only have a passing interest.
Looking forward to this then, I was already chuckling at your preceding post (and far from the first time in this thread).
And indeed you didn’t disappoint! Then it got better/worse with the Ukraine bit. Open mouth before engaging brain syndrome, just what you want in a leader.
Hear, hear!
Another vote to please, please keep providing the context and backstory necessary for us interested furriners to follow along from afar.
That Ukrainian women & their menfolk’s routine is comedy gold. If only the governance and potential for independence of Scotland and also the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine weren’t both such serious matters.
Well, in light of the validation I so transparently begged for, I do have a question for everyone.
Teh whole “we, senior members of the SNP, don’t trust the SNP” brouhahah strikes a chord and various observers have labelled the tactic of questioning the legitimacy of the election during the election as “Trumpian”. Does that comparison seem fair to people? Are there recognisable elements of Trump’s tactics here? (The rhetorical style is naturally very different).
For interest, here is the original letter from Forbes and Regan:
(And here is the National Secretary Lorna Finn’s response which has some fine stiletto work, particularly paras 1 and 4.)
Here also is Regan on last week’s Sunday interview round voicing her concerns about the independence and transparency of the election in reasonably personal terms (1st Q&A, about a minute’s worth).