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Oliver O'Donovan once said 'to see yourself as a people is a work of moral imagination'. True of most 'bodies' we belong to. If my party SNP is where we try to imagine and work for a better Scotland - then we need to work to unify and detoxify it. /1
Like many folk, I think there will be a realignment post indy and folk may sort themselves into a new range of Scottish parties. But for now, we need a broad based and unified movement, which can hold and debate differences of opinion respectfully. /2
The indiscipline and lack of restraint of radical Left groups, their inability to curb factionalism and resist ideological civil wars, locks them out of power. The SNP/YES movement is risking the same fate. We need peacemakers and mediators to step up. /3
We also need to cultivate a less violent, divisive and hateful style of politics. We need less labelling, less cancelling, less denouncing - more grace and civility. But we also need transparency and integrity from leaders, office bearers and officials. /4
One of my heroes radical US thinker Jim Wallis - once said of the Church, "We have nothing more to share with the world than what we are sharing with each other" My hunch is that applies to our political parties as well - their internal culture matters. /5
If we can't live with, accommodate and mediate difference within a party of folk who share political goals - do we think it will be easier doing that in our future Scotland? Politics, Bernard Crick said, is the art of ruling a divided society without violence. /6
Within our political parties, we need to learn to work non-violently with those we disagree with. That work will also help to train us for the work of sharing political life and space nonviolently with others in Scotland. It's work for all of us in the SNP. /7
