EXCLUSIVE
Tom Gordon
Scottish Political Editor
A HIGH profile Nationalist candidate has suffered a blow to her Holyrood campaign after an entire SNP branch in her target seat was suspended for infighting and indiscipline.
Jeanne Freeman, a founder of the Women for Independence group, has been caught in the fallout from a bitter feud which shut down the SNP’s Cumnock & District branch.
Freeman, 62, a former special adviser to Labour First Minister Jack McConnell who switched to the SNP, is seen as one of the party’s top recruits for the 2016 election.
She was recently selected as the candidate for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (CCDV), where the former SNP minister Adam Ingram is stepping down as the MSP.
However just a week after she was selected, the pivotal Cumnock & District branch was suspended and its office bearers denied access to vital activist data.
The SNP majority over Labour in the Ayrshire seat in 2011 was a slender 2,581.
The suspension followed weeks of internal arguments over attempts by branch convener John Dalzell to get rid of women’s officer Ruth Shipstone.
According to emails seen by the Sunday Herald, Dalzell told branch members in July that Shipstone had been suspended after a vote at a hastily-arranged special meeting.
However Shipstone appealed to SNP Headquarters on the grounds the vote was improper.
SNP HQ then overruled Dalzell and agreed that Shipstone’s suspension was invalid.
This prompted what one party member described as a ”late-night rant” from Dalzell in the form of an email sent at 1.30am on August 19, in which he claimed one of Shipstone’s supporters had been admonished for “deliberately lying” and was viewed as “an embarrassment”.
Dalzell also accused a fellow branch office bearer of “bullying and intimidation” at meetings.
On August 24, the SNP’s National Secretary, Patrick Grady MP, suspended the branch.
In an email to members, which was copied to Freeman, Grady said “personal conflicts.. had been evident over a period of time” in the branch.
Meetings were disrupted by “open dissent” and there were “too many emails flying around, complaints being made, and tensions around the status and position of office bearers”.
He went on: “What I cannot have is an ongoing distraction given that we are 9 months away from an election and have a candidate in place.
“For that reason I am suspending operations of the branch in the meantime. Office bearers will not have access to membership data, and no meetings of the branch should take place.
“I would envisage the branch structure remaining in abeyance until it is time for the Annual General Meeting at the start of 2016.
“I do not take this action lightly, but the opportunity to sort things out within the branch has been on offer for some time, and the required progress has simply not been made.”
The suspension is an added headache for Freeman, who has already had to deny sniping in the local press that she was “parachuted” into the seat as an SNP favourite.
Although born in Ayr, she currently lives 70 miles from the seat in Glasgow’s West End.
A Labour spokesperson said: “This is extraordinary. We know the SNP aren't fans of internal debate or independent thought but for party HQ to step in and effectively shut down a local party until the turn of the year makes a mockery of democracy.”
Freeman said: “The temporary suspension relates to branch organisation but does not affect members campaigning and I'm delighted to be working with enthusiastic and energetic SNP members right across the constituency in an already very active campaign.”
Dalzell did not respond to email.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel