SNP faces Westminster test of having a leader in Edinburgh

The Scottish National party's emergence as the third largest force in the UK parliament has some in London wondering how it will operate effectively with a leader nearly 400 miles north in Edinburgh.

That will be no problem, says Angus Robertson, the German-speaking Moray MP who has led the SNP parliamentary group since 2007.

Having an MP as leader is the norm for other big UK parties, but the SNP does have experience of maintaining focus in Edinburgh and Westminster.

"There are excellent, long-established working arrangements within the SNP which bring together the Scottish ministers and the Westminster SNP group," Mr Robertson says.

"We talk to each other all the time; that is how we have been doing things for many years and that is how we will continue to do things," he says.

Nobody doubts that the SNP's landslide general election victory in Scotland will bring new challenges. In the last parliament, the SNP had six seats in the House of Commons. Now it has 56, with 49 of them filled by MPs new to Westminster.

The party also has confusing lines of authority that could easily create friction. While Mr Robertson is parliamentary group leader, his deputy is Stewart Hosie, who was last year elected deputy leader of the party. 

The SNP's new foreign affairs spokesman is Alex Salmond, the former Scottish first minister who dominated the SNP for most of the past quarter century before stepping down after last year's defeated independence referendum.

But long-time observers of the party say that such is the discipline and internal unity of the SNP that the confusing command structure may not be a problem.

Peter Lynch, lecturer in politics at the University of Stirling and author of a history of the SNP, says Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scotland's first minister, is in clear control. And the close and longstanding ties among the party's elite, forged on the long road from fringe group to government, will help it operate as a cohesive force in Westminster.

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SNP leaders pride themselves on a collegiate approach and in-depth communication, with Mr Robertson, for example, often speaking to the party leader every day.

Opponents hoping for signs of fissures have seized on Mr Salmond's comment at the weekend that the SNP's general election result was a "staging post" on the road to independence, a line seen as undercutting Ms Sturgeon's insistence that it would not be seen as mandate for another referendum.

Ms Sturgeon waves aside any suggestion of differences between the two. As deputy first minister from 2007 to 2014, she worked closely with the man she calls her mentor without letting any disagreements become public. Party insiders say the leadership transition has not undermined their relationship.

Mr Robertson also has plenty of experience of managing long-distance political relationships. The former foreign correspondent in central Europe helped on Mr Salmond's first Westminster election campaign in 1987 and has been an MP since 2001.

While in the House of Commons he has played a range of party roles that have required frequent Edinburgh meetings in person or by conference calls - including acting as its business convener and co-ordinating the SNP's successful 2007 and 2011 Scottish parliament campaigns.

Critics have sometimes accused Mr Robertson, who also directed this month's election, of arrogance. But friends say he is happy being part of the SNP team and shows no sign of wanting to challenge for a greater role.

The SNP cannot claim immunity from splits. In the 1970s, its Westminster MPs and leadership in Scotland feuded during the party's previous electoral high point, when it had 11 seats and considerable sway over a weak Labour government.

Craig McAngus, research fellow at the Centre on Constitutional Change, says the SNP is far better organised now and communication much easier between London and Edinburgh.

Maintaining a united front will also be made easier by the fact that Conservative victory leaves the SNP the more straightforward task of opposition, rather than the unpredictable one of dealing with a minority Labour administration, Mr McAngus says.

Andrew Wilson, a public relations consultant and commentator who is a former SNP member of the Scottish parliament and remains close to its leaders, says the bonds of the party are founded on shared aims and reinforced by electoral victories. "There is no better unifier than success," Mr Wilson says.

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