I have lots of thoughts about the ‘sacking’ of SNP MP Joanna Cherry, but for now I’ll just post some tweets by Tristan Gray of the Green Party.

What happened: The SNP leadership silence as transphobia swallowed their party crossed a line, triggering dozens of resignations by young activists and office-holders. Sturgeon issued a statement making it clear action was coming. Cherry was sacked.

Direct cause and effect.

…This isn’t Cherry vs Sturgeon.

It’s ideological, and to an extent generational.

Cherry was the leading edge of a group of SNP politicians willing to ride the wave of a reactionary hate campaign, one overwhelmingly opposed by the younger generation who also back independence.

Cherry was willing to whip up that hate campaign for her own benefit (and that of her ideological support of it) at the expense of trans people, younger activists and SNP support with the younger generation.

Sturgeon knows the SNP and indy need those young voters.

The younger generation is overwhelmingly trans-inclusive and pro-independence. Sturgeon picked that side when sacking Cherry, someone who has built her support among an older and more reactionary demographic who view the ideals of this new generation with hostility.

To not even mention these young activists who were the trigger for the sacking of Cherry does them a disservice, but also does one to the readers of this media who are being sold fabrications instead of reality.

It might be a more comfortable fabrication, but it still is one.

It’s no coincidence that on the same day, the SNP dropped its awful plans to exclude various forms of anti-trans abuse from Scotland’s hate crimes legislation.

Online, the response demonstrates the two camps very well. On Scottish Reddit, which attracts a younger demographic, I’ve read hundreds of comments basically saying “about time too, she was doing severe damage to the party and to the youth vote”. And on Indy Twitter, which skews older and more conservative, there’s the same fury you find underneath Daily Mail stories about the wokerati nanny state immigrant one-legged lesbian thought police. And that’s being reflected in the media response too. Scotland’s commentariat is largely old and conservative, and much of the newspaper coverage is being twisted by that.