Premier Danielle Smith speaks at the United Conservative Party AGM in Edmonton on Saturday. The event was a fractious affair marked by divisions.Amber Bracken/The Globe and Mail

Kathy Kerr is a veteran freelance journalist based in Edmonton.

Premier Danielle Smith faces an uphill battle with her own party, which appears to be increasingly untethered from Alberta’s current reality.

The United Conservative Party annual general meeting was a fractious affair, marked by divisions over separatism and policy resolutions mired in the 1950s. Albertans would be wise to pay attention to those resolutions – they have a habit of becoming government policy.

When Ms. Smith counselled taking the win provided by the energy development memorandum of understanding with Ottawa, a good portion of the more than 4,000 attendees was still riled up to fight the independence fight, and they let her know with loud booing that her pro-Canada pivot wasn’t washing.

Ms. Smith must sell a new direction for her government to UCP members and, more importantly, to the average Albertan. Judging from the events of the weekend AGM, there’s less and less overlap in the membership of those two groups.

Opinion: Danielle Smith helped create a separatist monster that is now attacking her

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