Opportunity knocks
The SNP is a formidable political machine and should be respected as such. To counter it, Scotland's opposition parties to cook up a fresh, positive plan for Scotland and the UK
WORKING in opposition to a government, you sometimes find yourself grudgingly admiring certain features of your political foe.
When I spent my life commuting to the Scottish Parliament as an adviser to Ruth Davidson, thinking up ways to pick holes in the defences of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, what I ended up respecting most about the SNP was their sheer bloody-minded determination to dominate the political agenda.
Some weeks, on issues like hospital waiting times, or school standards, or tax, we had them on the run. And I’m absolutely certain there will have been days when, behind the scenes, the wheels were coming off: for all her public poise, doubtless Nicola Sturgeon has meltdowns like everybody else.
But it didn’t matter what we did: it rarely knocked the SNP off their stride. Every day, they never stopped stepping forward to tell their story: they are not labelled “obsessive” for nothing. Scotland was on ‘a journey’. Its ‘inevitable’ destination was independence. The UK was breaking apart. Viewed dispassionately, it was impressive. Whether they were winning or losing a particular debate was secondary. The point was that the argument was about what they wanted it to be about.
I remember one of the few times I saw Nicola Sturgeon looking really unhappy. It was during the crazy 2017 General Election campaign when the country was transfixed by the collapse in popularity of Theresa May and the almost accidental rise of Jeremy Corbyn. I recall seeing the First Minister in a private room after one of the TV debates during that campaign, huddled with her aides, with a face like thunder. The political story was somewhere else. A few days later, she lost 22 seats. It was a lesson of the perils of lost control.
I mention all this because I think it explains something about yesterday’s little press event in Bute House, at which Ms Sturgeon and Patrick Harvie released yet another document on Scottish independence. I refrain from describing it as “a plan”. It wasn’t. Avoiding everything from currency, to a border with England, to membership of the EU, to the future of Faslane, to pensions, to debt and deficit, it was simply a £20m Google about why Britain was going wrong.
But to criticise the document for a lack of clarity rather misses the point. Because that wasn’t what yesterday was about. Prior to the press conference, talk was growing about the SNP's lack of grip. Alex Salmond among others is openly speculating about his successor's commitment to The Cause. Yesterday's "scene-setter" was therefore about regaining a sense of political control. It was about setting out the terms of our ‘national conversation’. After a two year break, it was Ms Sturgeon’s way of saying: back to the old normal. Ukraine has fallen down the news schedules. The pandemic is in remission. With SNP supporters beginning to get restless about the prospects of an other referendum, Ms Sturgeon calculated she can now return Scotland’s story to her chosen theme. That the UK is very bad. That independence will (somehow, details to follow) rescue us from penury. Ladies and gentlemen, pick your side.
Yesterday, the Scottish Daily Mail demanded on its front page that it is time for Scotland to “change the record” from this dire, dreary, division. I think most Scots agree. Most of us have had enough of the hypothetical debates about independence when there are far bigger issues out there to tackle. For today’s pro-UK opposition parties, the big question is how. With the UK wide media tuning back in to watch the Nationalists’ latest push for independence, the SNP will go into overdrive this autumn. How can we avoid another few months of having arguments of the SNP’s choosing? How can they stop dancing to Ms Sturgeon’s tune?
It can’t be avoided entirely. For those pro-UK parties, the nuts and bolts work of challenging the SNP’s half-formed case must be done. As we saw with the SNP’s absurd proposal on pensions earlier this year – when it appeared to suggest it would be for UK taxpayers to meet continuing pension costs in Scotland - it is only through tough, persistent questioning that we may end up getting some answers out of the Nationalists on some of the fantasies they are proposing.
Meanwhile, opposition parties should also continue to stress that Nicola Sturgeon should focus on the “day job”. It is what the public expects. And with the multiple problems facing the public sector in Scotland, including an immense black hole in the public finances, it is not just a debating point either.
But if they are to properly change the record, then it is time for the pro-Uk parties to take a leaf from the SNP’s book by setting out a big, bold, fresh agenda of their own. They do not have to play on the Nationalists’ territory. A better debate is possible.
Where to begin? Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon set out a gloomy, almost apocalyptic vision of life within the UK. She needs to if she is to convince people that the enormous upheaval that separation would cause is justified. Pro-UK parties should seek counter this immediately. Yes, the UK has big challenges. What country does not? But far from donning a hair-shirt about the woes of the UK, opposition parties should be setting out how the UK can empower Scotland to achieve all the things the SNP says it can’t.
Secondly, they should embrace the possibility of change and renewal. Whether it is by using post-Brexit powers, or by reforming and renewing the UK by spreading power outside London, pro-UK parties should not get trapped into defending the status quo. That way lies calamity. Instead, on the economy, on health, and on the environment, we need to see opposition parties championing the reforming ideas that – unlike through independence – can happen now across the UK, with political will.
And the pro-UK parties should seek to enlarge Scotland’s political debate, to show over and over again that when it comes to the key issues that most Scots care about – from the cost of living, to the state of the environment, to energy security and the technological revolution - the question of independence is less a solution to any of them than an irrelevance: an answer in search of a question.
They should have the confidence to take the SNP on. Too often in recent years (and I raise my hands up on this one too) the opposition parties in Scotland have failed to provide an alternative to the SNP. Dazzled by the Nationalists’ immense lead in the polls and by their electoral dominance, a lack of ambition has crept in. Second place will do. Furthermore, perceiving Nationalists as “the enemy”, opposition parties have failed to see SNP voters them as potential supporters with whom they can find common cause. There has been a lack of strategic imagination.
Let’s hope that ends. The SNP is not the power it was. Its independence offer is pallid. Meanwhile, as a party of government, it has simply keeled over. Post-pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon these days resembles a tribute act to her former self, filling her diary with speaking engagements to hide the lack of a strategy or a domestic agenda.
I still admire the way the SNP refuses to take a backward step. But as yesterday’s repeat episode of Independence Redux showed, the aura of inevitability around the nationalist movement has gone.
For opposition party leaders an opportunity presents itself. Across the country, thousands of SNP voters are ready to listen to an alternative plan to steer Scotland through the tough years ahead. We’re all looking for something positive and fresh to contrast with Nicola Sturgeon’s old songs. Who is going to give it?
ENDS
This article first appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail,