Author: Tommy Sheppard

Did you watch aghast as the English council election results rolled in on Friday? As Farage’s Reform UK swept into the county halls of Englandshire, having won the Runcorn by-election earlier in the day.

True, it’s only a part of England, the most rightward leaning part at that. And yes, less than a third of the people voted in most places. Nonetheless, these votes matter. They offer legitimacy to a party founded on hatred and division throughout most of England, and real executive power in large swathes of it. Democrats everywhere should be worried.

This is different from UKIP’s victory of 2013, the previous high water a mark for Farage’s right wing populist adventure. Then he was tapping into a widespread, if latent, Europhobia and focused on the single issue of leaving the European Union. That particular boil was lanced by the Brexit referendum.

Reform’s victory last week is much more wide-ranging. The party has succeeded in putting together a coalition of the disaffected and disgruntled and mobilising it to become the main party of the right in England today. It will take more than policy appeasement for the Tories to get this back. 

So, what does this mean for us?  For starters, it matters to Scotland who runs England, because they end up running the UK. These results suggest that it might be possible for the English right to get back into government using Reform as the vehicle once provided by the Conservative Party. If that happens, it will be nothing but bad news for Scotland.

But Reform UK have a foothold here too. True, the Scotland page on the party’s website has nothing to say about Scotland, but they exist, and people are voting for them. So, what is the threat and what is to be done about it.

Let’s start with the opinion polls. Last August Reform UK were polling at around 3% in Scotland. Then, as the dust settled in the aftermath of the general election, their support began to grow. By early October they had doubled their poll rating, most of it corresponding to an equal drop in the Tory vote. By now they were in contention for list seats, knocking on the door of the Scottish parliament.

The Reform UK rise continued and by November broke through the ten percent barrier, by now taking support equally from Labour and Conservative. In the last six months they have risen further to 13%, but nearly all of this seems to have come from Labour whose Scottish support has now dipped under 20%. In the same period the SNP climbed back to 30% and other pro-independence parties have held or increased support.

Pollsters also try to find out where support for parties is coming from. Last week’s Survation poll in Scotland showed Reform UK support at 12%. When these Reform UK voters were asked who they had voted for in last year’s general election more than a quarter said Labour, whereas fewer than one in twenty had supported the SNP.

All of this suggests that Reform UK in Scotland are growing at the expense of other unionist parties and very few are crossing the Yes/No divide to back them.

We can also look at real votes. Reform UK have contested several dozen local council by-elections since last July. Studies of these results their supporters second preferences that overwhelmingly going to other unionist parties, the Conservatives in particular.

The rise of Reform UK in Scotland represents a split in the unionist vote. Interestingly, this is occurring in a period when the constitutional debate is fairly muted, and the main political drivers are economic factors and disillusion with Starmer’s government. Reform UK is whipping up and weaponizing fear of immigration. But disaffected Labour voters in Scotland may also be choosing Reform UK as a disruptor of the status quo.

The SNP needs to show that political independence for our country offers a better prospect for change than backing a party which supports the institutions and values which create the architecture of our current despair.

We also need to clear that Reform UK in Scotland is an ultra-unionist party. When they get round to it, they might even make this clear themselves.

I say ultra, not just because they are enthusiastic supporters of the union, but because the party embodies and celebrates the most objectionable aspects of it. They are British nationalists with better PR than their forebears.  They feed off a residual xenophobia, seeking a fortress Britain which repels Johnny Foreigner. They take a jingoistic pride in Britain’s imperial past, affronted that anyone should question our role in the enslavement and impoverishment of most of the world. They epitomise the worst of the UK, power, privilege and inequality.

Labelling Reform UK as the stormtroopers of the union is telling it as it is. And it will clarify matters as approach the next Scottish election. It will prevent independence supporters lending them their support unwittingly. And it will offer a distinct and better alternative to many who are understandably angry at the betrayals of the current Labour government.

Last week’s poll giving Yes an 11-point lead in Scotland’s constitutional debate has had a strangely muted reaction. Pretty much ignored by the mainstream unionist media, it’s not exactly set the heather on fire within the independence movement either. The poll, commissioned by this newspaper, may of course turn out to be an outlier, and maybe folk are being cautious until they see more.

Strangely, to my mind, publication of this significant lead for the Yes side, provoked a reaction on our side which typically questioned the bona fides of the SNP on the matter, rather than whether Westminster’s continued dismissal of Scottish opinion was legitimate. My fellow columnist Lesley Riddoch asks if the party’s passion has been muzzled and whether independence will now get top billing. Correspondents to the paper demand that the party now prioritise independence in the run up to the 2026 Scottish general election.

Without trying to be difficult can I just point out that whatever it is you think the SNP and its Holyrood government have been doing, whilst they have been doing it support for Indy has increased. It seems implausible to suggest that the actions of the main pro-independence party can have no effect of public opinion. Might it just be that John Swinney’s stewardship has led more people to either support or be entirely relaxed about the prospect of Scotland becoming an independent country?

Maybe I’m being too gentle with the party leadership. It could just be that people are so sick to the back teeth with Labour and Trump that any alternative looks increasingly better.

Whatever, my main point is this, there is a world of difference between saying you think Scotland should be an independent country and doing anything about it. The poll gives us no insight into how strongly people feel or whether independence is a priority for them.

Which brings me to the voting intention figures. The Find Out Now poll asked the exact same group of people how they intended to vote in next year’s election. In the regional vote, the one that determines party share in the parliament, 25% said they would vote SNP (not very good), 14% Green (pretty good) and 7% Alba (their best ever).

That means that the support for all of the pro-independence parties combined adds up to 46% of those surveyed. That’s a full ten percent less than the number of people who would vote Yes. Even if you look at the figures for the constituency ballot the combined total is 47%, more or less the same margin.

That is the big story of this poll. It shows, yet again, that even if the electorate are now pro-independence, they are not prepared to vote for parties who advocate it. This is not just the SNP’s problem; it should be a concern for the whole Yes movement.

Now there might be a few people who genuinely support independence but are wedded to a unionist party, perhaps even fighting the good fight from within, but they will be few and far between. The main reason why this gap exists is not because some independence supporters are voting for other parties; they are not voting at all.

And the reason for that is not because they believe the SNP (and others) don’t have the intention, the passion, the goal of independence. It is because they do not see how it can be achieved.

The letters pages in this paper call for the SNP to prioritise independence in the coming election putting it front and centre.  That’s really not the problem. I have no doubt that the SNP will advocate an independent Scotland in the coming election.

And the way to do it begins with asking people to endorse a demand to change the Scotland Acts to remove the prohibition on the Scottish parliament acting on the union. A parliament with a majority committed to that should then lead and fund a massive public engagement programme to deepen and widen support for that objective, aiming to build insurmountable political pressure for change. That is when we will need the citizens assemblies, civic conventions, and a professional campaign running through every strand of Scottish life.

There are only two alternatives to this. You either put up with the status quo and wait for unionist largesse to do the right thing and recognise the democratic wish of people in Scotland, or you ignore the status quo and hold a referendum anyway. The first may never happen, and the second provokes a battle we cannot win.

I would like to see all Yes supporters unite behind the SNP to win as pro-independence majority next year, as they did in 2011. But even if that doesn’t happen there is still a chance now that we would elect an independence supporting parliament for the simple reason that the unionists are more disunited than we are.

Lesley is right about one thing, if that happens, it has to mean something. So, every party, every candidate, fighting these elections on the side of Scotland’s autonomy should pledge to fight to change the law to allow the right of self-determination.

In spite, or maybe because of, my semi-retirement, I’ve devoted a few recent Saturdays to events organised by components of the Yes movement. Not large gatherings, but useful get-togethers nonetheless. Good to keep the brain exercised on topic, lest the intellect withers.

These events bring together the already converted. I know most of the people. I quite enjoy the fact that I’m not the oldest at these meetings, not by a long way, an experience which is sadly less and less common.

For now, I think it’s fair to say these events are not exactly hoatching with energy and passion; anyone seeking a new momentum behind the drive for independence will need to look elsewhere. But some activity is better than none and things, as they say, can only get better.

What worries me more than the numbers is the way the organisers view themselves as observers rather than creators of Scotland’s political landscape. There’s little understanding of how to use the coming election to advance the central objective of independence. No sense of the movement itself becoming a political force; putting its own champions into government.

Our movement has been in the doldrums for some time, indeed for most of the years since the heady heights of the 2014 referendum campaign. As I’ve argued for a while now the reason why that exuberance is proving so hard to re-ignite is that a substantial chunk of people who believe in independence no longer see how it can be achieved.

Westminster says no. The Supreme Court says no. And until we get a convincing narrative to counter that it will be difficult to move through the gears. That begins by explaining to people that UK law needs to change if their right to self determination is to be exercised.

As our campaigns atrophied in the wake of unionist denial, we started arguing about other stuff, with a tenuous relationship to independence.  Identity politics assumed an importance it would not have had if the campaign for self-government had not been derailed. 

The next iteration of this phenomenon – which has been high on the agenda at recent events – seems to be a growing focus on changing the structures of the devolved government.

Whilst no-one is suggesting we shouldn’t improve how we make decisions, reform of Holyrood has never been high on the agenda of the Yes movement. I guess this is because we’ve all regarded devolution as an interim set-up, a stepping stone towards a new independent government. And once we have the power to do so a new modern constitution would be replete with improvements.

Perhaps this has been a mistake. Perhaps arguing for reform of the current arrangements can be a way to make the case for independence. But it would be a mistake to look at these reforms just within the framework of today’s devolved parliament because a new one would not only have much wider scope and authority, but a quite different relationship to the institutions of government in the UK, Europe and beyond.

The thing which animates people most is the notion of a second chamber at Holyrood. Not a debate about whether an independent parliament in Scotland should have a senate, but whether the existing one should.

One keynote speaker at the recent Scottish Independence Convention event in Glasgow argued that the Scottish government would be improved by the creation of a second chamber established as a citizens’ assembly of one hundred people; selected at random and paid to take a sabbatical from their work for two years. 

I have a several serious concerns about this. Firstly, the malaise of distrust and hostility to elected politicians which this proposal seeks to tackle is hardly likely to be salved by creating another hundred of them.

Secondly, it is not democratic to have people who are elected compromised or controlled by people who are not. The comparison is often made with jury selection, randomly done and seeking to represent a cross section of the population. But juries are there to determine facts in a specific case, not opinions. It is not their role to represent others.

Most of all, this just isn’t the biggest problem. Way ahead of creating a second chamber would changing the voting system to allow voters to express preferences and encourage smaller parties and independents.

Or changing the parliament so that the executive is not drawn from its members. Currently any governing party will have to deploy nearly half of their number to ministerial positions. This results in the brightest and most able people getting mired in the administration of things, rather than directing the apparatus of government.

Don’t get me wrong. I love talking about constitutions and a big part of the attraction of a new independent country is getting a better one. But that is something to be done when we have the power to do so. Making this the focus of debate now is, as the cockneys say, a bit previous.

Today is the first working day of the new tax year. Usually, it is when tax rates change. But not today. Consider that. The new Labour government elected on a promise of change doesn’t see the need for change.

The balance of who pays what established under successive terms of Conservative governments is just about right. No need for the rich to pay more. No need for the poor to pay less. It’s pretty astonishing that any government would just abandon one of the key tools available to it to rebalance the fortunes of its citizens.

That this should be the case is a result of just how toxic the debate on tax has become. Years, decades of misinformation about how taxes are a burden on the individual and a drain on business have created the illusion that the taxes you pay go to someone else. That money is being taken out of your wage packet and given to others. For their benefit, not yours.

It’s nonsense of course. Taxes are how we fund the things together that most of us could never afford individually. They are in essence the membership fees we pay to join civilised society. They fund the schools, hospitals, roads and so much else which is available to everyone.

Taxes are also a mechanism to try to temper the grossly unequal distribution of wealth in capitalist economies. Or at least they ought to be. This can be achieved by linking the amount people pay to the assets they have. And this is where things have gone wrong.

The richest in the UK pay less tax today than they did under Thatcher. In order to protect this historical advantage, taxes on the rest of us have been kept high. The result is that most people perceive that the tax they pay is unfair, and many resent it. So, when the likes of Reform talk about cutting taxes, it resonates.

Paranoid of being seen to raise personal taxation Labour have tried to finesse balancing the books by raising National Insurance on employers. It goes up today. There are two things wrong with this and they belie Labour’s lack of progressive thinking on tax.

Firstly, not all businesses are equally affected. The biggest change is not the 1.5 percent rise in the rate of National Insurance, but its application to millions of part-time workers who have previously been exempt. And this has a hugely disproportionate effect on small businesses especially in the hospitality and retail sectors. So, whilst this change will have marginal effect on large corporations, just watch as your local restaurant goes under.

But the second problem is that this is a tax on business operations, not profits. I believe that businesses should contribute more to the public finances. But this should be based on ability to pay. Those who make the biggest profits should pay the most. A fairly organised economy needs a thriving small business sector where operators are able to make profits which can then be taxed. This policy will result in the opposite.

Those of us who believe we need to re-organise the economy so that it works for the people who live here need to now begin the long, slow journey to building a new narrative on tax.

Let’s start with a shout out for Tax Justice Scotland, an alliance of unions and campaigning groups formed at the end of last year and determined to change the terms of the debate. Go online and check them out.

Perhaps the biggest element in changing that debate is to shift it away from just looking at incomes. There is great income inequality of course. It’s increasing. And people who earn more should pay more. But in terms of inequality incomes are a poor second to the accumulation of wealth.

Take a look at Gary Stevenson’s videos on YouTube for a useful primer on how the financial system works to siphon resources away from the working and middle classes to the super-rich, and how in turn they use that wealth to perpetuate inequality.

If we are serious about those who can afford it paying more, it is time to work out new ways of taxing accumulated wealth. Little of this is held in cash. The bulk is assets like land, buildings, stocks and material goods.

We also need, and this is lacking in Tax Justice Scotland’s script at the moment, an understanding of what can be achieved by the limited powers of the devolved Scottish government and how they can be frustrated by Westminster.

Not being independent means you have no control over the movement of capital and labour within your borders. Without that people and companies can simply leave if asked to pay more.

The exception is land. The great estates simply cannot move if they are asked to fulfil a social obligation.

So, as we start thinking about manifestos for 2026, along with shifting the balance of power and demanding better economic levers in Scotland, we need to look again at maximising the ability we do have to ask the wealthiest to pay more.

What would we think if a government minister were to use his or her custodianship of public assets to generate profits which were then paid directly into their bank account? Even in today’s jaded politics I’m certain this would invoke howls of outrage.

And what if it was then discovered that members of parliament were determined to defend the practice and refused to scrutinise what had been going on? Couldn’t happen, surely.

Yet this exactly what happens in today’s Britain were the head of state uses public assets for private aggrandisement. King Charles III is by virtue of his office also the Duke of Lancaster. The Duchy of Lancaster is not a place but a massive commercial operation holding land, property and investments worth £700m. Last year it generated over £27m profit – all of which went to the King’s personal account. Nice work if you can get it.

This is important because whilst the Duchy runs like a private estate, it is most definitely a state asset. As the recent report “Ditch the Duchies” by the campaign group Republic shows the Duchy hasn’t been private property since at least 1461 when the English King Edward IV passed a law “confiscating the Duchy of Lancaster to the Crown of England for ever”.

Plenty of subsequent laws make it clear the Duchy is a crown asset not the personal possession of the Windsor family. Indeed, it is described as such in the current Royal Tax Memorandum (an agreement between the Treasury and the Royals) in 2023. This is why the King cannot sell any of part of the Duchy – it doesn’t belong to him.

It’s also why not a penny of corporation tax was paid on the whacking profits the duchy makes every year. It is exempted as a crown asset. An almost identical arrangement is in place for Prince William with the Duchy of Cornwall (again the name is misleading as most its land is in Devon). He gets slightly less in profits in his bank account – just £23m last year.

These financial arrangements look even worse when two other things are considered. Firstly, the beneficiaries of this provision are already phenomenally wealthy. King Charles if one of the richest people in the world with a personal fortune estimated at over two billion pounds.  It’s not as if he needs the money.

Secondly the King and other royals already receive a small fortune every year from the taxpayer. This is called the Sovereign Grant – £86 million last year. In another act of accounting sophistry monarchists will argue that this money comes from revenues raised by the Crown Estates and since there’s a good deal left over the royals actually make the country a profit. This is palpable nonsense. The Crown Estates are most definitely public rather than private assets.

Does all this matter? Well, a bit. In a country where we are told there’s not enough money to cover welfare payments for disabled people or end the cap on support for the poorest families, it is a bit shocking that our taxes are used to keep one family in such lavish opulence.

But this is not just about the money. The confusing and deliberately opaque picture that emerges from royal funding is bad enough. What is worse is the obfuscation and deceit practised by elected politicians to keep it that way.

One of the unintended consequences of last year’s election is that a bunch of SNP representatives who were recalcitrant if not critical when it came to taxpayer funding of the royals have been replaced by Labour ones who for the most part can’t tug their forelocks hard enough. In what looks like standard response from Labour head office they have been telling constituents that the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are private institutions “responsible for their own commercial activities” whilst they are also “Crown bodies subject to Crown exemption”. They can’t be both.

For too long all Westminster parties have colluded in preventing scrutiny of the royal finances, giving them all the benefits of a private corporation without any of the social obligation to pay income, corporation or inheritance taxes.

If there is a glimmer of hope in all of this, it is that the public seem increasingly disinclined to practice supine deference to the aristocratic masters. As opinion polls show increasing support for abolition of the monarchy, the royals themselves face public protests at their carefully stage-managed events.

Last week’s Republic protest at Commonwealth Day offered a taste of what is to come in the year ahead.  The Palace must be wondering whether there’s really much to be gained by association with the Commonwealth. After all, three quarters of Commonwealth have ditched the monarchy and are now republics, and more are planning to follow suit.

To my mind the monarchy is intertwined with the British state and so its abolition goes hand in hand with secession from the union. But not everyone who Scotland’s independence agrees so I see no need to make republicanism a pre-condition for our campaign.

I am confident though that as support for abolition rises the realisation that independence offers that possibility will be a winning component in our campaign.

Things go from bad to worse for Starmer’s Labour government. Buyer’s remorse amongst the electorate rises to an epidemic. Unwilling to challenge the grotesque inequality of wealth and power in the country they govern, Labour ministers chart a course to make it worse.

But this is no time for schadenfreude amongst those want Scotland to take a different course.

The most remarkable feature of Labour’s plummeting support since last summer is just how little of it has come to the SNP. The party is up slightly, but only slightly. But in a first past the post contest with lots of parties, the one with the most support triumphs, even if it’s the choice of nowhere near half of the electorate. Just ask Keir Starmer.

This has led some to speculate that an SNP victory is now possible in next year’s Scottish general election. Some amateur psephologists predict results with the same misplaced optimism that infuses barroom pundits when they explain how the national football team can still qualify for the world cup despite a run of poor performances.

Possible, not probable. And besides, we need to be better than just not as shite as the other lot. So how does the SNP win an election convincingly? This is a question that ought to concern not only party members but everyone who wants Scotland to have the choice of self-government.

First, we need to remind ourselves what parties are for.

I think I upset Peter Bell at a conference in Edinburgh last week organised by the Independence Forum for Scotland when I refused a flyer for his new party. He suggested that I ought to be interested in discussing policy and open to new ideas. He misses the point. I will enjoy discussing policy until the cows come home, but that is not what political parties are for.

Parties exist to promote a collective interest not just by advocacy but by taking political power and using the mechanisms of a state to deliver change. In our case they are there to act on behalf of all those who believe that this country should be independent and in charge of its own affairs. At elections, they have the chance through collective action called voting to make those views influence the rules and structures of our everyday lives.

The more united a group of people are, the more effective their collective action. Divided campaigns do not win, even if the splits shear off slices at the edges rather than cleave through the centre.

How we can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is well illustrated by the Scottish parliament electoral system.  Even after a quarter of a century how the system works is still widely misunderstood. Many people believe the regional list vote is a second preference, an opportunity to indicate who you would like to be elected if your first choice didn’t make it. It just isn’t.

The balance of parties in the parliament is decided by the list vote alone. Rather than being a second vote it is in practise your primary choice. There are sixteen seats elected in each region, nine by first past the post at constituency level and seven on the list. But how many of the sixteen each party gets is decided only by the support they get on the regional vote. It’s a confusing system that ought to be replaced but it what we have.

Broadly speaking, to get one of the sixteen seats you need to get a sixteenth of the votes – over 6%. Anything less, you get nothing.

Voting in the Alba leadership contest starts today. With the greatest of respect to all involved, does it matter? A party which gets one or two percent of the vote cannot increase the representation of Scottish independence in the parliament, it can only decrease it by lowering the share of the vote for the SNP. That’s the system.

There is now a significant section of the Scottish electorate who say they want Scotland to be independent but do not vote for any party. They cannot see how the action of voting makes independence happen. The SNP needs to explain how the two things are connected. We need a plan to deal with Supreme Court dismissals and Westminster intransigence. Without it these people are not coming back.

But this is a two-way street. In working out that plan we need all those who are already politically engaged to unite to maximise our collective strength.

I’ll leave the Scottish Greens out of the equation as whilst they support independence it is not a core belief of the party, and they draw support from many who do not.

But anyone for whom political independence is their most important thing needs to join the SNP. It will be an unpalatable message for many.  Indeed, the umbrage taken by some outside the SNP at the suggestion they join may be matched by the concern and annoyance of some running the party that they might do just that.

There is a need now for a new spirit of tolerance and compromise. Remember that many of our fellow citizens remain unconvinced of the merits of setting up a new country.  The role of an independence party is to combine representation those who believe with persuasion of those who do not. We can only do that effectively if we are united.

Do you ever think the world’s gone mad? Then you look around and see few others agreeing with you. And you wonder if maybe it’s you, maybe you’re the mad one?

I feel a bit like that with the latest Labour bombshell, last week’s announcement that the aid budget would be cut to fund an increase in military spending.

This is a simply heinous decision. With the exception of John Swinnney and Stephen Flynn,  I see little indignation or outrage from our elected representatives. No-one has called a demo. I’ve not been bombarded with petitions from 38 degrees and others. True, the aid minister has resigned and good on her. But otherwise, there’s little evidence of rebellion on Labour’s backbenches.

What’s going on? Imagine if the Tories had done this even a year ago.

Is it just such a blow to the solar plexus of liberal democracy that we can’t catch our breath to shout back.? Perhaps our collective compassion has just been boiled like frogs, and we’ve not noticed. In much the same way as stopping to help someone lying on the street in front of you is now seen as aberrant behaviour.

But this can’t go on. In the words of the Manic Street Preachers, “if you tolerate this, then your children will be next”.

There’s two parts to this equation. Let’s start with the first, the unevidenced and unchallenged assumption that there is an imperative to rapidly increase military spending.

I for one am getting sick of one retired general after another taking to the airwaves demanding we fight a war with other people’s children. Their argument seems to be that if America is pulling resources out of NATO, these must be matched by a corresponding increase in contributions from the remaining members states.

Well no. If America is pulling out of NATO, then it’s time to reevaluate what on earth NATO is for in the first place and whether we need to look at different alliances. But doing that immediately begs the argument what is the role of a European military alliance. For starters it shouldn’t be to secure a playing field for American corporations, or to enrich American arms manufacturers.

But more than that we need to ask whether Western powers intend to exist in a permanent state of tension with the rest of the world, or to seek an accommodation with it. Is this really a battle between east and west as if the Soviet Union had never disappeared? Is it really a battle between liberalism and totalitarianism when European countries elect overt Nazis to their parliaments in droves?

We should also look at what the MoD spends money on and ask whether it is actually contributing to our collective defence. Right at the top of the audit list would be the £6.5Bn spent every year on the nuclear submarine programme. A system that is not fit for purpose, can only be maintained with American support, and drains resources from elsewhere.

That budget is many, many times the increase in spending announced last week. It could be used to ensure forces are properly staffed, trained, and equipped. Instead, it is squandered on a white elephant for the vanity of mandarins and generals who’ve never got over losing an empire.

Even if your concluded that there was a serious threat to freedom and democracy which required an increase in military expenditure, then at least have the honesty to argue that we should divert more wealth to the public sphere to pay for it. If Daily Mail readers are really so supportive of getting on a war footing, then let them pay for it.

There’s no danger of that, though. Instead, the people who will be paying are the wretched of the earth who will now be denied British aid. Those who have the misfortune to be borne into the shanty towns of the Indian sub-continent or the grinding poverty of Africa.

You cannot help but think that Starmer is playing for Reform votes here, by pandering to ill-informed prejudices about international development. Shame on him for doing so. Part of that right wing narrative is that hard earned British taxes end up in the hands of third world despots who use it to furnish their palaces whilst keeping their own population down.

If it matters, that’s not true. Pretty much none of the aid budget is given directly to national governments in the countries where is targeted. The biggest proportion goes to multilateral organisations like WHO, GAVI and the World bank’s International Development Association.  Most of the rest goes to country-by-country programmes where projects are delivered on the ground through major NGOs like Save the Children or Marie Stopes International.

To be clear none of this work has adequate funding.

The overseas aid budget has already been cut by a third since 2010. More than a quarter of what remains isn’t used for aid at all, but to pay for refugee accommodation in the UK because the government won’t let asylum seekers work for a living.

The consequences of further proposed cuts of 40% will be death and misery. The poor will get poorer. The consequences of that will be a more unequal, unstable and insecure world. This decision is not just bereft of humanity. It is counterproductive and stupid too.

Labour activists meeting in Glasgow over the weekend must be wondering how it has all gone so wrong, so quickly.

Just six months ago Anas Sarwar was a shoo-in for First Minister. Now he’s fighting for third place. At 18% Labour’s poll support in Scotland is at an all time low. If people voted in line with recent polls, it would be Labour’s lowest ever share of the vote at any parliamentary election since the introduction of universal suffrage.

This disenchantment is reflected on the ground too. I don’t place much store by council by-election results. Winning wards after multiple transfers on very low turnouts tells us little about what might happen in a general election. But in his recent interview in LabourList, Ian Murray cites local byelection successes as evidence that the polls are wrong. Even that straw can’t be clutched now as the SNP won a seat off Labour in East Ayrshire on the eve of their conference.

Labour’s victory in Scotland last July doesn’t feel as if it’s made much of a change in the body politic in the country. Nearly three dozen new MPs have been almost invisible.  An infusion of political energy and ideas not.

I remember SNP MPS at Westminster getting stuck into multiple campaigns, often leading cross-party initiatives on drugs, human rights, poverty, electoral reform, Palestine, climate and much else. We said and did things, often going off party script.

I get this is probably easier in opposition. But still, the lack of any Labour MP – with the laudable exception of Brian Leishman attacking his government’s feet dragging on Grangemouth – having anything much to say about anything is remarkable.

As a consequence, they look like a sullen bunch of cheerleaders for a government Scottish people, indeed Scottish Labour supporters, don’t much like. The whole exercise is infused with as much enthusiasm and inspiration as a Taliban karaoke night out.

Labour’s woes are entirely of their own making. Global forces will always batter any administration but the central problem for Labour is that it has abandoned the social-democratic credo which the party represented for more than a hundred years. Even under Blair the mantra was for the many not the few. Not now.

Labour’s decision to protect the assets of the wealthy from social obligation now means they will tax the many, not the few. It is a bizarre political straitjacket which they have willingly put on.

Unwilling to charge the richest more, Labour have denied themselves the means to increase the proportion of the economy devoted to the public realm. That’s why they keep the Tory cap on welfare payments to the poorest. Why they’ve taken energy support off pensioners with incomes of more than £12,800. And why they are now planning to cut social support to disabled people.

Rather than review the policy of not taxing the rich, Labour leaders are doubling down. In Scotland, their finance spokesperson rails against the SNP government’s higher rates of income tax.

Meanwhile, losing support to Reform, Labour is now developing a cruel line on migrants. An erstwhile little known party pressure group Blue Labour has everyone’ attention. Now with its own parliamentary caucus, the group argues firmly against migration and demands the UK government take a much more hostile stance against people who seek to make Britain their home.

This is what is known in political theory as triangulation. When you perceive that the public has shifted its views towards your opponent, you move your policy towards them. You aim to reassure people their prejudices are safe in your hands – there’s no need to go anywhere else.

There are, however, some gaping holes in this theory. To begin with its advocates seem only to deploy it selectively, usually when trying to move policy to the right. There is for instance, considerable support in England for higher taxes for the wealthiest – but Labour policy is immune to that. In Scotland, you might think triangulation would encourage the Labour Party to respond to the growth in public support for independence by advocating more powers for Scotland. But no.

But the main problem with the theory of triangulation is that it takes the principle out of politics. Beliefs, attitudes, policies become flexible and fluid. Parties come to stand for nothing other than winning an election. Which is sort of where we are now.

In that hollowed out sphere the public give up in increasing numbers. Opt out. Abstain. To change this, to inspire and motivate people once again, parties need to represent something real. Something that offers conviction and change. 

That seems to be lost on the Labour party just now. They are instead seeking to absorb and incubate every prejudice in the hope of building a majority against the SNP. Their problem is that others are doing the same, Reform and the Tories both have the same agenda. It’s a crowded room.

Not only that, but this approach will also leave increasing numbers of decent Labour supporters disenfranchised. People who don’t see their salvation in attacking migrants and minorities. People who want a fairer more equal society. These are the people the independence movement needs to be talking to.

So, the SNP rulebook. Don’t switch off just yet. I know that for people who are not members of the party this is not a gripping topic. In truth, it bores the pants off most who are members.

Yet it is important. The way in which Scotland’s largest political party, the party of government, runs itself ought to be of interest. Because, when it messes up it has consequences for us all, but most notably for that half of the population which wishes Scotland to be an independent country. Indeed, it’s fair to say that had the structures of the party been better it might have made fewer mistakes, and things could be different now.

A review is coming. A special conference takes place in Perth on March 22^nd and the proposed changes in structures are now online for all to see. So, here’s the first of two previews of what’s coming up.

Most of the debate centres on the National Executive Committee, an unwieldy body of nearly fifty members which most people agree has become unfit for purpose. There are two main reasons why this has happened. The first is that the party has been (rightly) concerned about social and cultural barriers that prevent people getting involved and has (wrongly) created positions on its NEC to overcome them.

The second reason was the creation six years ago of sixteen NEC members, two of which must be elected in each of the eight Holyrood electoral regions. At least one in each region must be a woman in a laudable attempt to achieve at least fifty percent representation.

To understand why this has become a problem we need to go back to 2018, the last time the SNP made major changes to its constitution.  Back then we had a major debate about creating a regional structure for the party. The idea was to create regional organisers who would coordinate and support the work of volunteer activists. It is a common enough idea amongst not only political parties but other large membership organisations too.

The idea was well supported by the membership and resolutions passed at the national conference. But it never happened. Implementation would have required decentralisation of money, staff and power from the national headquarters. Those in charge at the time viewed this prospect with as much enthusiasm as a bucket of cold sick.

Now of course, it is not a good look for senior party staffers to be seen to contradict the will of the membership openly. So, they didn’t. On paper, regional steering committees were established but given no authority. And every attempt to fund their development was blocked.

That is the context in which the notion of regional NEC reps evolved. In strange way a mechanism which was meant to give grass roots members more direct say in the running of the party ended up doing the opposite.

The NEC is elected at conference, but the regional reps can only be elected by delegates from that region. Each region has a women’s place and a general one – two contests. So, the representation of members is atomised in sixteen separate ballots in which eight different electorates participate.  

This makes it very difficult for members who wish to change what the party does and how it does it. Minority views can only achieve representation if they succeed in winning a majority in one or more regions.

It also denies the party the benefit of good people at a national level if they have the misfortune to live in a region with a lot of other activists.

I think in some people’s minds these representatives are there to represent a particular regional interest, even when none exists. Members don’t hold different views on major policy areas like currency, public ownership, the monarchy, or whatever because of where they live.

Yet this misconception is the only explanation I can offer for the whackiest proposal ever to grace an order paper. It is being seriously proposed that in order to reduce the size of the NEC the sixteen regional reps be maintained, but only one from each region can attend each time. As if in each region the two reps had identical views and represented a homogeneous regional interest.

They don’t, of course. Nor should they. I look forward to the proponents of this nuttiness telling us what will happen if both reps for a particular region turn up for the same meeting, as they have every right to do.

What we really need now is to admit that the current regional structure of the party was still born and commit to a development plan that will look at how a new area organisation can be developed. One where we shift money and staff to that end, to encourage, train and motivate local activists and to build a winning campaigning machine.

In the meantime, we should end the pretence of regional NEC representation and elect grass roots members of the NEC in two blocks at conference, one for female candidates, and one open to anyone. That would guarantee a plurality of views on the executive which would be broadly representative of the delegates on the floor of the conference. Which means the next time the conference makes a major new policy decision, there might have a better hope of it being implemented.

Today it happens. The second Trump presidency begins. More organised, we are told, than the last one. His team of billionaires ready to hit the ground running. The new American oligarchy.

Amid all the belligerence and bombast, the driving mission is clear. America first. Which means the rest of the world second. We all hold our breath, try to adjust and work out ways to survive the next four years.

As the year unfolds, we shall see what Trump’s foreign policy has in store for the world. Standing up for the human rights of others is unlikely to make the cut.

Undoubtedly this has a populist appeal at home, but abroad it will do great damage to the reputation of the world’s only superpower. The most powerful and richest country in the world seeking yet more riches and more power is not a good look.

What does this mean the war in central Europe, raging now for nearly three years? Trump proclaims he will stop World War Three and bring peace to Ukraine “in a day”. Remarkable utterances even for one so lacking in self-doubt as the new president.

There is a real fear that Trump’s proposed peace will throw Ukraine and the Ukrainians under a bus, forcing them effectively to surrender to Putin by cutting off military support.

It would be easily done. In the first two and half years of the war the US provided more than $62Bn in direct military aid, mostly hardware. That’s more than the rest of the world combined. A drop of even ten percent would be challenging for European countries to make up, and a serious cutback would spell the end for Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself.

All wars are brutal and horrific. This one more than most. In recent years we have seen wars portrayed as computer games, with the combatants disengaged for one another. Israel’s destruction of Gaza and its civilian population an extreme example where bombs are dropped on schools, housing estates and hospitals by remote and unseen operators in bunkers hundreds of miles away.

There is nothing remote about the war in Ukraine. In spite of ordnance being controlled by sophisticated computers, there are aspects of this war reminiscent of the continent’s conflicts more than a hundred years before.  Thousands of conscripts face each other dug into the earth and slogging for weeks on end to gain a few hundred metres of territory. Getting blown to bits in the process.

The killing is immediate, raw, bloody and never-ending. President Zelenskyy recently put a figure on his country’s losses; 43,000 dead and 370,000 injured. But truth is always the first casualty. So, the deaths will be more than this. And by all accounts Russian losses are twice those of Ukraine.

Probably there are well over one million dead or maimed for life in this conflict. Every one of them a human tragedy, somebody’s child.

Stopping the killing should be a priority for everyone. There has to be a ceasefire and a start to negotiations to both end the war and then to begin the process of building a lasting peace. To be clear there is no question that Russia is the aggressor here and the new US president should use all his power to force Russia to stop.

As this year unfolds, the central principle that every democrat should advocate is the right of the people of Ukraine to choose their own future. If a permanent solution requires redrawing borders that is a judgement that only Ukrainians can make. It is not one that should be forced upon them.

We also need to offer our solidarity to the mass of the Ukrainian people in ensuring that what happens next does not strengthen the hand of those who would exploit them. There are worrying proposals to change the country’s labour laws, including reducing or removing rights for workers employed by foreign companies. Could this be western corporations eyeing up an opportunity to have a new source of cheap labour nearer to home?

The trade union backed Ukraine Solidarity Campaign is clear that we need to stand with the people of Ukraine not just against the current attacks but in making sure their sacrifice achieves a democratic country where rights are protected, and wealth is shared. They will need to win the peace once this war ends.

Most of all, though, there is no secure future for Ukraine as a fortified eastern front for NATO. It is distressing that now a quarter of the way through this century we are further from removing tension and conflict in Europe than we were at the end of the last one.

When the Soviet Union did represent a fundamental ideological challenge to capitalism, there was still a process of détente, discussion and actual disarmament. The Soviets are long gone. Sadly, so are peace talks.

A new narrative is needed. One that talks of peace and reconciliation in Europe, that insists to the Russian people that we respect their right to determine their own future too.

Outside of the west, most of the rest of the world is ambivalent about Putin’s Russia, often regarding us as more of a threat. We need a global persuasion exercise for that to change. Most importantly, we need to send the message to ordinary Russians that we mean them no harm. If we can do that it will strengthen the hand of Russian democrats and prevent this Putin being` succeeded by another.