Tag: SNP

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We get enough blame without looking for it.

I have too much time on my hands. That’ll explain why I read the Programme for Government all the way through. I guess one of a tiny minority of our citizens who did.

I thought it might be useful to go to the original source in search of a strategic reassessment of how the Scottish Government, or perhaps more accurately the Scottish civil service, could make the best use of diminishing resources. Didn’t really find it. 

The report tells us the Scottish government has four priorities: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency, and ensuring high quality and sustainable public services. Scrolling down the considerable length of the meaty central section it is difficult to find any Scottish government operations which are not included. Every time you click pagedown up pops another policy area which seems to have been crowbarred in by an enthusiastic advisor.

Everything is there, nothing is ranked. And when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. That’s the central problem. We need to get better at this. We don’t need an exposition of every aspect of what the Scottish government does. We do need a short sharp statement of what the government is going to do to make things better than they currently are.

And we need to be clearer with people about the things that cannot be done, and why, explaining whose fault that is. By describing the constraints and limitations of devolution we make the case for removing them through self-government. Not doing that creates the space for SNP critics, now including it seems the co-leader of the Green Party, to suggest the government is choosing to make cuts of its own volition rather than having them forced upon it.

Whilst some things could be done better, the truth is that the Scottish government cannot provide everything Scotland needs. We need to stop pretending it can. The fourth objective is to ensure high quality and sustainable public services. What, all of them? All the time? For everyone?

If we could actually achieve that, why would we need to be an independent country? How does this aim sit with our capacity to deliver it? Has the Scottish government not been squeezed year after year by the Tories with block grant funding never enough to meet the demands on services? Aren’t we making cuts ourselves just now because budgets are insufficient? Isn’t the new Labour government threatening things can only get worse? It is enormously difficult to improve the range and scope of public services in such times, and it just doesn’t ring true with people if we claim otherwise.

What we can do is make tangible improvements in things that we can control. Government advisors should be researching the complaints people make about services and acting on them. Sometimes that will mean doing less better.

Take the railways for example. It shouldn’t be so difficult to devise a train timetable which is matched to the staffing available, including having teams on standby to cover unexpected absences. That will require a political choice to have fewer (advertised) trains, but it would avoid having an entire platform full of people getting pissed off when one is cancelled at five minutes notice. It would also improve confidence in and support for a public train service and the people that run it.

It’s also time we stopped setting goals that cannot be achieved. We want to eradicate child poverty. Who wouldn’t? But child poverty is just a type of poverty and poverty is a feature of capitalism which by its nature places surplus in the private hands of a few rather than socialises it for all. Without the ability to regulate and control capitalism it is not possible to eradicate poverty. So, a provincial administration which has no control over the movement of capital or labour within its territory cannot do it. Something to be borne in mind by those who think the Scottish government can mitigate every Westminster cut with tax increases on earnings.

If we were an independent country, we could have a go at making poverty history. But that ambition is well beyond the scope of Holyrood. We can, of course, make poverty less. And we do. That is laudable and worthy of shouting about. So, let’s say that.

But setting an objective to eradicate poverty is only setting ourselves up to fail. Worse than that it is suggesting that we have responsibility for the problem. It means that if poverty continues to exist then it’s our fault. The same is true across the policy spectrum. The UK is becoming quite adept at devolving responsibility without the means. In effect, the causes are reserved but the blame is devolved. It’s time we stopped accepting it.

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We must take this step to independence before a citizens’ convention

First out of the trap in the race for a new strategic plan is Believe in Scotland. Even before the new Westminster parliament had been sworn in the organisation published its report on a Scottish Citizens Convention, heralding it as a new route map to independence.

Although reference is made to the election result, this report takes no account of it, and was clearly drafted well before July 4th. That’s its first problem. The report suggests that the Scottish Government’s mandate from 2021 is intact and we should move towards the 2026 elections as being a “de-facto referendum” on independence.

Hold on a minute. Didn’t the Scottish Government try to implement its mandate and get told by the Supreme Court that it couldn’t? Didn’t the SNP just fight the election asking for that mandate to be reaffirmed and for the constitution to be changed to allow Scottish people to choose their own future? And didn’t we just lose that election? We can’t pretend that didn’t happen.

Believe in Scotland is an organisation I admire. It has done a lot of valuable work is making the case for independence and coordinating disparate local campaign groups. Respect.

It styles itself as the national grassroots Yes campaign claiming more authority and legitimacy than political parties.

This anti-politics infuses this report to an unhealthy degree. Of course, we need people of all political persuasions to be involved in the movement for national autonomy. Of course, it will be bigger than any political party. But politics is how we change society without warfare. It is about making choices.

This report throws the political baby out with the bathwater stating  “politics shouldn’t be anywhere near the constitutional question.” It talks of the 2014 case being “overly politicised” and even suggests that support for “independence has not risen dramatically in the polls, due to its connection to politics.”

So, the Scottish Citizens Convention is seen as an alternative to, rather than complementary to the existing political process. At times this is dressed up in flowery quasi-academic language which is less than helpful. We are told that the convention will solve Scotland’s fundamental problems “by facilitating a more positive mindset change and socioeconomic paradigm shift.” Mmm?

The report doesn’t say exactly how the Scottish Citizens Convention should be established but in a valuable appendix it considers the lessons from earlier attempts at a similar thing including the Scottish Constitutional Convention of the 1980s, Ireland’s Citizens Assembly, and the Welsh Government’s Constitutional Commission. The implication is that the convention could borrow elements from all three.

The big difference from the 1980s is of course that the notion of Scotland becoming an independent country is way more divisive and contentious now than devolution was then. The Scottish Constitutional Convention was established with the support of every party bar the Tories and commanded massive public support.

Believe in Scotland acknowledge this difference and suggest that the way to deal with it is to be clear that a new convention will not be about independence, or the method of Scotland’s government. Instead, it will be charged with coming up for polices for a “better Scotland” centred on a well-being economy. This remit, the report rightly suggest, would allow a number of key players – trades unions, churches, charities – to get involved in a way an explicit focus on independence would not.

It is an idea worth exploring. But there’s a danger that it all becomes a bit too vanilla and ends up with everyone agreed on the type of fairer, nicer Scotland we want, but no further forward on how to get there. Believe in Scotland claim that any conclusions the convention might reach will self-evidently only be achieved by independence. But if we are not linking the two, that seems something of a stretch. Besides I can’t help feeling that whilst certainly we need to illustrate the powers that independence offers, prescribing the details of a well being economy is surely a matter of political debate to be resolved once it is achieved.

At no stage is there a suggestion that the outcome of the Supreme Court needs to be challenged, not by rejecting its decisions which are technically correct, but by rejecting the constitution which it was charged with interpreting.

The lesson that we do need to learn from the 1980s is that policy comes from principle. Before working out the details of devolution the Scottish Constitutional Convention drew up the Claim or Right for Scotland. That asserted that the people of Scotland had the right to choose their own form of government. They built a consensus upon that principle.

And that principle is currently being denied. That is the first order of business. To challenge and change the British constitution so that Scotland’s right to choose its own future is enshrined. It is in that context that the notion of a civil society convention might be best deployed.

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We need a brand new independence strategy

Welcome to my first weekly column. In the coming months I hope to use this to support the debate on how we rebuild a strategy to achieve political independence for our country. I start – as gobsmacked about the election results as everyone else – with questions rather than answers.  

I will in time reach my own conclusions and advocate them. So will you. In time. But for now, let’s take a beat. Let’s listen to each other, and to the majority of the people who are still unconvinced. And let us try to be nice, even though we might irritate the hell out of each other.  

We cannot take forever of course. But for a few months we can have a period of collective self-reflection. The more we think, and the more of us who do it, the stronger our conclusions will be. 

So, let’s hear suggestions for a strategic way forward. Let’s subject them to rigorous but respectful analysis, stress-testing each proposition to see if it might work in the real world. 

I can start by illustrating how not to do it. Two weeks ago, in the immediate aftermath of the election defeat, I wrote that those who didn’t vote for the SNP because they believed we didn’t have a strategy for achieving independence had a point. 

Within hours Alba were tweeting my words suggesting that the logical response would be to join their party – as only they had a plan to achieve independence. I can’t see that this helps anyone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as partial to a bit of schadenfreude as the next person. But an “I told you so” response doesn’t really work unless you can provide evidence that the alternative works better. 

In Alba’s case their central strategic mission is that “every single election should be used to seek a mandate to begin negotiations for Independence.” Given the party has just paid nearly ten grand of its members money to the state in lost deposits and obtained 0.5% of the votes, it could be said that strategy is not working too well. 

In truth, I was mistaken. It wasn’t that the SNP didn’t have a strategy for moving forward to independence. It did. I know that because last year I was one of the people who spent a lot of time arguing about it and eventually getting a resolution through the party conference in October.  

The problem was the strategy did not survive its first contact with the electorate. It was a plan predicated on winning a mandate at this election, and then repurposing the 2026 Holyrood election if the new UK government continued to refuse to discuss changing the constitution. 

In the event we didn’t get a mandate, the new UK government have no dilemma, and the plan is now void. 

To go forward we need first to go back to first principles. For Scotland to become an independent country, and to be successful as one, it will require not just the consent, but the support of a majority of people who live there. That makes it a different project from winning an election. It means people who stay at home are voting against.  

A new independent future for Scotland requires not only that a majority are persuaded of the argument, but that they are mobilised into an effective political force than can achieve change. That requires a civic movement wider than any political party. But it does also require a party to win electoral contests. And that will be best created through a reformed and refocused SNP. 

The SNP, winning 30% of the vote this month, had the support of most people for whom independence is a priority. If we are to move forward, there are three broad groups of people whom we need to focus on.  

There are those who say they do support independence, but it wasn’t the main thing motivating them this time round. Many of them voted Labour, reasoning that this month’s priority was the change the UK government, rather than Scotland’s constitution. 

Then there are those who support independence but have convinced themselves that the SNP will not deliver it. Many of them will tell you that belief is fuelled by perceived failures of the party in the Scottish government. Most of them stayed at home, though more than usual seem to have spoiled their ballot.  

And then there are people who do not believe that independence is the best way to change their lives and their country in the first place. In the past few years, consumed with internal debates, we have made little or no progress in reducing this number. 

We are going to need a strategy which relates to all three of these groups in parallel and has realistic targets for winning people over. We won’t get them all. We don’t need to. But we do need to start convincing a lot more people than we have been recently. 

And that is what this column will be focused on in the months ahead. 

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Labour Government will only enhance the case for indy

So, we’re off. 4th July it is. In democracies elections are meant to be instruments of choice and change. A turning point in history when one set of ideas about how things should be run gives way to an alternative view, based on the popular will of those living there.

But what happens when the choice between the main alternatives is so slight as to be almost imperceptible? That is pretty much the case in this British general election.

In the blue corner, the Tory government, looking dead on its feet and waiting for the electorate to put it out of its misery. A government that will leave office with average living standards worse now than when it came in. A government that has turbo-charged inequality giving the UK the dubious distinction of the most unequal country in Europe. A government weaponising immigration to set communities against each other, whose defence secretary talks openly of planning for war. No wonder there is a longing to be rid of them.

But in the other corner stands Keir Starmer’s Labour party, a hollowed-out shell of a once great social democratic party, bereft of principle and ambition. A would-be Labour chancellor who pledges to accept Tory spending plans lock, stock and barrel, including an estimated £20bn public service cuts already baked in. A would-be Labour health secretary who openly talks of a new role for the private sector in our NHS. A would-be Labour foreign secretary who cannot bring himself to condemn serial war crimes committed by the Israeli government in Palestine.

It’s a grim choice. Little wonder that in many Labour heartlands disillusion is rife. As this month’s English council results showed, Labour is failing to win in areas it ran a generation ago. No matter, say Labour strategists, they are winning in Tory areas, and that’s where it matters.

But Labour are winning Tory voters not by asking them to consider a different world view but by pandering to their prejudices and reassuring them that they can support the changed Labour party and still be Tory-minded.

It might be a recipe for short-term success but it will have a bitter and dangerous legacy. You cannot get bets on Labour winning at the bookies now, so convinced are people that they have in in the bag. And in England they probably have. But however wide the margin of Labour victory at the coming election, its depth will be shallow. The omens are not good for how this will work out. Disillusion and resentment will soon visit itself upon a Labour government unwilling and unable to change the social and economic ills it has interested.

And in England, waiting in the wings to take advantage of this situation are the far-right, better organised and resourced than at any time since the 1980s. It’s a depressing scenario south of the border. The good news is that in Scotland it doesn’t have to be this way.

The SNP should refuse to get dragged into this grubby uninspiring contest that the duopoly of despair in London are playing. Now is a time to look the people of Scotland in the eye, invite them to lift their gaze to the horizon, and imagine the type of country this could be.

A country where the envied and bountiful natural resources are truly used as a common treasury for all rather than being a means for the further enrichment of the global elite. A country where the scourge of poverty is banished for ever by tackling its root causes. Where we establish a tax and reward system which encourages hard work and innovation but locates individual endeavour in a public interest framework which allows everyone to meet their social obligation.

A country which rises to the climate emergency, accelerating the dawn of a zero-carbon future in a way that takes the current workforce with it. A country celebrating its diversity, encouraging people to come and live with us. A country with the agency to be a force for good in the world as it punches above its weight in helping to confront the global challenges facing our species.

These are not the idealistic ramblings of an ageing lefty, but actual public policy in already existing similar European countries.

It is not difficult to build a broad consensus around taking Scotland in this direction. The argument comes in how to get there. Scottish reformers have debated strategy for more than a century, oscillating between two central approaches. Either we play our part in a much larger British polity and seek to use the power of that state to make the changes everywhere. Or we take the power for ourselves by creating a new independent Scottish state with the agency to make these changes.

I once believed in the British approach, but decades of bitter experience led me to change my mind. I became convinced that it was more likely that we could change society in a left social democratic direction if we did so first in Scotland where a majority of the population could be persuaded to the merits of that change, than to remain part of a much larger state where there are substantial forces implacably opposed to that change. Pretty much everything Keir Starmer says convinces me I made the right decision.

Where Labour governments have made changes in the past, they have been reversed within a few short years when the next Tory government comes in – and in Britain most governments are Tory. Today it’s even worse – Labour is now so wary that it doesn’t promise any significant change in the first place.

The union, even if governed by Labour, does not offer Scotland a route to a progressive future. This is not because there are bad people in the Labour party, or because they don’t want to. It’s simply that the compromises required to achieve the tolerance of the rich and powerful in Britain are so great as to render change almost impossible.

So, that is why we must make this election about the vision of what an independent Scotland could be like. And we must illustrate by example. Yes, the Scottish government has done what it can to mitigate and protect our public services with one hand tied behind its back. But independence would free it up to deliver what is needed.

Some of these things might happen without independence and we will certainly demand them from a new Labour government. Improved rights at work, scrapping benefit caps for the poorest, a real living wage for everyone, more money for out health service not less, accelerating a just transition which protects jobs. The SNP will aim to force Labour to be different, and for many people that will be the most important choice. Do they give Keir Starmer a blank cheque, or do they elect a representative who will hold him to account?

But when Labour resist this pressure, as their leadership already say they will, the case for Scotland having these powers will be enhanced.

We will demand that decisions on whether, when and how to consult people on their constitutional future must be made in Scotland by its elected representatives. This election will be of crucial importance to the movement for Scottish autonomy. If the SNP wins, the journey to an independent future is boosted. It the SNP lose, it isn’t. Every independence supporter should think long and hard about this choice.

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This illustrates how crazy our election voting system is

THE clocks have changed. It’ll be brighter tonight. The year moves inexorably forward towards the coming General Election.

Elections ought to be moments of change. A point in history where power transfers from one group to another, where ideas are won and the direction of a country changes. Exciting even.

But looking south across the Border to the contest between the main Westminster parties, it seems anything but exciting. It is almost impossible for Labour not to win in England. Yet you would be hard-placed to find too many citizens animated or enthusiastic about it.

In part, this is down to a deliberate ploy by the Labour leadership to promise nothing and say less. The main opposition party are seeking election precisely on the basis of not changing the incumbent Tory Party’s overall economic framework. That can only mean that the people who are being excluded and denied by the current system will continue to lose out.

For them, the election will change nothing. Indeed, that will be the case for most of us. It is hard to detect any serious difference between the two main parties.

Now, many people – and I probably include myself – believe through instinct or hope that Labour have to be better than the Tories. But in truth ,when you compare the stated policies of the parties, it is hard to make that claim. In areas such as pensions, the Tories even appear to be rather more committed to the welfare state than their opposition.

This grubby, uninspiring contest we have to look forward to is the product of wilful actions by political leaders, but their approach is enabled – even perhaps necessitated – by a ridiculous electoral system designed to ignore rather than resolve political differences.

First-past-the-post might be okay where a binary choice is to be made, but in any other context is simply not fit for purpose. It is deliberately designed to ensure that those elected are required neither to have majority support nor to represent a plurality of opinion. In the great majority of parliamentary seats, the winner represents only a minority of the voters who cast their vote.

When these results are aggregated to a state level, the distortion exaggerates. The first dislocation of results from the electorate allows political parties to form majority governments with the support of much less than half of the electorate – or at least those in the electorate who can be bothered voting.

In 2015, David Cameron won a majority of seats in the House of Commons with just under 37% of the vote. On that basis, he gave us Brexit. Shocking? Undemocratic? For sure, but nothing new.

Ten years previously, one Tony Blair got an even bigger majority with close to 35% of the votes cast.

Perhaps the most grotesque distortion of first-past-the-post is in what happens when third or fourth parties do well. Far from seeing smaller parties get some minimal increase in their representation, the system just inflicts lethal damage on the party they have taken support from. This is because the winner doesn’t need a majority; just more than the person who comes second.

The are various websites where you can play til your heart’s content by predicting the outcome of the election assuming varying levels of support for each party. You plop in the vote share and press a button.

I try not to spend too much time on this but for the current purposes and to illustrate how crazy the system is, I ran this little exercise (It’s just for England and Wales).

Let’s assume Labour can get about 43% of the votes cast at the next election, the Tories 10 points behind on 33%, LibDems on just under 10% and Reform and Greens on five each.

That’s assuming a much smaller gap between Labour and Tory than has been the case for over two years now. But it sounds sort of plausible, I think. That split would produce a Labour government with an 120-seat majority.

Now, what happens if Labour support stays exactly as it is, but some Tories switch to Reform UK – which they are currently telling pollsters they will do in their legions? If 5% switch and the Reform UK vote goes up to 10%, the Labour majority rises to 188. If a further 5% switch, then the Labour majority goes up to 274 and the Tories are left with 100 seats.

There’s a point at which the changes become almost exponential, and seats start changing hands in droves without the winning party having to do anything at all. This is the sort of thing that gives democracy a bad name.

But if the distorted results weren’t already sufficient corruption of the electorate’s will, the first past-the-post-system conspires in other ways to undermine the expression and resolution of political differences. By its nature, the system requires the winner not to have majority support but to be the biggest minority.

That means it requires parties to form broad alliances of opinion to get levels of support above a third. In itself, this means that differences are resolved within parties rather than being matters for the general citizenry. Sometimes this leaves a party completely at odds with its own supporters, never mind the electorate as a whole.

Such is the case with Labour and Brexit where the party will not even contemplate returning to Europe even though this is the expressed wish of the overwhelming majority of their own supporters.

It cannot be healthy for democracy that not a single major UK party will commit to reviewing and reversing Brexit when this is what half of the population wants.

The toxicity of first-past-the-post for democracy intensifies as parties rooted in the centre-right or centre-left fight for the support of the same bunch of voters in the middle.

By definition, these voters will be paid more attention than those whose support is already in the bag, and by definition, this group of voters will desire a lesser degree of change than the rest.

he result is a set of less than inspiring polices and a whole lot of people well upset about that but unable to do anything about it. It’s little wonder many people will tell you: “They’re all the same.”

This frustration, the feeling of being unrepresented, festers and is destroying what passes for democracy. In England, Labour will win the next election, I’m sure. But it will be won by promising Tories they are in safe hands, by seriously alienating many traditional Labour voters, and with a huge level of frustrated abstainers.

It’s a weak base for governing and could end in disaster in a very small number of years.

Now, of course, we should note that the Labour Party at their last two conferences made commitments – by very big margins – to change the current electorate system.

But as if to illustrate exactly the problem, no sooner had these votes been called than Sir Keir and his entourage were insisting there would be no change.

The SNP support a proportional voting system where the results reflect the votes cast by the people. Given a chance, that’s what we will vote for, but in truth, the condition of parliamentary democracy in England is hardly our bailiwick and nothing is going to change until Labour say so.

Sadly, I can’t see that happening any time soon.

And in this – as in so much else – the aspirations of people who live here will be better served by Scotland becoming a new independent state with a proper functioning democracy enshrined in a written constitution.

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My column sparked major debate on need to vote SNP

WELL now, my last column seems to have touched a nerve for many.

Usually, I don’t get a lot of reaction to my musings on the topics de jour, but my suggestion last time that people who support independence should vote SNP at the coming election, and an observation that the cause will be set back if they don’t, seems to have caused more than a little excitement.

Not amongst my parliamentary colleagues and party members, it should be said, most of whom thought it was fair enough, but among opponents of independence of every hue.

The proposition was restated in similar terms by the First Minister when launching the party’s election campaign. He said that if Scottish Labour get their feet under the table, they will swiftly take independence off it. Keir Starmer will claim every vote as one for shutting down and shutting out those who believe Scotland would be better off as an independent state.

The BBC suggested that the FM got his inspiration for this from my column earlier in the week. Hardly. Humza has many better sources of inspiration than me. It’s not even a matter of great minds thinking alike. It is, frankly, just a statement of the blindingly obvious.

I like to think that my political arguments – although nurtured by an ideological credo – can be backed up by evidence. So here goes. I present exhibit A. Last Tuesday, the Alba MP Neale Hanvey introduced his Scotland (Self-Determination) Bill to the House of Commons which sought to change the law to allow the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a referendum on independence.

Much as I agree with the sentiment behind Neale’s case and I firmly believe in the principle of self-determination, I don’t think conferring a specific power on Holyrood is the best way to achieve it. I would have preferred changing the schedule of reserved powers to remove or qualify Westminster’s exclusive right to deal with constitutional matters, thereby creating a competence for the Scottish Parliament to act within the constraints of existing constitutional law.

But that’s not the point. The vote on Tuesday was not on whether people agreed with Neale’s proposal but whether he should be allowed to introduce the bill for debate. And of course, we should have. Which is why my SNP colleagues and I voted for it.

Not surprisingly in a chamber where Scotland’s interests are at best peripheral, the vote was 228 to 48 against discussing the matter further. But what’s instructive is to look at who voted in which way. Most of the Tories didn’t bother; two even voted for the bill. But every Labour and LibDem MP present was instructed to vote against. Strange behaviour, this. The nature of these private members’ bills is that very few are opposed as they are unlikely to get anywhere in the legislative machinery of the parliament anyway. On this occasion, however, Labour went out of their way to vote against it.

It was to make a point.

My suggestion that if the SNP lose the election then the debate on indy stalls was predictably seized upon by hardline Unionists. From Brian Wilson to Douglas Ross (below), they leapt on it with glee to suggest this was the way to deny and defeat the aspiration to control our own affairs.

But not so fast, guys. I wasn’t suggesting this was going to happen, just warning of the dangers that it might, particularly if many indy supporters stay at home. It works the other way around. If we don’t lose the election, our ability to prosecute the case for independence is enhanced and energised. I trust Messrs Wilson and Ross will accept that.

I firmly believe we can win this election. Now, I know many people are getting mightily pissed off at the fact that voting for the SNP in the past hasn’t produced independence. That is principally because the Conservative government at Westminster has been determined to deny our mandate in the hope that it will go away.

Our determination must be to not let it go away. And that’s the thing about mandates – each one only lasts until the next. So that is why it matters. That is why anyone who supports independence – or even the right to have a choice on independence – should vote SNP.

I seemed to have provoked a reaction from some elsewhere in the Yes movement too; shot by both sides. Alba’s Ash Regan commented that “the independence movement is bigger than one person or one political party”. If she had actually read the article, she would have found me agreeing with her.

Of course, different parties and many voices must build our movement. But 2024 isn’t the final vote to declare our independence – it’s an election for members of the Westminster Parliament. There will be several steps yet to becoming independent, this is just the next one. Given the corrupt first-past-the-post system, only the SNP can win seats for the movement in this election. The movement should take advantage of the party to make that happen.

I even got taken to task by my old friend Iain Macwhirter. Iain is extremely vexed at some of the policies of the Scottish Government, and he writes these days for a different demographic. Nonetheless, he is guilty of several unforced errors of logic in his recent Times column.

He quotes me stating my central proposition and says: “If this is so, the great constitutional debate may be over because the latest opinion poll suggests the SNP are on to a loser.” Leaving aside the wisdom of basing a political argument on one opinion poll, he has just made a great leap from me suggesting an election defeat might halt progress towards indy to him implying the matter is closed. Woah!

The debate will only be over either when independence is achieved or when everyone stops wanting it. Every SNP MP elected – even if only one – will argue the case for Scotland’s independence. I’m only saying that if we don’t win a majority, we cannot claim a national mandate. If that happens, you can be assured, we won’t be shutting up and we will set about the task of getting that majority next time round.

The “SNP bad” brigade, including some influential commentators, repeatedly decontextualise the actions of the Scottish Government. Ignoring the good, highlighting the bad. Leaving no dysphemism unused, they believe the party needs to get a kicking and they’re happy to hold the coats.

And some of our hitherto supporters will even go so far as to explicitly endorse the principal party of the Union in Scotland. How else can we explain Iain’s statement: “It has long been accepted that the road to Number 10 runs through Scotland.” Does it? Does it really? Didn’t Tony Blair win three elections in a row, each one with a bigger majority than the total number of Scottish MPs?

The only thing voting Labour in Scotland will achieve is stacking up a bigger majority for the least radical, least ambitious opposition party in history, giving Starmer a blank cheque and setting the cause of independence back until the next time. I mean, do that if you want – it’s a free country – but don’t claim you’re supporting independence when you do.

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Why independence supporters must vote SNP at the next election

It’s 2024. Election year. And it really is all to play for.

Under the UK’s unfit-for-purpose constitution, the incumbent gets to decide on polling day. Opposition parties talk up a May election. They will claim the Tories are running scared if they don’t call it then. But unless the gap between the Tories and Labour gets close to single figures, it’s difficult to see why the Government would go early.

It doesn’t really matter, the result is already clear. Labour are so far ahead in England as to be uncatchable. Pollsters predict that if a General Election were held tomorrow, Sir Keir Starmer would romp home with a majority of between 100 and 200 seats. It won’t be held tomorrow, and the majority won’t be that big, but even with their track record of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Labour cannot lose in England.

The reasons for Tory oblivion are pretty clear. There’s been no Brexit dividend, and the unified right which made it happen is splitting down the middle. Although Reform aren’t quite inflicting the damage Farage did in 2017, they are getting there. Real incomes are falling; most people feel worse off. Westminster’s catastrophic management of Covid continues to unfold with questions mounting as to why they spent so much more than comparable countries only to preside over many more deaths.

Labour just need to stand aside and let the Tories fall apart. That is precisely what those around Starmer will do. Every one of the 44 red wall seats is already toast. You can see it in the eyes of the incumbents; the likes of Lee Anderson and Jonathan Gullis know they are well past their sell-by date. But Labour will oust more than 100 Tories from their own heartlands too.

Now you might argue that with the Tories in such disarray, now might be the time for Labour to champion a revitalised British social democracy. Comparisons are made with 1997.

Say what you want about New Labour – and I could say plenty – they did at least have a bunch of stuff – devolution, tax credits, international aid – that added up to a different vision from the tired John Major government.

But today’s new, new Labour have given up on pretty much everything the party ever stood for. There’ll be no attempt to make the wealthy pay more. Even those at the very bottom subsisting on state pensions and benefits can’t be sure Labour would be more generous. Inequality will remain the scourge that it is without any conviction or plan to change it.

There’ll be no new money for the NHS. No acceleration to green energy. No return to Europe. Every hare-brained right-wing populist idea the Tories come up with is top trumped by Labour.

The Labour strategy isn’t pretty but as a short-term device to win seats, it is effective. I feel for the many lifelong Labour activists in England now abandoned by their party. Some will stay at home, some will vote Green, but most will go along with it. Turnouts will be low, disillusion will be high, feeding a dangerous legacy of alienation and apathy. That’s the price Labour seem content to pay to win Tory support.

This is Labour’s strategy for England. But it won’t play well in Scotland where desire and demography are different.

Against that backdrop, we should consider how this election campaign is fought here. A generation of Labour activists – of which I am one – made a conscious decision to embrace independence as a political strategy not because we were nationalists, but because we believed it offered a better prospect for achieving the social and economic change we desired.

A medium-sized European country north of Britain seemed just more able to deliver a just and equitable future than a vestigial imperial power avoiding coming to terms with its past. And the very idea of running our economy in the public interest sat well with the character and psyche of the Scottish electorate whereas it grated against England’s small C conservative majority.

Every statement Starmer makes, every abandoned promise, every reassurance to the rich and powerful demonstrates that we were right. This is not to say that the right has taken over Labour – although that is clearly the case. It’s more that for Labour to win electorally in England, they must compromise so much that they cannot achieve real change. Independence offers Scotland the chance not to have its ambition thwarted by another country’s political reality.

Given that the prospect of the Conservatives winning this year is practically inconceivable, two things follow. Firstly, what is the best way to influence an alternative UK Government into being something better than a low-calorie version of what it replaces? Secondly, how can we make sure this country’s journey to having autonomy over its own affairs and resources does not stop after two decades of remarkable progress?

There are many decent people in Scotland contemplating voting Labour simply because of a desperation to get rid of the Tories. I understand that. But the Tories have already lost, and the SNP are a more anti-Tory party than Labour. I have lost count of the number of times we have voted against proposed Tory legislation whilst Labour sat on their hands for fear of upsetting some swing voters somewhere.

More to the point, on pretty much every social and economic policy you can think of, the SNP will press for the things that Labour used to believe in and have now abandoned. So, anyone wanting real change at a UK level would do better to send representatives to Westminster who will force Labour to be different, rather than give Starmer a blank cheque.

There is a bigger question for Scottish voters. Will they simply be ignored by a Starmer government? If the SNP lose this election, the answer is yes.

Around half of the population believes that Scotland should be an independent country. The desire has not – and will not – go away. At some stage, we will vote to establish a new independent country – and the campaign to win that vote must be broad and diverse involving every party and organisation in the movement for national autonomy.

But that is not where we are now and that is not what we are voting for in this year’s General Election.

We need to be very clear with the electorate – this year’s vote is about whether the journey continues, whether we can create circumstances to move towards our independence. And with a corrupt first-past-the-post system, the only way to do that is to vote SNP.

The Daily Record, in a hardening of its editorial stance against the party, last week questioned whether the SNP can still represent the political ambition of independence. The point is we don’t have a choice. If the SNP lose the election in Scotland, the debate on independence stops. That is why we must put aside our differences and unite.

If we win, we will use every means to press that mandate against a British state under new management. Crucially, we will demand that this decision must be made in Scotland and that the UK constitution is changed to respect that principle. That is why anyone who believes Scotland should become independent, or even that we should have the choice to do so, ought to vote SNP.

The stakes are high. We must win. It will not be easy. But it can be done.

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Don’t write off SNP’s election chances

Last week I was chosen by local members of Edinburgh East and Musselburgh SNP to be their candidate in next year’s general election. It’s a great honour. For me, that election cannot come soon enough.

But I am under no illusions that it will be easy to keep the job I’ve been doing for the last eight and a half years. The coming election will be the biggest challenge the SNP has faced in a long time. It will be a hard fight. But one I am determined to win.

As I write this the votes are yet to be counted in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. You’ll know the result now. And I would be astonished if Labour did not win. It used to be one of their safest seats. The incumbent MP, elected under the SNP banner, disgraced herself and was effectively sacked by her own constituents. If Labour couldn’t win in these circumstances, they really ought to give up.

But don’t be too quick to write off the SNP in places like this. I know from having spoken to over 150 people in Rutherglen that there is still strong support for the party. Of course, some are fed up and disillusioned. They read of the resignations and enquiries. They see a party arguing with itself and they question whether it can achieve the change it seeks.

In part this is the consequence of the refusal of the Tories to respect the wishes of the Scottish electorate. Not one, but three mandates have been ignored as the Tories just say no. It wears people down. It saps their confidence. It destroys their self-belief. That’s what it is intended to do.

In some ways we have brought these problems upon ourselves – or at least made them worse. But we are rebuilding now. We have a new leader, a new CEO, and this month’s conference will allow us to refresh our message as we agree our strategy for the election.

Despite all the political turmoil the arguments for Scotland becoming an independent country have never been more compelling. Over the last few years many more people have realised that the powers that come with independence are exactly what we need to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and the climate emergency.

Now more than ever we will need to press that case and demonstrate that this is not some abstract debate about the constitution but a matter of real changes here and now.

This country is blessed with abundant natural resources yet too many of our citizens live and die in poverty. Lives unfulfilled. Potential wasted. Only by taking control of our own affairs can we ensure our wealth is marshalled for the common good and not global corporations.

Across the UK voters are being offered a choice between two sad and uninspiring options. The sickening right-wing populism of the Tories on the one hand and the pathetic lack of ambition of Sir Keir Starmer’s hollowed out Labour Party on the other.

Thankfully, Scotland and Edinburgh have an alternative. We can be better. We can demand more from a new UK government than Labour wants to give us. And we can maintain our journey to self-government. That is why this election is so important.
Bring it on.

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Investigation doesn’t change the case for Scottish independence

I have no idea whether the present turmoil surrounding the SNP’s finances is something more than a series of bad campaign spending decisions. And I guess even if I did know, I wouldn’t be able to talk about it as it’s part of a live investigation.

So, here’s what I do know. Here’s what I can talk about.

First, if someone has done something wrong, then they will be held to account – both by the law and the party itself.

Second, we will use recent events to reform and improve our democratic structures, making the SNP more accountable to its members. A governance and transparency review is already underway and will be back with recommendations in under two months. 

Third, we will take no lectures on financial probity from the Tories. A party which accepted at least a quarter of a million pounds from Russian donors since the start of the war in Ukraine. A party which failed to account for £3.6m during the last UK General Election.

Fourth, all of this relates to the internal finances of a private organisation. It has nothing to do with government policy or taxpayer money. Meanwhile, the Tories are consumed by cronyism, sleaze and corruption in public office. Cash for honours. Contracts for pals. Backhanders for themselves.

Now of course, it saddens and frustrates me that the current media feeding frenzy surrounding SNP has overshadowed the first weeks of our new leader and new government. Particularly as there is so much to welcome.

Humza Yousaf is derided by his opponents as the ‘continuity candidate’ as if that were an inherently bad thing. Of course there will be continuity in delivering the left-of-centre socially democratic prospectus on which the SNP Government was elected in 2021. A Scottish Government doing what it can within Westminster’s powerful constraints to tackle poverty, protect public services and act on the climate emergency.

But Humza also represents a fresh approach to getting things done. On Tuesday, he set out his vision for Scotland. It’s worth a look. A renewed focus on delivering efficient and effective public services. Postponing things like the deposit return scheme and proposals to restrict alcohol advertising – which are right in principle – but need more time on the detail. Laser focused on tackling poverty and protecting people from harm. All of this delivered with a new collegiate team approach.

While opponents of the SNP lick their lips and scent advantage, real people outside the Holyrood and Westminster bubble will be guided by their everyday experience. Though times are though, differences are being made in Scotland that matter.

The Scottish Child Payment is putting a hundred quid a month per child into the pockets of low-income families, easing the Tory cost-of-living crisis. Record numbers of young people from working-class backgrounds are going to university. We pay our nurses and teachers more which is why they aren’t on strike. And we ask wealthier people to pay a bit more in tax, making this the fairest taxed part of the UK.

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Why I’m backing Humza Yousaf to become leader of the SNP and Scotland’s next First Minister

Whatever your politics, it is undeniable that Nicola Sturgeon has been a commanding figure in Scottish politics for two decades. For good reason many suggest that she is the preeminent politician of the devolution era. She will be a hard act to follow, for sure.

But those hoping that a change of leadership will spell disaster for the SNP, and that support for independence will crumble away, shouldn’t count their chickens yet.

The aspiration that Scotland should become a normal independent country and reset its relationship with the rest of the UK isn’t just a phase. It is an ambition which has registered sustained levels of support among half the population for several years – and enjoys even greater support among voters under fifty years old. The SNP is not the reason people support independence. The desire for independence is the reason there is an SNP.

There is no denying that confidence has been knocked by sustained attacks on the right of people in Scotland to decide their own future. For example, despite continually voting for representatives on a pledge to deliver another independence referendum, those mandates have been denied and blocked by Westminster.

As a result, frustration and anger have ensued which has undoubtedly fractured the wider Yes movement. However, it hasn’t made anyone who thought Scotland becoming an independent country was a good idea suddenly decide it’s a bad one.

So, the challenge for the new leader of the SNP is to galvanise and unite the movement for change. That means building on the strong foundations for independence which have been laid over the last twenty years. But it also means reaching out to engage with new people and harness new ideas.

To my mind, Humza Yousaf is the person who can meet that challenge. Despite his relative youth, he has more than a decade’s experience in high office. In that time, Humza has handled some of the toughest jobs in government, briefs that many others would have shied away from.

Humza is also seasoned grassroots campaigner, who knows how to motivate and lead people on the ground. I remember when he came to campaign for me during the 2019 general election. His energy and enthusiasm were clear to see.

Some have referred to Humza as the “continuity candidate”, implying that there will be no change from the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon. That’s inaccurate.

Sure, the Scottish Government will continue to deliver on the manifesto it was elected on. However, as leader of Scotland’s largest political party, Humza will bring with him a fresh approach in how the SNP organises, communicates, and engages with our base. This is essential if we are to unlock new levels of engagement.

With a change in leadership also comes the opportunity to reset political strategy. It will allow us time to think about how we deliver a credible roadmap to independence, and to shift the debate from process to policy. In doing so, we must set aside the idea of using the next Westminster election as a de facto referendum, and instead use each democratic event to advance the case for independence.

With this approach, we can build support to levels that cannot be ignored and demonstrate majority support for independence. Only then we can definitively say that independence has become the settled will of the Scottish people. Only then will we achieve it.