The Scottish National Party is increasingly mirroring the party it claims most to hate, the Conservatives, in its propensity for choosing the wrong leader and floundering around in a quandary largely of its own making. Three leaders in one unfinished parliamentary term and each new one imposed without any public imprimatur.
As Yousaf prepares to resign as First Minister – at least with considerably more dignity, humility and self-awareness than Boris Johnson or Liz Truss – the Tory knives are being sharpened for Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader should the local elections in England and Wales on Thursday (May 2) turn out as disastrous for the Prime Minister and his party as forecast.
The public good evidently figures not a jot in all the often petty, always self-serving machinations taking place in the corridors of Holyrood and Westminster. As I write, John Swinney, former deputy to both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, is being touted as a shoo-in to replace Yousaf.
The come-back kid as continuity candidate par excellence. Swinney, now aged 60, it seems to have been forgotten, was an uninspiring and ineffectual replacement for Salmond between 2000 and 2004 who made way for his former boss after four years of failure in opposition.
Now promoted as a safe pair of hands in a party and government supposedly in desperate need of stability, Swinney was an unremarkable finance secretary and flawed education secretary who achieved precious little in closing the attainment gap in Scottish schools. Stability? More like stagnation. The continuity of low achievement and mediocrity.
Highland fling?
It’s even being suggested that Swinney should be chosen unopposed and then serve as head of government for the remaining two years of the SNP parliamentary mandate. That, of course, assumes MSPs would elect him as First Minister by a decent majority. And that alternatives such as Kate Forbes, the former finance secretary, would stand aside – knowing they’re young enough (she’s 34) to put themselves forward for 2026 or later.
Forbes, a Gaelic-speaking Highlander, would be a very contested (and competent) candidate given not only her conservative (Wee Free) views on personal liberties but, more importantly, her opposition to green/climate policies and ordoliberal approach to economic issues. The SNP would struggle to retain the social democratic/soft left mantle under her leadership; she might not muster a majority at Holyrood let alone among voters as a whole. As James Cook, BBC Scottish Political Editor, opines: “…surely she would be better biding her time.”
A modest proposal
Public disenchantment north and south of the border is rife. People feel the system is broken, politics fails to deliver, the economy is stuck in second gear, the country’s standing in the world is in decline…Time for a change. But what change?
My idea is that one tries to exit this quagmire by staging Scottish (and maybe Welsh and Northern Irish) and UK elections on the same day – or perhaps staggered over several days like the upcoming European Parliament elections on June 6-9. The campaigning could last several weeks or months, enabling a full-scale, profound debate on the UK’s future to take place. Constitutional, socio-economic, geopolitical.
2024 would be a good year: Y5 of Brexit but also 25 years of devolution and 45 years since the Thatcherite neo-liberal transformation began. There are already objections: the UK-wide campaign would inevitably overshadow and even crowd out the Scottish one but the alternative for Scotland right now is to sit out two more years of stagnation and fake binary divides. Independence, far from being tantalising near as Yousaf fantasised in his resignation speech, is simply not on the horizon – not even in the medium-term.
We need to rediscover hope and ambition and debate the future, one that offers the prospect of achieving both the above. That means for this correspondent honesty and rigour too – and the prospect of a federal future on these islands and in Europe.
Lightly edited version of post on the author’s Cosmopolitan Villager Substack
Alex. Sinclair says
Swinney was behind the much detested named person policy and was at one with Sturgeon in all of her policies. He is the continuity number two candidate and most certainly does not represent a fresh start for the Scottish government. Add to this the rank hypocrisy of a coronation rather than an election ( think of the SNP’s shrill criticism of the Conservatives similarly appointing a new PM) and it is very difficult to be optimistic about the state of government in Scotland.