The Distracted Nationalists
For years those who leaned more unionist must have been deeply jealous of those lucky enough to be on the same side as the SNP. Labour was split and enamoured in countless scandals surrounding the economy (both the nations finances and their own finances, some things never change) all the while an upstart party led by Alex Salmond galvanised a movement around a simple idea. Scotland should be independent. A simple enough idea, made simpler by having a distinct lack of specifics, that anyone could latch onto and agree with. Regardless of age, wealth or education level all Scots were invited to support independence. The came up short in 2014, by almost 400,000 votes but still won close to 45% of the vote. Since then the SNP has been the unquestioned party of power in Scotland. Barely threatened by any of the unionist parties or even the competitor nationalistic parties. The SNPs clear message of independence lost the battle of 2014 but won the war of the following decade. Yet since then they have seen their message become so messy that their grip of power has loosened and Labour now view a rare opportunity to win Holyrood.
Whilst it is easy to sit back and simply believe that the SNPs collapse was down to incompetence (which is partially true) or the failure to deliver something they themselves lost interest in (also true) there is something more basic at play. They made one critical error, an error that Scottish Labour, Scottish Tories or Lib Dems wouldn’t dream of making, the SNP made the mistake of winning elections. It is easy to campaign third party on one issue, harder when you have to also govern. You can’t hand wave away education, health care or economic policies when you are running to be First Minister. People oddly enough want to know what your plan is. The second the SNP became the dominant political force in Scotland a clock started ticking on their self implosion. A gaggle of divergent views held together around the shared view of independence is simply unsustainable.
Labour never made this mistake, they took the very clever route of being wholly unelectable for the past decade or so. Although with Keir Starmers massive win of a staggering 174 seat majority with a whopping 33.7% of the popular vote maybe Labour will get its act together for long enough to have a huge civil war and lose the next election.
But, back to the SNP. Whilst everyone will disagree about exactly what policy it was that cause the nationalists to fracture. The more enterprising of the anti independence nationalists will claim it is the all down to the SNP broadly supporting the trans community that is too simple a reason. It is just down to the SNP being in government for over a decade has forced them to go on the record on every major issue of the day. Not just in terms of rhetoric but also action. The SNP have had to make tough decisions on funding all the different social programs run in Scotland and they have made some controversial decisions in that time.
Holyrood can’t run a deficit and as such the SNP had to make cuts of £500 million pounds, and you can’t cut half a billion pounds without annoying someone. That fractures an otherwise easy to unite group of people. Especially with the Greens attacking the SNP cuts from the left and Alba from the right, all the while the combined forces of the unionist parties are nipping at their heels. What this means is the future of independence can’t reside solely in the hands of a distracted SNP but instead in the grass roots. Independence is favoured by the young by quite a margin and those are the people most likely to campaign aggressively for change.
The best bet for independence is for the nationalists to focus more on independence as an idea and less on the day to day running of Holyrood. Independence can only be won by a broad church of supporters from across the political spectrum. Although as someone who leans more unionist I do hope the independence movement continues to eat itself alive. Arguing over who really supports the nationalist agenda and who is just interested in the gravy train. The greatest story of no true Scotsman in history.
