The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
What way would we vote if our future was now?
The DCT Media Politics team is looking ahead to some of the big issues of 2021. Today, Calum Ross examines the intriguing question of what a Scottish election would be like if the independence question was settled – or didn’t exist at all
The issue of independence makes the democratic discourse in Scotland a bit different from elsewhere.
“I think it is very unusual for politics to be as dominated by one issue, or one identity, as is the case in Scotland with the constitution,” said Robert Johns, an Essex University professor who co-authored a book on the rise of the SNP and was the principal investigator on studies into what influenced voters at recent Scottish elections.
“There are not many examples of this and six years since the referendum, pushing seven now... That’s a long time for this still to be as dominant as it is.”
Of course, polling offers an insight into the kind of topics that might be at the top of the agenda in an election in which the independence question was not all-pervasive.
A survey carried out by Sur vation last summer asked Scots to name up to three of the “most important issues” facing the country.
Scottish independence was only the 7 th highest, behind health, which was backed by more than half of the respondents, the economy, tackling poverty and inequality, Brexit, the cost of living, and education, in that order.
Prof Johns said there is “nothing unusual” about these priorities but what makes Scotland different is “what people think about these specific issues is driven by their overarching view on independence”.
He believes public services and the way they are funded, would be the focus of much of the attention in a Holyrood election that did not need to consider the independence question.
“Even before devolution, there was this sense that the Scots were more preoccupied with public services – essentially had a more left-wing issue agenda than the concerns with the economy down south.
“I think you do see signs of that in polling.
“I do think – partly a consequence of which issues are devolved – you would see a very public services-dominated election, in the way that a UK general election doesn’t tend to be so much.”
Before the landslide vic tor y in 2011 which returned the SNP to power, then-leader Alex Salmond said the “immediate target” would not be independence but gaining powers over borrowing, corporation tax and the Crown Estate Commission.
Prof Johns also believes the debate would have moved on to economic levers.
“Let’s say the SNP had just fallen short of the majority in 2011, so there hadn’t been a referendum, the next big discussions, I think, would have been about actually devolving more financial power, but also kind of ending this thing that ‘you can’t keep voting for good schools and hospitals when you are not responsible for raising the taxes for them’.
“That debate has largely been put on hold, I think. But if the constitutional issue was somehow settled, or at least if the independence question was shelved, the big constitutional question would be about taxes.”
The fact health and the NHS has topped recent polling on political priorities in Scotland is hardly surprising in the context of the pandemic.
Perception soft he differing way in which the Westminster and Holyrood governments have responded to the crisis would be likely to play a decisive role in this year’s Scottish Parliament election whether the constitutional question remained live or not.
Stirling University politics professor Paul Cairney suggested perceived competency would become even more important in an election that was not dominated by the constitution.
“I guess that the focus would shift somewhat to the governing competence of the main party, which is still likely to be the SNP, in relation to its handling of C ovid -19 and related services, such as the NHS and schools. There would still be some comparison to the UK Government, but with the recognition that this kind of rhetoric would be less useful to the Scottish Government.
“Maybe some people would be interested in things like further devolution to local councils, and reforming taxation, such as introducing a local income tax, but it would be difficult to see these issues catching fire right now.
“It’s also hard to see much demand for higher taxation, so the biggest debates would be about how to distribute between services.”
Of all the priorities named by Scots in the Survation poll last summer, the environment was 10th.
Isabell Hoffmann, the founder and co-author of eupinions, which conducts polling four times a year in every EU member state, said: “The big trend that we have seen is that climate change made a real comeback.
“Usually what you would expect to see is economic and social issues rating very strongly, and they do.
“We haven’ t seen an election yet that was decided on these issues, and I think these things (elections) are very regionally specific – it strongly depends on social and political dynamics that are much more regional. But if there is one big trend we see and it sticks, then that is climate change.”
There are many other issues in Scotland, of course – the education attainment gap, new hate crime legislation, and waiting times for cancer and mental health services.
Perhaps there would also be more made of the Salmond inquiry and Scottish drug death crisis.