How battle for the hearts of Middle Scotland can actually be won...
OVER the past few weeks, in conversations about Scotland with politicians and colleagues in other parts of the UK, a question has continually popped up: is the mood finally turning up there? Are SNP supporters finally going to turn away from Nicola Sturgeon?
The scandal over the two CalMac ferries on the Clyde has been noticed elsewhere in these islands. Coming across it for the first time, people express their astonishment about the stink of incompetence and corruption that rises from the affair.
If this had happened in Westminster, they note, can you imagine the hell there would be to pay?
Then there’s the rest of the Scottish domestic agenda: the SNP’s failure on education; its mishandling of the NHS; the complete absence of any credible plan to kick-start our flagging economy.
Can anyone in Scotland now remember the detail of Finance Secretary Kate Forbes’ flagship ‘ten-year economic transformation plan’ published a few weeks back? What do you mean you didn’t notice there was such a thing as a ten-year economic transformation plan?
What’s more, these were elections for local government: cut to the bone by the SNP over the past decade. Surely this is now going to be noticed, ask people.
Surely the sceptical, savvy Scottish electorate will begin to notice that, over 15 long years of SNP rule, their kids’ education hasn’t improved, they don’t feel wealthier, and that this moribund and clapped-out administration has palpably run of steam?
Well, hardly. For all that the story around yesterday’s local elections may focus on a good result for Scottish Labour and a disappointing result for the Scottish Conservatives, the big picture analysis of Scottish politics in the wake of these elections remains the same as it was beforehand: the blunt reality is that the SNP continues to have a lock-grip on power in Scotland.
There are small islands where pro-UK parties have planted a flag: the sea is still Nationalist.
Among opponents of the SNP, the instinctive reaction to this is often the same: what on earth is the matter with people?
We wonder what happened to the normal rules of politics which usually see incumbent parties in mid-term given the order of the boot.
Why are people so entranced by the SNP? This kind of thinking helps to let off steam; the problem is that it’s not the most productive avenue to go down.
One of the first rules of politics is not to blame the electorate. You don’t win people’s support by shouting in their face demanding to know what they think they’re playing at.
So the real challenge this weekend for Scotland’s opposition parties is the same as it has been for several years now: to examine the reasons why people are voting SNP in their droves and to find out what might tease them away.
As somebody who spent several years working for Ruth Davidson, the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, the first thing to say is that there are no easy answers here.
Plenty of us have charged at the SNP’s defences and walked away from battle with little to show for it. Perhaps the best place to start is to analyse the nature of the battleground.
Like all successful political movements, the SNP has constructed a coalition of voters. It includes hardline nationalists who want independence yesterday.
But it also includes voters in ‘middle Scotland’ who want to show their support for Scotland without taking the pain of actually becoming independent. Almost all of them are currently scooped up by the SNP. These voters see Scottish politics through a nationalist prism.
They like the idea of a party that ‘stands up for Scotland’ and ‘sends a message’ to London.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Scottish Labour did this job. Now the Nationalists do. The SNP knows these people intimately and has a leader they like. So it gives them what they want.
Pro-Union parties are never going to win back hardline independence supporters. However those people in the middle are there to be persuaded.
Nicola Sturgeon knows this: it explains her cautious, softly-softly approach to independence. Indeed, the SNP has spent the best part of two decades obsessing over them.
The question is what can be done by opposition parties to appeal to them too.
Partly it’s about denying the SNP the target they crave. Douglas Ross’s local election campaign this week was hamstrung from the off by Boris Johnson and the revelations over Partygate.
The story was uppermost in voters’ minds over the past few weeks. It allowed the SNP to run its campaign of choice – are you for us or for them, down there? It also persuaded some of the Tory support to stay at home. No wonder Mr Ross suffered.
But the real task is to change the record. The SNP hate being reminded they see the ‘day job’ of running the government as less important than independence.
They hate it because it’s true and because it reminds middle-of-theroad Scots what they don’t like
‘It’s about denying them the targets they crave’
‘The SNP hate being reminded of this... because it’s true’
‘Show them up for the ideologues that they are’
about nationalism. The task for opposition parties isn’t just to point this out, it’s also to show how, through a focus on the day job, we can improve and transform Scotland in the here and now.
That means coming up with imaginative and bold policies on education, the economy, health and the environment, all areas that the Scottish parliament has prime responsibility for.
It means setting out how cooperation with the rest of the UK can improve life chances and our quality of life in Scotland.
It requires parties to reach out to soft SNP voters, showing them that it is through action now, not separation, that we ‘stand up for Scotland’ the best.
Over the coming weeks we can expect the SNP to raise its plans for independence once more. The publication of a second referendum Bill is likely.
It will see the Nationalists fighting back on the ground they like best: us versus them, Nicola versus Boris, the parliament in Scotland versus the Supreme Court in London.
The SNP will hope to herd many Scots to their cause.
With a terrifying cost of living crisis about to slam into every household in the country, it is an enormous distraction.
For opposition parties the task is not just to make that point, but to come up with the practical solutions and ideas for this uncertain world – and to show up the SNP for the ideologues they are.
The battle for second place in Scotland is all very interesting.
The task facing pro-UK parties before we next go to the polls is to join the battle for first.