SNP’s aim istobea shock to the system

WRITING in The National newspaper this week, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reflected upon what the Rev IM Jolly would have described as “a helluva year”; 2016, she said, was “not a year which many of us will look back on with great fondness”.

Bowie, Wham and Quo fans will doubtless agree, but it depends on your interests and outlook. I wasn’t one of them, but 1,018,215 Scots were quite happy on June 24 and some 1.3 million weren’t bothered enough either way to go out and vote.

Maybe the First Minister needs to be more of a glass-half-full kinda gal. Okay, losing her overall majority in May has made life more complicated but Brexit has kept the prospect of an independence referendum alive, allowing her to reinforce her image of steely determination. There is the prospect of a whole raft of powers being repatriated from Brussels direct to Edinburgh. What’s not for her to like in all of that?

Now I know she cited claims that 80,000 jobs might be lost over 10 years and we could all be two grand poorer, but the implications of cleaving Scotland off from a UK market single market which is four times bigger than the EU are not mentioned. In the post-truth era, political choices are as much about the ones you ignore.

And the successful post-truth politician is one who can ignore apparent contradictions and honestly believe that what they are saying is not in any way inconsistent with the past. Going back to the First Minister’s article, for example, she wrote: “The last 12 months have seen a narrative develop that the established political and social order is under threat as never before in modern times.”

Even if somewhat overstated it’s not inherently inaccurate when taken at face value, but if set in a UK context and compared with her party’s long-established position, then the extent of the First Minister’s chutzpah is glaring. There was no clearer expression of the SNP’s core belief than in Scotland’s Future, the 650-page prospectus upon which the SNP’s independence referendum campaign in 2014 was built and which remains the essence of the argument for leaving the United Kingdom

The opening chapter, The Case for Independence, had this to say: “The costs of decisions being made at Westminster are

‘‘ Why pretend the party is not part of the threat to the established political order? That’s what thousands of new members have signed up for

being paid by families and communities across Scotland … As a direct result of the Westminster Government’s welfare changes, the child poverty rate in Scotland is predicted to rise.”

Then: “Within the UK, Scotland is part of an increasingly unequal society ... This is not the result of the policies of one government, but of almost 40 years of decisions at Westminster.” This was followed closely by: “Rather than remaining a peripheral concern for Westminster governments that we did not elect and do not necessarily support, we can forge our own path.” And “we will replace a costly, remote and unrepresentative Westminster system”.

More than a few Herald readers will agree with those sentiments and they are perfectly entitled to do so, but when the dogs on the street know the SNP exists to bring about the end of the United Kingdom as we know it why pretend the party is not part of the threat to the established political order? That’s precisely what thousands of new members have signed up for.

While it found full expression in Scotland’s Future the SNP narrative at First Minster’s Questions since 2007 has been of Westminster wilfulness, like last week’s furious exchange over Police Scotland’s finances and VAT. The First Minster used the force’s VAT payments to deflect criticism, saying “There would be £25 million a year extra … if the United Kingdom Government did not insist on making Police Scotland the only police authority in the entirety of the UK that has to pay VAT”.

In fact the British Transport Police, the Civil Nuclear Police and the Ministry of Defence Police all pay VAT, but the opportunity to claim Scotland was being singled out unfairly was not lost.

The First Minister wrote without irony: “The last 12 months have provided a collective jolt to the system and to what many had assumed to be the political certainties underpinning our lives.” Yet her political life has been dedicated to the ultimate jolt for a certainty 55 per cent of Scots voted to maintain.

So with Brexit due to be triggered in March, local elections across the UK in May and new governments in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, will the SNP’s cattle prods be locked away? Not a chance. John McLellan is a former communications director with the Scottish Conservatives.