Scotland’s top political scientist diagnoses our democracy. The verdict? The patient is in serious trouble ...
IF you want to diagnose the health of Scottish democracy, there is only one man to turn to: Professor James Mitchell from Edinburgh University, a leading authority on Scottish politics. He has spent a lifetime dissecting the constitution, devolution, and the workings of the Scottish Government.
If Mitchell were a doctor, and Scottish democracy the patient, then the diagnosis isn’t good. It is not fatal, but the patient is in serious trouble.
Mitchell was a vocal advocate for Scotland’s Parliament and self-government prior to devolution and remains so, saying he wants “as much autonomy in Scotland as possible”. But Scottish politics is “immature”.
If we became independent, we would do so with a “dysfunctional model” of Government. The SNP puts campaigning before governing; it is “fundamentalist”, a “mirror image” of Conservatives.
Local democracy is “worse than pre-devolution, which is staggering”; Government accountability is “utterly inadequate”; and “debate too parochial” with everything “viewed through a constitutionalist lens”.
“The model of democracy we’ve adopted is unimaginative and follows Westminster too closely,” Mitchell says.
Centralisation
POWER is “centralised” in Edinburgh, diminishing councils. “Cuts have been imposed”, and councils are “basically prevented from raising their own funds. That’s very harmful”. The Scottish Government “dictates priorities leaving local authorities with far less discretion”.
Says Mitchell: “Essentially, they’ve become administrative agents of central government. They basically do what they’re told and money is often tied to that … local knowledge has been sucked out of the system.”
The Scottish Government has “essentially devolved penury, devolved the difficult decision, and kept as much of the money as possible. From a public policy and democratic point of view, that’s really bad, very worrying … When it comes to local democracy, we’re an outlier, we’re weird”.
Regarding centralisation, “the only other part of Europe that’s like Scotland is
England”. Mitchell adds: “We’re not only seeing centralisation to the Scottish Government, but centralisation within Government. Cabinet, from what I gather, doesn’t operate as a proper forum for debate. That’s very unhealthy … ‘presidential’ isn’t entirely the wrong word, it’s not formally presidential, but there’s a degree of that..
Constant campaigning
“OUR First Minister is more engaged in constant campaigning, with a referendum in mind, than governing. We don’t have the governing mindset which requires openness, compromise, listening, engaging. There’s a kind of control freakery. Everything is presented in very sharp terms, primary colours. Politics is often not black and white, it’s grey. That gets lost in the campaigning mindset.
“That’s sad because our democracy isn’t the democracy many who campaigned for devolution envisaged. The Parliament hasn’t really lived up to those hopes and