Year in review: 2018 according to key figures in Scottish politics

THIS has been a monumental year in global, European and Scottish politics. From Trump to Brexit, the political landscape of yesteryear has continued to change dramatically as we look for new solutions to deal with the new challenges we face.

We have not been immune to that change in Scotland. Brexit has dominated and, unfortunately, it has impacted upon the decisions we have been able to take as a government.

As Scotland’s Finance and Economy Secretary I have tried to provide businesses, investors and our public sector with as much certainty as possible.

READ MORE: The year of Brexit: How the UK went kaput

As we look ahead to 2019, the future remains unclear due to decisions outwith our control.

For our part, the Scottish Government will continue to take decisions that will strengthen our economic prosperity against the backdrop of the UK’s exit from the European Union.

That work will begin by passing the 2019-20 Scottish Budget in Holyrood to deliver an increase of almost £730 million for our health and care services, invest more than £180m in order to raise attainment in our schools, give a vital boost to our economy through a £5 billion infrastructure programme and provide local government with a real terms increase in overall support through an £11.1bn settlement.

Keith Brown MSP, SNP depute leader

ONE word has dominated the year: “Brexit”. However, so scunnered have we become with it, I will try to avoid mentioning it, or the unending Tory shambles associated with it, again.

On the positive side, 2018 may have seen Scotland’s first faltering steps towards getting into Europe in our own right (at least the European men’s football finals!), for the first time in more than 20 years.

Even if they do manage it – and it remains a big “if”– Scotland’s men will still have some way to go to match the fantastic achievement of our women’s game, in qualifying for the 2019 World Cup in France. Well done to Shelley Kerr and her team.

One of the biggest films this year was undoubtedly Outlaw King. While I thoroughly enjoyed the film I was left, like many, eager for further stages of the Scottish wars of independence to be covered in the future.

It reminded me of Braveheart and the time when I had to escort the Wallace Sword from the Wallace Monument in Stirling to Manhattan. It was a phenomenal hit, with thousands queuing to see the historic broadsword.

READ MORE: In a year of mixed emotions for Scotland, we have reasons to be proud

I have so many stories to tell about the trip – not least about the specialist art curators who worked on the presentation of the sword, who – the hard bitten New Yorkers that they were – were blown away by the “aura” of the sword and its history. They swore that, having prepared the sword in a glass presentational vitrine, it gave off vibrations when they toasted it with a fine malt.

Then there was the “ancient” ceremony of the sword, which I had to devise 10 minutes before its entrance to the Vanderbilt Hall of Grand Central Station!

The “ceremony” managed to include a government minister, the Provost of Stirling Council and the High Constables of Edinburgh. It was hugely popular, and there was a massive boost to tourist numbers at the Wallace Monument subsequently.

However imperfect the “history” of the movie (and that of my hastily devised “ceremony”!), there is no question it helped to spread awareness of Scotland’s story.

For me personally, the highlight of 2018 was being elected as depute leader of the SNP. Having been a party member for 34 years, it was a real honour and, I believe, a huge opportunity.

The challenge and the opportunity for 2019, for all of us, is to write a new chapter in Scotland’s story.

Hannah Bardell MSP

STARTING on a personal note, I met my girlfriend at the beginning of the year and our relationship has brought me more happiness and fun than I could have ever imagined.

Politically, this has been an intense and tumultuous year.

We have made progress towards equality and for me, the chance to speak to huge crowds at West Lothian Pride and then see the Scottish Parliament vote overwhelmingly to implement inclusive education brought this into focus. Credit must go to all those who worked so hard for this, especially Liam and Jordan of the TIE campaign.

Scots queer filmmaker Charlotte Prodger winning the Turner Prize, and in sport seeing my local football team Livingston thrive in the Scottish Premiership and Scotland’s women’s national football team, led by Shelley Kerr, making it to the World Cup have all been amazing.

My brilliant team was joined by two fantastic new staff members and together we’ve worked on many challenging constituency issues. After the tragic deaths of my constituents Julie Pearson and Kirsty Maxwell, this work has included setting up the All Party Parliamentary Group on Deaths Abroad and Consular Services. It has been harrowing and devastating, taking evidence from more than 50 families, but we are fighting for the change they deserve, and I believe we will achieve it.

Working on immigration cases has brought highs and lows; preventing the cruel deportation of a woman whose family – including her children – were all granted indefinite leave to remain was a huge success. On the other hand losing our fight to keep Kweku Adoboli despite him having lived in the UK since he was 13, and our very best efforts, was devastating.

Each week I see first-hand the distress and uncertainty inflicted by the UK Government, be it through shambolic Brexit negotiations and their impact – especially on EU citizens – or ongoing austerity as my team make more and more referrals to food and clothes banks. Though it is an uphill struggle, I will not and we cannot give up on our fight for an independent Scotland, one where we can build a fair, equal and thriving country. We must live in hope.

Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, founder and chief executive of Business for Scotland

2018 WAS the year when the myth of Westminster credibility was finally abandoned in the Scottish psyche. When people began to realise that the supposed “mother of parliaments” had descended into political farce, become detached from reality, disinterested in Scotland and delusional about the UK’s residual global importance. Even if Brexit were cancelled, and the UK now remained in the EU, it would be at the mercy of the EU27: no power, allies or credibility. Soon the other nations would suggest renegotiating the UK’s £8bn rebate – what would the UK threaten to do, leave?

Political civil war would ensue in Westminster making it unfit to govern, this itself providing ample justification for a second independence referendum.

2019 will be seen as the year the UK disintegrated, regardless of what happens with Brexit. What really held the UK together in 2014 was not the arguments made by Unionists, it was the innate credibility of the Westminster elite to make outrageous claims and still be believed.

Now the self-destructing Westminster Parliament’s credibility has crumbled and compares poorly to Holyrood’s multi-party stance against the power grab and the Scottish Government’s more professional performance.

Once Brexit happens, or is cancelled, and the mother of all political wars consumes the mother of all parliaments, attitudes will change dramatically in favour of both independence for Scotland and unity for Ireland. A perfect storm is brewing and when it hits after March 2019 it will signal the end of the UK as a nation state.

Emma Ritch, director of Engender Scotland

DESPITE the hulking gloom of Brexit, there has been a more celebratory tone to some of the reflections about women and political participation this year in Scotland. The centenary of some women getting the vote has precipitated cultural and political events, including a joyful national march in Edinburgh, which focused attention on the calls of the Women 50:50 campaign for legislated quotas in the Scottish Parliament. It’s also seen the publication of We Shall Fight Until We Win (404Ink and BHP Comics), a graphic novel anthology of women’s activism and organising in beautiful vignettes. Featuring the work of Denise Mina, Maria Stoian, Sabeena Akhtar and Jenny Bloomfield, it began life as a Kickstarter.

Across the Atlantic, Trump’s assault on women’s rights, and especially on the autonomy and liberty of migrant, Black and trans women has galvanised women’s organising. A triumvirate of books by Brittney Cooper (Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower), Rebecca Traister (Good And Mad: The Revolutionary Power Of Women’s Anger), and Soraya Chemaly (Rage Becomes Her: The Power Of Women’s Anger) have charted and dissected the potential of women’s anger to topple structures that see us subordinated and marginalised.

The #MeToo ripples continue to wash over public life, with many women’s sector organisations focused this year on making institutions in Scotland responsive to the cultural shift that is seeing sexual harassment dragged into the light. To increase accountability for sexism in our corporate cultures we need a little more sober process, and a lot less gleeful politicisation of complaints.

2018 has seen decades of smart, creative work by Scottish Women’s Aid and feminist academics bear fruit in the form of the world-leading Domestic Abuse Act. Criminalising the “everyday terrorism” that constrains women’s freedom to move through the world shows the bold and life-changing legislation that can come from evidence-based feminism.

Wee Ginger Dug, National columnist

THE best thing that can be said about 2018 is that it wasn’t 2016, when much-loved celebrities were dropping like flies, there was the Brexit vote, and Donald Trump was elected as President of the USA. Saying that those things didn’t happen this year isn’t exactly a high point of the year, but then we’re clearly starting from a very low baseline.

The year was dominated by Brexit. This was the year that the weakness and irrelevance of the British state was revealed. Without membership of the EU, the UK is not a mighty giant bestriding the world stage, it’s merely a second-rate former empire lost in nostalgia and desperately clinging on to its fantasies of former glories. This was the year that the UK was slapped down and put in its place by Ireland and the Irish border question.

What the UK is pleased to call the Irish border is really the British border. It is an artificial line imposed upon a partitioned Ireland by a British state that refused to accept the inevitability of Irish independence and was determined to retain as much control over Ireland as possible. It is a supreme historical irony that the modern Irish state is using the question of that border in order to control the British. 2018 will go down in history as the year that the last tattered remnants of Britain’s imperial fantasies were laid to rest in a partitioned field in Fermanagh.

Despite the disaster of Theresa May’s Brexit negotiations, which were so bad and so inept that the new word clusterbùrach had to be invented for it, 2018 was not unmitigated doom and gloom. 2018 was the year that the grassroots independence movement got back on track. We’d been wrongfooted in 2017 by the snap General Election and what was, frankly, a poor campaign from the SNP. The remainder of 2017 was spent in infighting and recriminations.

This year, however, the grassroots independence movement was re-energised and enthused. New groups have been springing up, new Yes hubs opening, and the Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) has launched its This Is It campaign. The grassroots indy movement is ready, it’s eager for the campaign that’s coming, and it’s champing at the bit.

2018 became the year when the question facing Scotland was no longer “Should Scotland become an independent country?” but rather “When should Scotland become an independent country?” We’ll be finding out the answer to that question very soon.

Robin McAlpine, director of Common Weal

MY strongest feelings about 2018 involve frustration. There are crucial, pivotal moments in life which define what comes next. Clearly Britain has reached a crossroads, but somehow the cause of Scottish independence just hasn’t made enough progress in the past 12 months.

At a time when we should have been building further and talking effectively to voters, we’ve been paralysed by internal debates over an unpopular Growth Commission report, and our approach to Brexit seems to be far too much “repair” and not nearly enough “escape”.

Opportunities don’t come all the time and there is nothing worse than the regret of missing them. I think we’ve been missing opportunities all year.

Between this and too many issues on which the Scottish Government is going in the wrong direction (testing in primary schools, refusal to take steps towards a publicly-owned railway, worrying complacency on Scotland’s contribution to preventing climate change) there have been times this year when that frustration has felt overwhelming.

This is a real shame, because it can distract you from so many of the good things happening. At Common Weal we’ve had a really strong year.

Highlights for me include publishing the How To Start A New Country book and the wonderful Atlas Of Opportunity – as well as the SNP adopting our National Infrastructure Company proposal.

The SIC reaching the half-way point in its fundraiser to start a national pro-independence campaign organisation was an incredible lift.

But the things that have kept me going more than anything are the chances I get to go out and see community-led projects which really do give so much reason for optimism. Seeing the determination of communities never to accept what happens to them as fate but choosing to work hard to transform themselves never fails to inspire me.

It seems almost unfair to single out examples but the day I spent with Matt and Kat at the Stove Network in Dumfries really reminded me what leadership looks like and the time I’ve spent with Martin and the folks at the Kinning Park Complex just leaves you feeling energised.

If Scotland’s present feels like we’re in something of a lull, it’s ordinary people all over the country who give me the most hope for its future.