SO, there I am – standing in the lecture theatre of a London public (that is, private!) school, preparing to give a presentation on the SNP and Scottish independence to the Sixth Form Politics Society. They’re looking keen and confident while I’m beginning to regret ignoring the good old military dictum: “Never volunteer”!
But, how much do they actually know? I decide to start off slightly tongue in cheek: “Scottish politics is just like English politics with an extra party, and elections are four-way fights. The SNP lost the Scottish part of the last General Election, which was won by Ruth Davidson’s Tories, and Labour benefitted from a Corbyn bounce. Independence is now off the agenda for the foreseeable future. Raise your hand if you think that this is a fair description of current Scottish politics.”
All 20 hands are raised! Looks like I could have a bit of an uphill struggle on my hands. Remind me again about that “never volunteer” thing ...
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However, to be fair to the sixth formers, they were probably the best audience that I’ve spoken to for a long time. Once we got going, they were responsive to the points being made and asked sensible and searching questions.
But why did they have such a stereotyped and inaccurate view to begin with? It’s all very well to blame media bias and misreporting but I think that there’s a more fundamental problem here, rooted in the attitude and lack of assertiveness of the SNP leadership.
For example, what do these have in common – migration policy, domestic abuse, child tax credits/kinship care, medically-supervised injection facilities, the reunion of refugee families, seasonal workers, and shipbuilding on the Clyde?
The answer is that all seven were the subject of resolutions passed at the SNP’s October 2018 Conference and, more significantly, each resolution concluded with a variation of “Conference urges the UK Government to devolve further powers to the Scottish Parliament”.
However, there is no chance of the current UK Government voluntarily devolving anything. Indeed, as the SNP leadership constantly remind us, Westminster is using Brexit to claw powers back and undermine devolution.
So what, exactly, were these resolutions meant to achieve? They got no press attention and Westminster ignored them.
A more ambitious resolution on, say, migration policy, might have included something like: “If these powers are not devolved, Conference urges the Scottish Government to instruct Police Scotland not to co-operate with the Home Office” or, alternatively, “Conference urges the Scottish Government to set up its own immigration department to provide positive assistance to people threatened with deportation”.
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This would have shown seriousness of intent, generated media coverage and forced Westminster to either accept it and reinforce Scotland’s powers or oppose it and be seen (again) to be trampling over Scotland.
The SNP should be concentrating on political consequences and pushing constantly at the boundaries of Scotland’s powers.
Not enough attention is given to grey areas and how things might be implemented through the back door via, for example, planning or health and safety laws or even local by-laws.
Playing exclusively by Westminster’s rules gets us nowhere and allows us to be seen as a talking shop that can be ignored. If the SNP leadership maintains a non-assertive policy of talk but no action, my worry is that the ignorance of Scottish politics seen outside Scotland simply reflects the possibility that, beyond activists and social media, the SNP are not getting the message across inside Scotland either.
Just remember what happened when the SNP took modest direct action with the Westminster walk-out – widespread publicity and 7000 new members.
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