THE campaign for the Scottish Parliament election in May is formally under way. I firmly believe that Scotland deserves – and is capable of – a political debate which lifts our country up and empowers voters with competing positive visions. But this isn’t how everyone approaches elections. Some people seem determined to drag the tone of our political debate down.
The level of personalised attacks has grown in recent years, whether it’s childish name-calling, absurd conspiracy theories or silly attack memes online. It’s got far worse in the last year, and it’s now coming from high-profile politicians, not just from their supporters hiding behind anonymous accounts.
Whatever the result of this election in terms of votes and seats, I hope that the result also casts a judgement on this negative, even toxic, campaigning style. It needs to fail, and be seen to fail, or it could come to dominate our political life for years to come.
The vote of no confidence in the First Minister was clearly part of this highly personalised campaign, an attempt to turn a political opponent into a hate figure. It was also an attempt to undermine confidence in Scotland’s democratic institutions. This is a desperate strategy from people who see a high level of public trust in those institutions as a threat to the Union and set about trying to drag everything down to their level.
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But a Unionist who genuinely had confidence in the attractiveness of their message, who honestly believed that Scotland’s best future lay in the UK, would have no fear of public trust in Scotland’s parliament and government, regardless of which party was in power. They would be able to offer a positive agenda, which floating voters in the constitutional debate could find compelling. It’s striking how completely absent that kind of positive agenda is on the Unionist side.
Bringing the no-confidence vote in defiance of the independent report, which found no breach of the ministerial code, the Scottish Conservatives turned the whole issue into a piece of third-rate political theatre. And I think the reason why they resort to such tactics is that in their hearts, they know what we know – that it’s the nature and behaviour of the UK Government which is the real threat to their precious Union.
We’ve seen the UK Government strike down devolved laws that could stand in the way of their free market extremism and impose their own legislation in devolved areas without the consent of MSPs. Now they are threatening legal action over the Scottish Parliament’s audacity to want to enshrine the rights of children in law.
We’ve seen the Scottish Tories’ display of faux outrage over allegations against the Scottish Government, while ignoring their own track record as the party that breaks the ministerial code without consequence, and which misled the Westminster Parliament over Covid contracts. Disgracefully, they used the pandemic to make their friends rich.
This is the party that introduced austerity economics which forced millions into poverty and violated human rights, the party which created a hostile environment for people fleeing war and persecution and is now threatening measures to make that agenda even worse.
Scotland deserves better. Not just better than staying part of the UK. Not just better than a right-wing government. But better than this hostile form of politics.
The Greens are determined to do things differently. I’m proud that we take a constructive approach. It is what gets things done for the people of Scotland, and today at our party conference we will be issuing a “report card” which highlights our achievements in the last five years.
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We will highlight that Scotland’s more progressive five-band income tax model came direct from the Scottish Greens manifesto, while every other party resisted this progressive and ultimately popular move. We can point to free bus travel for everyone under 22, which will become available this year. Stronger wildlife protection, a better pay deal for the public sector workers who have been on the frontline of the pandemic and universal free school meals for all primary school children.
We had a similar approach during the exam grades scandal, where instead of seeking a political scalp we forced ministers to accept all our demands to restore 124,000 school grades unfairly marked down by the SQA, and to establish an independent review of the exams system.
With just a handful of MSPs we’ve had a huge impact.
Clearly though, with climate science giving us just nine years to turn things around, we will need to move further and faster in the next parliament. That’s why Scottish Greens will campaign with a positive vision for Scotland, for solutions to the climate crisis that create jobs and invest in a green recovery.
We are asking people to vote like our future depends on it, because it truly does.
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We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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