IT’S an old cliché that a week is a long time in politics – but the past year has in many ways seemed like a political lifetime.
The outcome of the EU referendum has completely changed the political landscape across the UK – and changed it forever. But that referendum came on the back of a very hard-fought Scottish election campaign, in which the SNP achieved a spectacular result.
Our share of the constituency vote increased on our 2011 landslide result – an unprecedented achievement for any political party almost a decade in office. That success was built on the solid record of achievement and competence we have earned since 2007.
And while I’m immensely proud of what we’ve achieved, the longer I do this job, the more aware I become of just how much more there is to do.
This week I published our Programme for Government for the next parliamentary year.
Our key priority is to raise standards in our schools, close the attainment gap and deliver opportunities to all our young people, no matter their family background. This is a central part of our economic strategy – addressing long-standing inequalities so we can create the workforce of the future and deliver sustainable growth.
But we now face the deep, deep uncertainty to the economy threatened by Brexit.
That is why last month I announced an additional £100 million in this financial year for capital projects, to stimulate and support our economy at this turbulent time.
And that is why our Programme for Government this week included a new three-year £500 million facility of financial guarantees and, if appropriate, loans for SMEs that would otherwise be unable to grow due to a lack of investment finance.
This new Scottish Growth Scheme will offer guarantees of up to £5 million per eligible business, meaning that government will share some of the risk faced by small companies when they make big investment decisions.
Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, and it is a democratic outrage that we now face being dragged to the EU exit door against our will.
A UK Government which Scotland did not vote for is now trying to sell to the people of Scotland a referendum result which they did not vote for.
That’s why I am doing everything I can to protect Scotland’s place in and relationship with the EU.
This task is not made any easier by the complete failure of the UK Government to plan for this referendum outcome.
After a summer of being told simply that “Brexit means Brexit”, we are still none the wiser about what that actually means.
Even Brexit Secretary David Davis’s statement to the Commons on Monday – which was billed as finally giving some clarity – did no such thing.
Indeed, the position of the UK Government became even more farcical when the only scrap of substantive detail that Mr Davis did volunteer was immediately disavowed by Theresa May.
And yesterday the Prime Minister herself was unable to answer the simple question of whether she wants to see the UK in the single market – Yes or No?
But it is deeply alarming that the current thinking among the Tory high command seems to be heading towards a hard Brexit – and out of the single market.
In short, from top to bottom the Tories are in collective denial. Meanwhile, the complete implosion of the Labour Party is something unmatched in any political party in my lifetime.
It really is possible that we are witnessing the end Labour as a force in UK politics – with even Kezia Dugdale admitting that Labour are unelectable with Jeremy Corbyn as leader.
This has a serious consequence for all of us in that it could be paving the way for potentially decades of Tory government.
That is why the old arguments about the UK providing stability and security for Scotland are now utterly redundant.
Uncertainty and a threat to jobs and investment are happening right now under the Union. And that is why it is absolutely right that we keep the option of independence on the table if it becomes clear that our place in Europe – with all that it entails for jobs, investment and prosperity – simply cannot be protected within the UK.
To give up the right to even consider that option would be to accept that we are at the mercy of Westminster decisions no matter how damaging or destructive they are to our economy, our society and our place in the world.
That is not a position anyone with Scotland’s best interests at heart should ever accept.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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