ARE the SNP now just colonial administrators?
It was Labour who built the Holyrood Parliament and put Scottish devolution in place within a UK framework with limited delegated authority and a fixed spending budget.
Alex Salmond, with Nicola Sturgeon as deputy leader, won control of the parliament from unlucky Jack McConnell in 2007, stealing the keys to the Labour party’s new cooncil hoose, and within the limits of devolved powers, elevated the stature of the parliament and pushed the limits of the Scotland Act to great effect.
However, many activists and observers looking at the SNP today in 2021, the SNP HQ, elected members and ministers, are thinking that they are just too cosy in their jobs executing their delegated Westminster authority in Scotland to be bothering with actual independence policies. 99% devolution, 1% independence seems to be the SNP way under Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell.
The SNP.org website is almost all about devolution policies, with few answers to the indyref1 fear questions about all the important non-devolved areas an independent Scotland needs to answer. Why no policy homework on this to date? Without lots of policy work, any indyref2 might be Darien scheme 2 due to lack of intellectual preparation, which Mike Russell seems to have confirmed recently (in various online interviews). There are no SNP books or publications on independence, little SNP representation on indy marches, few visits (if any) by NEC or elected members to SNP branches or regular independence broadcasts on social media.
Why does the SNP HQ seem to work in an silo? Do they actually want independence? They seem obstructive in adopting much of the mountains of innovative policy ideas, tax and constitutional proposals that have been produced and circulated by some towering and expert figures out there in the independence movement.
Why has so little been published or adopted on how an independent Scotland will operate? “Hope” and “right to choose” stuff is just independence wind dust compared to actual statecraft policy answers.
We are told, however, that one NEC member (Mike Russell) is appointed to develop independence policies (a sort of SNP revolving door post). Incidentally, Mike recently dismissed the 2014 independence policy book Scotland’s Future as having been rejected by the people but offered no updating or alternative to this important reference. Surprised? No.
Nicola Sturgeon is undoubtedly a competent leader and politician able to win over hearts and minds. There are some other highly competent (but seemingly stifled) SNP members pushed to the back of the bus. However, the SNP executive’s obsession with devolution is at the expense of ongoing open discussion and education about how the independent state will operate and is depressing for many in the movement. This is a very worrying mushroom management policy which Westminster will exploit.
Businesses need answers too. Remember the old saying “all political careers end in failure”? The longer the SNP procrastinates in adopting, publishing and educating Scots on independence policies, the more England will execute its Brexit Britain policies and continue directing billions of pounds worth of infrastructure and job creation investment and spending to England while Scotland’s flat-lines. The levers of meaningful independent state powers no more than a carrot on an ever-lengthening SNP telescopic stick.
Finally, I wonder if the part of the reason SNP ministers have done a deal with the Greens is in case any SNP backbench MSPs decide to switch to Alba in the next few years in frustration? They might conclude the SNP party really are just kicking the can down the road. Enter an SNP Green buffer zone? Clever try.
Steve Webster
New Alba member
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