ALL political eras come to an end. The ascendancy of the Tories under Thatcher and Major; the period of New Labour; the current age of Conservative dominance. Similarly, the long story of Labour hegemony in Scotland and equally the SNP’s recent predominance.
Tomorrow marks one year since the fall of Liz Truss and her disastrous Trussonomics that led to Rishi Sunak becoming Prime Minister. This means Tory MPs can now submit letters of no confidence in Sunak – with reports already of 20-25 MPs having done so or about to.
The bigger picture is a world of instability and uncertainty where the politics of normalcy, stability and the status quo no longer suffice. This goes for Sunak, falsely presenting himself as “the change candidate” railing against “30 years of failed policies”, but also for Keir Starmer and Labour – and Humza Yousaf and the SNP.
No-one thinks that government and politics in such turbulent times are easy. But we are surrounded by a miniaturised generation of political leaders across the West, including in Scotland and the UK. A generation politically exhausted and out of ideas that is, as John Major put it, at the fag-end of 40 years of “failed trickle-down economics”.
Scotland is not immune from this political shrinkage. Many of our discussions are limited by a failure of imagination and dynamism in how we speak to each other and, as critically, in what we speak about, and the absence of substance and new ideas.
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This is exacerbated by the ways that parties and tribes try to blame anyone but themselves, and attempt to absolve themselves of responsibility. Rather than the above, we need to question whether Scotland has been changed enough by devolution, which will be 25 years old next year.
The answer is surely no and the reasons for this are not just due to Labour’s idea of devolution or the absence of “levers” in the hands of the Scottish Government. A major factor is the conservatism of all the main parties – the SNP included.
So, has Scotland been changed enough by the SNP? After 16 years the answer to this again must be in the negative. The early years of competence as the main characteristic of government have long gone, as has effortlessly making the political waves. The SNP need, like all parties in power for a while, to make an honest assessment not just of their record, but how they do politics and government.
At the weekend I wrote about the need for a new turn of the page by the SNP. After the first wave of Breakthrough SNP in the 1960s and 1970s, and second wave of Devolution SNP from 1999 to the 2014 indyref and its long tail, it is evident the latter wave has come to its conclusion.
A new dispensation and new wave – a third wave – is needed, which I call Self-Determination and Empowerment SNP.
One aspect of Scotland the SNP could address is our atrophied democracy. The Scottish Parliament which many are so rightfully proud of could do with an overhaul and renewal of its processes.
This would include how the Scottish Government is held to account, how MSPs work, and even assessing the electoral system and closed nature of the regional list which leaves those MSPs often accountable to no one but the party.
There is a need to champion localism and local democracy in a country where remorseless centralisation long predates the Scottish Parliament. The Council Tax freeze announced last week was but the latest embodiment of such a centralising mindset, undertaken against a backdrop of cash-strapped councils with no real discussion or buy-in from the Cabinet, councils or Cosla.
Democracy is not just about political institutions. It is also about public life, who has power and society. In recent decades, despite Major’s point about the abject failure of trickle-down economics, there has been a missing debate in Scotland as well as the UK about the wider fabric and reach of democracy.
Where in recent times are the considered debates about the potential of economic democracy, and of workers and citizens participating in decisions which affect their work and lives?
We should at least be asking the question.
It is clear in all this that safety first or pseudo-change politics, as currently being presented by Sunak and Starmer, are not up to the challenges we face as a society or planet. But who and where are the politicians that can, or could, be?
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If Scottish politics is to have the ambition to raise its game, aspiration and horizons then it will require a very different mindset and a new generation of political leaders. It will require from enough people a change from the corrosive dialogue of “whataboutery”.
This only reinforces dead-end tribalism and a conservatism of practice which defends your own side at all costs and concedes little. It is a trap all of us can fall into at times, but cumulatively it diminishes our nation and politics and restricts new ideas and voices.
To enable us to break free of safety-first politics and to embrace a new wave of politics, here are three initial suggestions. First, Scottish political traditions tend to succeed when they go with the grain of society and dominant economic, social and cultural trends.
Hence, the brief Tory honeymoon in the 1950s at the apex of Britishness as a union, which was underpinned by a social contract of rising prosperity and full employment.
Then there was the Labour ascendancy of the 1960s to the end of the 1970s based on the power of an active, interventionist state to do big things – from slum clearance to mass building of council houses, public health drives and infrastructure building.
The SNP have to understand and represent a generous, outgoing Scotland: about prosperity, widening opportunity, social justice, and lifting up the Scotland that has been left behind and marginalised for generations. And linking that to a collective Scottish voice internationally saying this is who we are because this is what we do at home. Easier said than done.
Second, intrinsic to the above is a politics of hope and believing in the possibilities of people, change and the future.
This is not easy in a troubled world, but the SNP did it before in 2006-07 when they changed their messaging from talking about the negatives of the Union to the positives of self-government, informed by the positive psychology of Martin Seligman.
The politics of miserablism and even at times a victimology of nationalism, while attractive, has to be resisted: endlessly going on about GERS, the McCrone report or “Scotland as a colony”. None of that is a message of building people up.
Third, breaking out of devolution and changing Scotland is not just about the constitution and independence.
Self-determination is about how we organise ourselves as a society goes way beyond the kind of nation we are and issues of statehood. It is about who has power and why – and how we hold them to account.
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This is a question barely asked of most of our public institutions and professions such as law and medicine, as well as the entire world of business. Instead of just focusing on one narrow prism of how we collectively express our self-determination, namely whether we are independent or not, we should think about a wider tapestry.
Namely, how we run our society; the principles and values that should shape and underpin our public services –how we shine the searchlight of scrutiny into the cobwebs of public life that we have barely begun to; and how we advance ideas of economic democracy informed by economic literacy and political economy which rejects the failed trickle-down model of the past four decades.
Asking these questions and coming up with answers would be the beginning of a new era of the SNP and independence but would also contribute to a more substantive political debate. It would inform that shift from the “Why to the How” which Yousaf stated last week at SNP conference on independence and would also significantly benefit wider politics and society.
This would bring with it risks, breaking out of the narrow menu too many have grown comfortable with, but wouldn’t it be better to challenge the constraining parameters of safety-first politics?
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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