The next General Election could be as far away as May 2nd
2024. We have all assumed that it would be sooner, but that was before the collapse
in support for the Conservatives. Two and a half years ago we knew nothing
about the pandemic, but instead were stuck in a Brexit stalemate with talk of a
“people’s vote” and the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister. The
past is not so much a foreign country as another world. Will anyone remember
about parties in the Downing Street Garden two and a half years from now?
But in Scotland unless something very unforeseen happens
we can be fairly certain that the fundamentals things apply. The Scottish
nationalists have had first Brexit and then the pandemic to decisively change
Scottish opinion, but it has barely moved. Support for independence increases
and falls, or perhaps only the margin of error in polls increases and falls. It
never reaches the 60-65% level where the SNP would feel that it had a good chance
of winning and it never falls to the 35-40% level which might allow us to go back
to how it was before 2014. Instead, the carrot in front of the nationalist
donkey, continually encourages it to go for independence next year. But when next
year arrives, the carrot is still stuck in front of the donkey, because it is
held there by a stick.
Labour may be ahead in the polls, but the fundamental
arithmetic is just the same as it has been since 2014. Labour cannot easily win
an overall majority since losing nearly all its Scottish MPs. It would have to
win an overall majority in England, but England at the election in 2019 was
nearly all blue. That may all change because of Boris Johnson breaking lockdown
rules, but is the English public really going to vote en masse for kneeling
Keir Starmer?
The hope for Sturgeon is that Labour would win enough
to form a majority with SNP seats. It is nearly certain that the SNP wins nearly
all of the Scottish seats because its share of the vote in the high forties is
as stuck as support for independence. Labour and the Conservatives are more
than twenty points behind and that hasn’t changed much since 2014.
The condition for a deal with Labour would be an
independence referendum, but would Sturgeon really want one in 2026, would she
even still be there? The problem for the SNP is that it would be much harder to
win a referendum with Labour in power. After all Scottish nationalism is as
much, perhaps more, an anti-Tory movement as it is a genuine desire to put an
international border between England and Scotland.
Modern Scottish nationalism got its boost because Labour
and the Lib Dems decided it was unfair for Scotland to have a Tory government
which Scotland didn’t vote for. But if left-wing Scotland had a Labour government
propped up by the SNP, then we would have got the government we voted for. This
time England would not have the government it voted for, but that would not
bother Scottish nationalists. So, while a Labour victory might give the SNP
another chance at independence, it would be in unfavourable circumstances. The
SNP might lose again, which would be careless as that would allow any future
British government to say you’ve lost twice why should we give you another go.
The SNP dilemma amounts then to this. It must hope for
a Tory Prime Minister, because this will give it the best chance of winning a referendum,
but this Prime Minister will say No. A Labour Prime Minister might be forced to
say Yes, but he would merely be giving the SNP a referendum it might lose and which
it therefore might try to avoid.
Strategically the SNP faces a number of problems. If
Brexit and the pandemic could not decisively move opinion its way, what would?
Sturgeon won’t want to go on for ever. By 2026 she would have been in the job a
very long time and she wouldn’t have much time to do anything else. But if not
Sturgeon, who?
The nationalist movement is split between Salmond and
Sturgeon. It is going to need to heal that split or else go into battle divided.
But how can Salmond and Sturgeon reconcile after each doing their best to
destroy each other? There may be another SNP star waiting to shine, but it is
not obvious at the moment who it is.
While Brexit was an initial advantage for the SNP (Scotland
didn’t vote for it etc.) it fundamentally made it harder for Scottish
nationalists to win the argument because it made independence a much more
radical, scary proposition than it was when the UK was a member of the EU. So
too the pandemic initially showed Sturgeon running Scotland, taking all the
important decisions. Her popularity increased even among some Pro UK people. But
the pandemic also showed how dependent Scotland is on the Treasury to provide
us with furlough and vaccines. If you got your arm jabbed by someone from the
British Army, you might have realised that it would be a pity to break up an
organisation that is so efficiently run.
In the long run however perhaps more important than
all of these things is that Sturgeon has demonstrated that an independent
Scotland would be a more authoritarian place than the UK. She has shown just a
little too much delight in telling us what to do. Whenever the UK government
wanted to open up even just a little, Sturgeon chose for us to have less
freedom. When England said that people didn’t need masks, Sturgeon said we’d
have to wear them for years to come.
Young people, many of whom would have been SNP voters
and supporters of independence are not obeying Sturgeon anymore. They are going
down to England for a New Year party or they are having parties in each other’s
homes despite Sturgeon saying they should not. They are going to football
matches with banners critical of the SNP and chants that are rude about
Sturgeon. This is a quite new development.
Scottish politics looks stuck. Mr Ross’s attempt to
protect the Tory vote by telling Boris to resign, will not change long term
Conservative support in Scotland. Scottish Labour flirting with the idea of
allowing MPs and MSPs to support independence may attract a few former Labour
voters back, but will lose just as many Pro UK people. Scottish Labour and Conservatives
will continue in the mid-twenties a little more a little less until and unless
they each provide an alternative story to Scots which we might prefer to the
SNP.
Scottish Conservatives must try to win voters to the
idea that free markets, low taxation, low public spending and free trade opportunities
after Brexit will make us richer. If you
are unwilling to make Conservative arguments better by far if Scottish Conservatives
and Labour merged in the middle to form one Pro UK party that was social democratic.
There is no real ideological split between Ross and Sarwar, so why split the
Pro UK vote for nothing?
The Scottish stalemate might be broken by one Pro UK
party, but that won’t happen. But it could still be broken by young Scots who
cannot even remember when the SNP did not rule getting tired of the
authoritarianism. If you don’t want to wear a mask forever, if you like being
able to go to a party in England, if you sing rude songs about Sturgeon and the
SNP, it might just be the time to vote for someone else, otherwise your dissent
and your disobedience looks a bit like naughty schoolchildren doing what they
are told again as soon as teacher comes back into the classroom.
