Walls come tumbling down
Gerry Hassan
Bella Caledonia, 1 May 2024
The events of the past few days have caught many off-guard. Humza Yousaf‘s abrupt termination of the agreement with the Greens, their resultant fury and desire for revenge, with the inevitable resignation of Yousaf as it became obvious that he could not win a vote of confidence without paying a high price to Alba and Alex Salmond.
All political parties, parliaments and political systems have crises. They are the life and blood of politics. They are revealing, tell us much about what the main players (whether parties or individuals) think, shed light where once was dark, and can even be at times cathartic and illuminating – and sometimes liberating.
The mindset of part of the SNP and independence
How do we make sense of such a chaotic situation? First, let’s look at the SNP and independence opinion. There was a very identifiable element of denial up to the point that Yousaf resigned that there was anything to see here.
There is a need to explore what drives people to stand by a leader who was obviously dealt a difficult hand but was not in all honesty up to the demands of leading. One rationale is the belief that pro-independence people should come together in the face of an antagonistic public environment and critical press, and support whoever is in charge. That is understandable on a human level but causes problems when it becomes about denying what is reality.
Take some examples. Lesley Riddoch said of Yousaf’s keynote SNP conference speech last year that it was the ‘best leader’s speech I’ve ever heard’ which gave succour to some of the faithful. The truth was that Yousaf’s speech was fairly lame and tame, and addressing a subdued, half-filled hall, with its best lines reheating a previous party policy – a council tax freeze.
Similarly, numerous SNP activists and members say that Yousaf was proving himself ‘a good leader’, ‘unifying the party’ and to be someone who is ‘an enabler’. This was palpably not true on any reading of the evidence. Even as late as Saturday one prominent pro-independence supporter was claiming that talk of crisis was overblown, the party was not as the BBC claimed in ‘meltdown’ and that ‘the party hasn’t been this united for years.’
This mindset needs to be understood. It springs ultimately from a politics and psychology of tribalism and blind faith, and wanting to believe that things will be alright if we continually say so. Over time as political fortunes ebb and flow this throws a hostage to fortune as it ignores the accumulation of problems which come with any party being in office for a long time.
This clinging together and denying inconvenient truths has meant that the SNP has been directionless, rudderless and without strategy since the beginning of the Sturgeon era in 2014. For a decade, since the indyref, the SNP have foresworn any kind of internal debate about direction and the content of party, government and independence; and a large, but over time, dwindling part of the SNP and independence has gone along with this. All of which has contributed to drift, an overbearing leadership under Sturgeon, and a party which has forgotten how to debate. Some people have been content to go along with this and follow Sturgeon and even Yousaf but it has contributed to the present malaise and set of crises.
The state of commentary whether in Scotland or the UK is a problem in how we do politics. There is an intolerance and illiberalism in much mainstream media with a blurring of the lines between commentary, news and editorialising. The right-wing press – the Express, Mail and Telegraph – have become radicalised since the 2016 Brexit vote, making political discourse more harsh, xenophobic and filled with racist and ‘othering’ tropes.
Post-2014 our debates have become more brittle and dehumanising, and the trans debate has become pivotal significantly due to an inability to find common ground. In the aftermath of Yousaf’s resignation, numerous commentators such as Mandy Rhodes, editor of Holyrood declared the past two First Ministers had resigned due to the Gender Recognition Bill. This is not so on any reading. Sturgeon resigned for two reasons – ‘she had run out of room to manoeuvre on the independence question’ and ‘the police investigation into the SNP’s financial affairs was drawing closer to home’ – in the words of commentator Alex Massie. Such big issues would fell any leader, so why would prominent commentators want to deny it?
The growing chasm between the SNP and Greens was a key factor in the fall of Yousaf. This extended beyond policy differences, such as Yousaf diluting climate change policies, but went to the heart of each party. The SNP, after 17 years in office, have become a party of professional politicians who are characterised by power; the likes of Yousaf and Kate Forbes as MSPs have only known the party in office and think of the world in such terms. The Greens are not an insider party, not shaped by power, and are influenced by a host of social issues and attitudes, including an element of puritanism and self-righteousness: the latter evident in comments last Thursday with Lorna Slater declaring the Greens had kept the barbarians from the door being in office. The ending of the two-party agreement should have surprised no one, only the way it was abruptly ended by Yousaf.
The Politics of Liberation and Telling Truths
Where does this leave us, putting the froth and excitement to one side? Is all that has happened necessarily bad? Can the weakening of the SNP be the first signs of moving in the right direction? Could it be a major positive to break – or at least diminish – the culture of tribalism and blind faith? Could a new age of honesty and debate be possible if people want it? And how do those of us who are not politicians influence any of this?
First, is it possible that the opening and chink of light which emerged at the end of the Sturgeon era could now be nurtured? No doubt some think that an unfair characteristic of the age of Sturgeon. Yet the nine years of her leadership and particularly the period after the 2016 Brexit vote saw her present the illusion of progress towards an indyref which was constantly portrayed as just around the corner – if only people didn’t ask her any inconvenient questions and loyally believed in her. This became so risible in the latter years it became known as ‘the Duke of York’ approach to independence – marching the foot-soldiers up to the top of the hill and then back down again and again.
The end of this era in March 2023 was this set of fairy tales destroyed – something I said at the time – and the chance for liberation from a politics of make-believe, illusions and falsehoods. It was the chance for fresh air and debate to blow down corridors that it had not done for years. Not surprisingly the Yousaf leadership choose not to follow this route but as the continuity candidate to continue with the fantasy politics on independence, only sold less plausibly.
Spelling out what for some would be hard truths would entail stating the obvious. Independence is not on the immediate horizon and will not be gained at the next Westminster or Scottish Parliament elections. The continual focus and belief in independence as just around the corner has been used by the SNP leadership to prevent the hard lifting which needs to be undertaken to completely overhaul independence. That will take time given the lack of work under Sturgeon and Yousaf.
James Mitchell of Edinburgh University has extensively researched the views of SNP members and judges that: ‘The problem is that the members do not want to be told that an independence referendum should be “parked” and that leadership contenders are likely to try and outbid each other in the nationalist stakes.’
Second, leadership matters. One of the paradoxes of the devolution era has been, for all the commentary, the lack of analysis of leadership in its many forms. Recently I wrote a study of First Ministers for Political Quarterly which reviewed the skills, expectations and resources available to those who held the post; it is a mixed record but Scottish politics needs to think about what kind of qualities we want from leaders and politicians.
To put bluntly the years of Salmond and Sturgeon came at a cost. They both represented in different ways a presidential form of leadership. Salmond at his peak had a porous way of working at the centre, bringing people in and being open to challenge and new ideas. Sturgeon blessed with huge political capital after the 2014 indyref sadly decided to waste these by governing in ever decreasing circles which narrowed to a few key advisers at the top of government. This command and control mindset was further disabled by micro-management across government, all to the ultimate detriment of good governance.
Some of this was less evident in the Salmond era as the party gained votes and was on an upward curve heading towards the peak of the mountain of its support – ‘Peak Nat’ 2011-15. This is the world that Sturgeon inherited, a party with broad national appeal, and her main task was to maintain this coalition and not see it break apart – a task very different. It entailed managing the slow descent from the world of ‘Peak Nat’, leading to caution, conservatism and even inertia – all to keep the coalition as broad as possible which ultimately proved impossible. Sturgeon’s dilemma here was similar to New Labour at its peak: seemingly omnipotent but paralysed by fear of breaking up its ‘Big Tent’ coalition feeding ultra-control politics and caution. The point of ‘Peak Nat’ and the coronation of Sturgeon in November 2014 was where it all began to go wrong with the adulation, growing personality cult and deliberate lack of debate.
Humza Yousaf’s endgame saw him try to be who he wasn’t – macho, decisive, even abrasive in firing and humiliating the Greens when a different way of ending the Bute House Agreement was clearly available. He paid the cost of trying too hard to be what he was not, resulting in misjudgement and losing his job. But another factor was the quality of advice he listened to – from Kevin Pringle who has been a feature of SNP leadership circles for 20 years and Stephen Flynn, Westminster group leader, which point to a deeper problem at the heart of the party and the cul-de-sac it is in.
Third, a politics based on tactical adeptness, as the SNP displayed in the years on the up, only takes you so far. Salmond Mark Two 2004-14 was a brilliant operator who remade the SNP into a winning electoral machine. But he did so while also keeping some of the detail fuzzy, so he could make it up as he went along. It is not an accident that the SNP did not offer a detailed plan for independence until 2013-14 – one which was suitable vague about the economic prospectus; and related to this offered an undefined vision of the social democracy it claimed to champion. Eventually the balancing acts involved in such a politics which did not address in clarity the key fundamentals comes at a cost.
Fourth, a Swinney versus Forbes contest looks likely to be on the cards. This is a direct result of the hangover from the Sturgeon era and denying the oxygen of publicity and freedom to senior figures in the party over the course of her leadership. This is what led to the torturous, embarrassing leadership contest of 2023.
Both Swinney and Forbes have qualities. There is a palpable desire in the party for unity and by the party’s ‘big beasts’ for that to be around Swinney. But unity only serves a purpose if it is about addressing some of the fundamentals above: the challenges in restoring party governance, putting competence at the heart of government, and some honesty about independence.
Swinney has the albatross of being called ‘the continuity candidate’ – someone who would continue the legacy of Sturgeon and Yousaf – which is seen by many as a negative when change is required. Kate Forbes is undoubtably the candidate of change, but what kind of change? Paul Hutcheon described the contest as ‘a choice between yesterday’s man and the candidate for the 19th century’ which might seem unfair, but has traction. Forbes is not only a ‘Wee Free’ and a social conservative with all the baggage that entails, she is an economic conservative who has shown adherence to the economic orthodoxies of recent decades which have failed so miserably across the globe.
Fifth, such a paucity of choice in ideas, let alone personnel, raise the issue of the nature of the public sphere in Scotland, political discourse and where new thinking occurs. The SNP were once informed by a wide, generous civic nationalism and self-governing movement of opinion which redefined Scottish politics in the 1980s and 1990s: the likes of Neil MacCormick, Tom Nairn and Stephen Maxwell being examples. That intellectual strand has long exhausted itself generationally; in its place we have a vacuum created by 17 years of SNP dominance and politics as tactics which has sucked in a whole swathe of opinion-formers and thinkers.
Independence of the Scottish Mind
Somehow we have to begin to put ideas, deep thinking and intellectualism back into the politics of self-government and self-determination. This should not be impossible, given the appeal of independence and its generational tilt towards younger people. But it will require conscious support and movement and infrastructure building which the SNP has foresworn in its years in office, ultimately to its own cost.
The SNP cannot go on as it has done. It needs a different approach to how it does politics. The pretence and delusion that things were alright under Sturgeon and Yousaf must be broken for good.
This requires a different approach by the SNP to party, government and independence, but that won’t happen easily. The existing leadership and party structures have become accustomed to running things in a top-down manner. The only way that internal change realistically comes about is by being forced to change by external pressures and the voters showing their dissatisfaction in the 2024 and 2026 elections.
Independence is of course about more than the SNP. It is not as many commentators have claimed ‘dead’ or ‘on life support’. Rather independence support as measured by Ipsos Scotland has been in the ten years since 2014 consistently higher than the 45% of the indyref. That means that work needs to be done on the offer, detail and winning over the Scotland unconvinced who need respect not ridicule.
This requires a politics beyond the SNP and that also means beyond marches – not that there is anything wrong with marches, but they are for people who are already converts. The missing politics post-2014 needs addressing – organisational work beyond party, creating resources which can do serious work, employing researchers and getting down to detail, and doing so in an ecology of more than one imitative.
This is a politics that the SNP under Sturgeon deliberately did not encourage but what it touches upon is a wider cause – independence as a state of mind, an attitude, a living culture, and set of practices.
Independence as a state of mind is about a mindset that is more than politics, it is about culture and a way of being. Central is the unchampioned area in recent times of cultural self-determination which is as important as political self-determination. Indeed, I would argue you cannot have a genuine version of one without the other.
The SNP’s journey into being a governing party and respectability has had major gains: independence mainstreamed, but it has also had costs. One has been that the SNP’s version of power and independence has been narrowly focused on party and politics.
It has done so to present a conventional account of Scotland and independence, but in so doing has abandoned the terrain of cultural politics, self-determination and wider cultural representation. This area addresses some of the most potent emotions of who we are as human beings, the stories we tell ourselves and define ourselves by, and which have the power to change minds.
The next few years will be difficult for the SNP whoever they elect as their leader. The challenges the SNP will face will not necessarily be a bad thing. They offer the opportunity for a different politics, idea of power and vision of Scotland to emerge. But this will not happen by osmosis.
This will require the forces of pro-independence and self-determination to take responsibility and to set up to the task of creating new political spaces and resources and working to make a reality of that independence of the Scottish mind. Not ducking hard choices or thinking, and not paying homage to tribalism, blind faith or party loyalty with the leader providing all the answers.
We can choose a different path that is not defined by fairy tales. We can embrace a politics of liberation and light, take responsibility, reach out to fellow Scots whatever our differences, and act with respect towards each other. This will be scary for some but an era of post-2014 Sturgeonism is clearly over and a new era with new challenges is now upon all of us.
