Can SNP be saved from elimination? His laser focus on independence won’t help | 2024 general election

Opinion

John Swinney has put indyref2 at the center of the party’s manifesto, but with stubborn poverty, Scots have more pressing concerns

Thursday 20 June 2024 15.12 CEST

Will the publication of the SNP manifesto prevent it from losing seats on the 4th of July? Probably not.

But since the party cannot form the next government at Westminster, its manifesto would never be a set of full-cost plans for the whole of Britain. Instead, it is a mix of politics for the Scottish leadership and demands for higher spending from the likely winners at Westminster. It is. confusing – as are all post-devolution Westminster elections – and unlikely to turn up the heat.

So manifestos don’t really cut it in Scotland at general election time. Assigning blame for service delivery failures north of the border is the name of the game. Is it mainly Westminster or Holyrood to blame? The SNP is trading on its record in Scotland and the stark contrast to British norms that has been revealed in every leadership debate.

While the Tories are proposing more benefit cuts and Labor won’t commit, the SNP eased the bedroom tax 10 years ago – few Scots realize it’s still working in the south. The Tories and Labor will keep prescription charges for England – they’ve been free here since 2011. The Scottish Government has resolved all NHS pay claims through negotiation, while the UK Government is still battling junior doctors.

Indeed, many of the big announcements boldly unveiled by Westminster rivals during the various leaders’ debates are already in place in Scotland: council house building resumed when Right to Buy was scrapped in 2016, and personal care senior free was introduced by a Labor Prime Minister in 2002. All this was achieved within the considerable constraints of devolution, almost no borrowing powers and the legal requirement to deliver a balanced budget.

Westminster politics is so righteous, adversarial and timorous that John Swinney doesn’t have to be Che Guevara to sound revolutionary. Indeed, at the launch he described the SNP as a “moderate, centre-left party”, yet he channeled the fulminating fury of a 21st century John Knox at Labour’s refusal to scrap the benefit cap for two children, stating that it is “a simple test. You are in government to help lift children out of poverty. Or are you so morally lost that you’re pushing more children into poverty?”

But there is the problem. Despite a one-off child payment in Scotland – described by Professor Danny Dorling as the biggest single anti-poverty measure in Europe for 40 years – poverty levels have not changed much. Despite a much smaller private sector in the NHS, waiting lists are still long. Despite a large social rental sector, the Holyrood parliament declared a housing emergency last month.

The question for Scottish voters is who to blame. Is it Tory/Labour Westminster or is Holyrood run by the SNP? Can Scottish leader Anas Sarwar convince SNP voters that a Labor government at Westminster will turn the Scottish ship around? Can John Swinney convince SNP voters that the performance problems here stem largely from economic crises caused by Westminster and chronically underfunded public services that Labor does not want to turbo-charge?

Polls suggest a Labor victory in Scotland for the first time in a decade, but that may not prove they are winning the argument. Scottish voters may be so desperate to see the Tories out that they will support the only party that can oust them. But Swinney’s attack on Labour’s embrace of Tory austerity – with SNP House of Commons leader Stephen Flynn joining in – is having an impact, along with the argument that an assured Labor victory in Britain means Scots can vote for instead an effective progressive opposition.

That, of course, begs the question: are the SNP achieving anything worthwhile in a uni-passed-post-constructed parliament where one of the big two wins the most seats by a country mile (with a minority of votes) and doesn’t have to does anyone care?

The SNP is stressing its widely admired stance on Gaza, which helped convince a painfully scared Labor party to support a ceasefire. But that’s a small thing. Some frustrated independence supporters are suggesting SNP MPs should abstain – like Sinn Féin. The SNP jumped on this idea as deftly as it omits a clear position on oil and gas licenses (actually issued by Westminster) and what “losing” the Scottish independence election would mean.

Logically, if John Swinney claims that winning the most seats should allow him to start indyref2 talks with number 10, then losing should mean parking a cause supported by around half the Scottish electorate. This could backfire, although it only reflects Labour’s refusal to consider another poll regardless of the election result.

Now front page, line one of his manifesto (and with the pro-indy Greens and White on his tail) Swinney will not let independence slip away. When launching the manifesto, he dismissed the idea that the cost of living crisis or NHS funding were now more central issues: “Don’t let anyone tell you that independence is separate from people’s everyday concerns. It is fundamental to (solve) them”.

Has the emphasis on independence been successful? Some voters in the all-important ex-Labour west of Scotland are disgusted with an SNP-led Glasgow council for planning to sack teachers over funding cuts from an SNP-led Scottish government. And few SNP contributors will mention the (delayed and over-budget) ferries to the Hebrides. The only thing that hasn’t happened is a collapse of faith in center-left, collectivist, ecological politics. The question is whether Holyrood or Westminster, the SNP or Labour, will deliver them best.

Some pundits say two disappointing years of a disappointing Labor government will help the SNP in the next Holyrood vote in 2026. But whatever the polls and manifestos say, the Scottish general election is still very much within reach.