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This anti-separatist
prays for a big
SNP win
Tom Gallagher
At a time when Middle Eastern countries once locked in dictatorship are edging towards some kind of political pluralism, almost unnoticed the opposition in Scotland has wound down its activity to a minimum. Moreover Scotland has acquired a kind of redeemer who thinks it is a winning formula to inform voters that he plans to run the country for three terms at least. The opponents of this strongman, instead of mocking his conceit, have gone through the motions of fighting an election campaign in the most desultory manner.
Labour has engaged in an auction with the SNP to see who can offer most material concessions to the electorate when the piggy bank is virtually empty. The Tories have fought a bland campaign, masking inner tensions by keeping the limelight on a matronly leader who may be indomitable in style but is completely empty of any substance that can encourage Scots to take another look at her party. The Liberal Democrats have woken up too late to the folly of making a pact with their main historical opponent. Their leader, Tavish Scott, and what is likely to be a much-reduced band of MSPs, assumed that the good burghers of Scotland would see the Con-Lib pact as just a piece of Westminster theatre that they shouldn’t be overly concerned with.
The Assad clan in Syria and the dynasties in the Arabian peninsula that are hanging on grimly to power might lighten up if they allowed their gaze to alight on Scotland. There, the opposition is allowed to organise and speak out but it is completely ineffectual. A ruling party to which an ungrateful citizenry in 2007 only gave a one-seat advantage over its main rival, has enjoyed a charmed life. Attached to a quasi-mystical nationalism, it has been allowed by its opponents to campaign to promote its ideology rather than to be tested on how well it can govern the country. An obliging opposition has allowed no major acts to be passed. But nor has it dared to drive the nationalists from office by using its parliamentary superiority to declare a vote of no confidence.
If truth be told, neither the government nor its opponents have any attractive solutions for this cold, northern land, shorn of most of its industry, plagued by ill-health and, in some parts, prone to violent feuding especially at weekends. Politics has increasingly revolved around personality which has given the nationalists a near-invincible position. For the first time in eight decades, leading them is someone who looks and sounds like a born leader. Inwardly, he is more a cowardly lion rather than the Braveheart adored by his most ardent followers who congregate not outside his palace but on internet websites in the hours after the first editions of newspapers appear. But despite his commanding presence, Scotland’s leader is more like Hamlet than Hannibal.
He has continued most of the policies associated with his predecessors, at least the ones that reinforce the power of the state. He has shown a touching fascination with extracting uncertain quantities of energy from water and wind in preference to the more abundant if undeniably riskier nuclear alternative. He devoted much of his time in office to preparing for a referendum meant to achieve independence only to scrap the plan at the last minute. He is vague about his plans for Scotland in the event of independence being realised.
I think Alex Salmond now deserves the chance to rule on his own account. It will mean that he has to begin the reforms and improvements without which it is hard to envisage independence working well for Scotland.
In the present, he shrinks from modernising the country and confronting its social ills and under-performing economy. He prefers to tackle issues which are within his comfort zone and chime with his rebellious personality. This means that he cannot abandon the temptation for viewing England and the English in adversarial terms when a more far-seeing leader would be offering a very real service to his nation if he drained the poisonous stream of Anglophobia that still flows through much of Scottish life.
His very real but narrowly-defined personal qualities are what have brought an everyday political force like the SNP this far. Naturally, his followers have shown their appreciation for his talents by sidelining the party and it is not ‘Vote SNP’ but ‘Re-Elect Alex Salmond as first minister’ which is what will stand out for voters when they inspect their ballot papers on 5 May.
Edgy Middle Eastern army officers or devotees of single party control might find that their ingrained reservations about the messy and unpredictable nature of multi-party democracy might recede if they follow the climax to Scotland’s elections. There most voters have been swept along by a traditional message enunciated by a patriarchal figure who combines trustworthiness with an easy sense of authority. The people are largely unconcerned about the record in office of the first minister or his party. Many know that the SNP is unlikely to keep all or most of its electoral promises.
The party appears to be solid and trustworthy compared to an insipid collection of rivals. Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat between them appear to be looking over their shoulders to London rather than devising policies that engage with Scotland’s problems. They are unable to move away from the SNP’s own agenda of constitutional change when there is a range of initiatives that could empower Scots without another devolution bill ever being introduced at Holyrood. Often the opposition leaders seem unprepared and even unenthusiastic about taking charge of the country. An insolent and supremely self-confident leader has eroded their capacity to fight back.
Faced with such an uninspiring alternative leadership, much of the press, both at the popular and serious ends of the Scottish market, has either come out for the SNP or has barely gone through the motions of opposing Alex Salmond. No longer does the SNP view the media as such a formidable opponent standing in the way of its path to power. Indeed, a surprising portion of the strategy designed to achieve domination has concerned taking care of the media.
A run of polls has shown the SNP breaking away from its opponents. In terms of campaigning, a leader-dominated party has put in a highly effective performance. I think Alex Salmond now deserves the chance to rule on his own account. It will mean that he has to begin the reforms and improvements without which it is hard to envisage independence working well for Scotland. There will be no convenient alibis such as an opposition with the power of veto.
The dire state of the Scottish opposition might inspire hope in bogus Middle Eastern democrats that they can contain their opponents but to me, still unconvinced by independence especially the laughable version wedding Scotland to the anti-nationalist European Union, the unionist parties are the main source of danger. Their complacent and low-grade approach to confronting an over-rated Alex Salmond and the personality cult that has grown up around him, has flung most Scots into the arms of a populist force. I hope that they will recoil from going all the way towards independence once they see the limitations of the SNP as a driver of change. But another four years of opposition to the SNP of such a disastrous quality will surely make what the SNP insist upon calling independence unstoppable.
Tom Gallagher’s book ‘The Illusion of Freedom: Scotland Under Nationalism’ was published by Hurst and Co in 2009 and an expanded North American edition is due to be published shortly by Columbia University Press
