Scotland’s Strange Election and the Barbarians at the Gate

The seventh Scottish Parliament election campaign since 1999 has not exactly set the heather afire; missing energy, purpose, connection and relevance to voters.

‘The story of the election is that there is no story’ observed election guru John Curtice, but underneath this more is at work. In many respects this is a standstill election – a holding operation for the SNP incumbents against a weak and divided set of opponents – a contest waiting for something to happen here or elsewhere that will define and give it meaning.

The SNP will be returned with the largest vote share and number of seats but with a much-reduced vote compared to 2021. Potentially they will win with a constituency vote which was last lower in 2007, when they narrowly won and entered office for the first time – and their lowest regional list vote in the history of devolution.

‘No one realistically thinks a 34% constituency vote is a mandate for an independence referendum’ noted one pro-independence commentator. What it would amount to is a victory akin to the ‘loveless landslide’ which Starmer won in 2024 on the same share of the vote and the same lack of enthusiasm: all of which stored up problems to come for a Labour Party unsure of what to do with its victory.

We need to talk about Reform

The big takeaway of the election is the rise of Reform aided by the collapse of the Tories and retreat of Labour burdened by the setbacks and scandals of Starmer. There are a set of paradoxes about the march of Farage north of the border. Firstly, Farage has never been popular in Scotland and his toxic ratings have not improved. Secondly, Malcolm Offord, Farage’s choice to lead Reform in Scotland with no democratic mandate, has fought an election filled with missteps underlining his lack of political experience and instinct.

Reform have been able to counter these negatives to an extent such is the weakness of their opponents. Much media commentary has focused upon whether Reform or Labour will finish in second place in votes and seats. This misses a bigger point. ‘Whether Reform form the biggest opposition party or not, they’ll be treated as such either way. Scottish politics will revolve around “culture war” issues more than independence (which isn’t happening soon) and Swinney will get on with making cuts’ observes academic Ewan Gibbs.

The Scottish Parliament does need disruptive politics – challenging the cosy consensus, managerialism and smug insiderism of Holyrood. But Reform will bring a performative politics of posturing, anti-virtue signalling, dehumanising and stigmatising minorities, normalising racism and endlessly searching for new enemies and dividing lines. None of which will help a politics which delivers change and supports those who need it most.

Labour and Tory Troubles 

If Reform are on the march what of the other parties? In Scotland, Wales and England Labour have retreated to a point where no previous heartland is safe. Wales and London are under threat with the former set to go the way of Scotland. Anas Sarwar failed to take the opportunity post-2024 of Labour’s victory and SNP defeat to put forward a new rationale for Labour and critique of the Nationalist record. Then again, Labour have failed as an opposition force in Scotland for 20 years, hardly making much of an impact in the Scottish Parliament over their period in the wilderness and are close to becoming an irrelevant political force unless something drastic changes.

Similarly, the Scottish Tories have struggled over most of the 26 years of devolution to find a role and voice. The only exception was the much-hyped Ruth Davidson leadership where Tory fortunes briefly rose. But this brief hiatus to Tory discomfort and decline was all about Ruth and nothing to do with remaking and detoxifying the Tory brand. The Tory vote in 2024 was the lowest in the party’s history in Scotland (12.7%) and they could go even lower this week.

The Inner World of the SNP

This brings us to the SNP. The interregnum of the John Swinney leadership has shown little of a new offer or vision, but he has as many have said ‘steadied the ship’. Yet is this achievement really enough of a rationale to give meaning to a fifth successive SNP victory, produce a popular mandate and governing agenda?

The SNP have not had an easy last few years. In fact, they have experienced all sorts of discomforts and problems from how the party was governed in the Sturgeon era, the centralising authoritarianism of Sturgeon, and governmental over-reach alongside policy exhaustion and failure. All of this has been well documented and debated but a deeper malaise less commented upon is a major factor.

A large section of SNP members, voters and supporters have not adapted or accepted the mixed picture of above and how to counter it. Instead, they have displayed a deep-seated cognitive dissonance manifested by a seismic gap between reality and the idealised, even fantasy version of the SNP which many seem to try to hold onto despite everything.

This disconnection has echoes of Scottish Labour’s inner world when it was the political establishment. Then too many party members denied to themselves even in private the reality of Labour in office – particularly in local government. I found this really acute many years ago when I moved from Dundee to Glasgow and found Labour activists who just did not want to recognise or deal with the machinations and machine politics of what Glasgow City Council was up to in their name. Instead, they projected an often vague, idealised and ultimately fantasy of Labour to keep motivated which had no connection to what Labour were doing in the city.

This Labour denialism had a rationale of keeping activists energised, but what it also did was stop them addressing the industrial-scale cronyism, corruption and contempt which went hand in hand with too much of Labour in power locally. Eventually voters had enough and called time on Labour, and their cognitive dissonance played a part in this. The SNP’s version of this phenomenon has had a disabling effect on the politics of the Nationalists and will not end well – as reality will eventually intrude and triumph over fantasy politics. The only question here is how and when?

This inner world of the SNP and similarities with Scottish Labour can be found across the wider political environment. The SNP’s long story of incumbency and government has seen the party morph in how it does politics, governs and accrues power. It has seen it adopt a version of politics with much in common with Scottish Labour when it was a formidable force and ran Scotland. Many SNP supporters will baulk at this comparison which only strengthens the convergence. One long-term observer of the SNP and sympathetic to the party puts it:

In a very short period of time the SNP has taken on the worst elements of Scottish Labour.  Part of a broader development in the hollowing out of parties but gone are the days of robust debates at party conferences.  The same arrogance we saw in sections of Scottish Labour are all too obvious in the SNP.  

The Shape of Scottish Politics to Come

With the above factors, how will things play out in and after the election? First, pro-independence attempts to game the Holyrood electoral system will come to nothing. The various enterprises such as the Alliance to Liberate Scotland will poll a risible vote: a safe house for Alba survivors and various other delusionists. Second, there could easily be a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament but this will carry little weight for now. The reason for this is not Westminster intransigence but the absence of any independence plan, progress or strategic thinking since 2014.

Third, the ruse of independence and a possible indyref by Swinney must be seen in the light of the above. Swinney is using independence to limit the number of questions asked about the SNP’s record in office. And at the same time utilising it as a vote maximalising strategy to gather independence supporters back into the SNP fold from which many have strayed. It is Sturgeon’s ‘Duke of York’ approach to independence as she frequently invoked but with an increasingly diminishing effect without a politics of substance and public demand for a vote.

Fourth, if an SNP overall majority appears unlikely this will produce a PR Parliament in which all parties are minorities and have influence and have to work with each other in at least some respect. This is the reality of the charge and counter-charge between SNP and Labour about whether the latter would be prepared to do a deal with Reform.

Reform will have influence in the next Scottish Parliament. With a sizeable Holyrood group of MSPs they will have representation on the Parliament Corporate Body and will be entitled to several chairs of parliamentary committees. In a PR Parliament with no party having a majority they will have even more influence and profile.

Fifth, the potential role of the Scottish Greens could be pivotal. They could provide a pro-independence majority in the Parliament. The party has been an ever-present force in the Parliament but it has so far failed to gain from the Zack Polanski effect which has seen the English and Welsh party galvinise the political scene. Despite this a host of mainstream media commentators continue to use the most hackneyed cliches and stereotypes about the Scottish Greens showing their indignation and reactionary nature: thus, vitriol regularly flies about calling them ‘extreme’, ‘cranky’, ‘totalitarian’ and ‘demented’ – sometimes in the same article.

Finally, in this election campaign and beyond, parts of Scotland’s media have taken a contemptuous attitude towards any politics north of the border which does not correspond to the increasingly shrill, intolerant illiberal authoritarianism which defines Westminster and its related media punditry. This newly charged partisan politics of an emboldened hard and ultra-right, scornful and dismissive of Scottish devolution, autonomy and our own distinctive politics, would seem set to grow and Scottish politics, politicians and civil society have to find a better response than so far.

Mainstream political and media discourse has a default position of blaming social media for the abrasive, divisive nature of much of public life. Yet the corrosive, hyper-partisan nature of much of the legacy media, print and broadcast, has played a role in this, fuelled by anti-Corbynism, Brexit, ‘culture wars’ and the ongoing wars in the Middle East. It is not just the overt Trumpian disinformation of GB News which has gone unchecked by the regulators. The Daily Mail and Telegraph are increasingly siren organs of the ideologically intolerant right. But so too are once liberal platforms with The Times showcasing Melanie Phillips and Trevor Philips (who also presents a show on Sky News): the former shamelessly articulating Israeli genocide denialism and the latter with a track record of denying the existence of Islamophobia while articulating it.

If this were not enough traditional broadcasters such as the BBC have long lost the confidence to stand up and ask difficult questions of those in power. Instead, fearful of the critique of a vengeful right, worried about the future of the licence fee, and losing audience in a fragmented, multi-platform environment, it has yet under successive Director Generals, to find a clear purpose. The same can be said for BBC Scotland with Radio Scotland’s relegation of arts and culture in the country as it dumbs down and embraces generic programming [Scottish musicians in open revolt against BBC Scotland – Bella Caledonia].

Underpinning this election campaign and its strange mood is a widespread sense of unease, dissatisfaction, anger and worry. There are domestic concerns and more general geopolitical and international challenges. There is a prevalent sense of angst and anxiety about mainstream politics and politicians across the board whatever their views, a frustration and fury about the status quo, and a want to try something radically different – hence the rise of Reform and continued strengthening of the Greens albeit nothing like down south.

Safety-First Politics whoever it comes from won’t hack it

‘Steady as she goes’ politics will not suffice in Scotland just as they don’t anywhere across the Western world. That goes for the SNP and John Swinney as it did for British Labour and Keir Starmer. This is an election marking time, which should have been about change but is instead waiting for other things to happen such as the ongoing crises of British government and the British state to boil over and become more acute. Such a passive politics – of Scotland as an onlooker and observer in its own fate – has only encouraged the disillusion and disconnection which is all too prevalent in this contest.

Scotland deserves and needs a politics better than that currently on offer. To rise to the numerous challenges the country faces economically, socially and in public services. To offer a vision of self-government and independence which dares to think big while also connecting reality and inconvenient truths to the idealism we all want to see in public life: a politics with responsibility, honesty and ambition at its heart. 

Unless mainstream politics changes how it does things the current rising tide of Reform, racism, xenophobia and scapegoating and blaming minorities will become turbo-charged. Alongside this an intolerant and bitter English nationalism will continue to have a corrosive, damaging effect across the UK and spill over the border. Maybe the dominant forces of Scottish politics – an inclusive but self-congratulatory civic nationalism and vague and diluted social democracy – are inadequate to meet such a challenge.

Scotland’s centrist politics are not up to delivering on the noble aims at the heart of the best version of devolution or independence. They are not up to taking on and defeating the emboldened, radicalised right-wing. We need to be honest about this, recognise the storm clouds in the near-distance, and start organising and nurturing a different kind of politics to that practiced by Holyrood politicians over the past 26 years.

This is easier said than done but politics need to change course dramatically and recognise the high stakes in Scotland, UK and Western world. Mainstream, safety-first politics are bust; the forces of reaction, populism and bigotry are emboldened; public discourse has become more contested and a cacophony of noise and rancour. 

Scottish radicals, progressives and democrats need to rise to the occasion, not cling to our comfort and echo chambers, and recognise that in these turbulent times of climate catastrophe, neverending wars and the rise of the extreme right, there are no easy answers. But change starts with recognising this, that safety-first politics will not suffice, and we have to create a new kind of politics of belonging and coming together to defeat the barbarians gathering at the gate.