SNP - Insurgents or Same Old, Same Old

Introduction

There have been momentous political events taking place in Europe, as well as elsewhere, in recent years which have challenged the ruling capitalist hegemony and shaken the system to its roots. Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the SNP in Scotland and Corbyn's Labour Party in Britain are the most important and interesting. All of these movements represent a mass rejection of neoliberal economics and its associated inequality, austerity, job losses, unemployment, service cuts, increased taxes, low wages and unremitting poverty while the rich grow richer. The advances made by these movements were all at the expense of the traditional right-wing social democratic formations in each of their countries but, with the exception of Corbyn's Labour Party, they have all failed to maintain forward momentum in recent electoral campaigns having disappointed their support over the intervening period.

Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, the left has grown both in stature and in strength, so much so that the Party now boasts the largest membership of any European Party, totalling some 650,000 members. Despite the manoeuvres of the right-wing Parliamentary Party and the Party's right-wing apparatchiks, massive gains were recorded in the 2017 general election fought on an unapologetic, anti-austerity, left-wing manifesto to such an extent that Corbyn's Party is now a government in waiting. The gains in Scotland were more modest and support more muted.

SNP “Surge”

In the 2014 “independence" referendum many anti-austerity individuals and organisations campaigned and voted for “independence" and although they lost the vote the SNP gained a membership of 120,000 and the momentum generated by the campaign carried the SNP to a spectacular 2015 general election success, winning 56 seats out of a total of 59. Communist Party members and the majority of left-wingers in the Labour Party and the Trade Unions, determined to fight capital at the location where it is organised, protect the potential for wealth redistribution throughout the British Isles and defend the unity of the British Trade Union and Labour Movement and voted to stay in the United Kingdom. These same forces also promoted the left-wing case for leaving the European Union during the EU referendum in 2016. The SNP, a pro-EU Party, lost substantial swathes of support, mainly to the Tories but also to the Labour Party, in the 2017 general election finishing with 35 seats, having also lost votes and seats, with the exception of Glasgow, in the earlier 2017 Scottish Council Elections.

Dundee

In Dundee, where they had controlled the City Council for 9 years, the SNP was forced into a coalition with an independent who became the Lord Provost. During their tenure the SNP administration continued with the previous Labour administration’s new build plans, including two new schools and a waterfront development, which they claimed as their own, while closing centres for vulnerable adults and special education units, axing bus routes, privatising ground maintenance, ignoring local opinion during consultation exercises (at one meeting, an SNP councillor just got up and walked out), building next to no council houses, jettisoning 1300  local jobs, pretending to impose conditions on contractors over blacklisting and apprenticeships and relinquishing real control of the authority to the council officers.

Holyrood

The political reality at Holyrood, where the SNP has been in power since 2007, has been no better with posturing and sleight of hand being the order of the day. In that time, the nationalist administrations which, initially were “noted” for managerial efficiency are now “noted” for damage limitation exercises. They have been the most centralising governments since the Thatcher UK governments. Police services and Fire and Rescue services have been removed from local government oversight and control and threats are being made to coral education services into 8 regional authorities, with no role whatsoever for the 32 local councils. National “hubcos”, on which contractors are represented, are used to award most public contracts. Quangos are the favourite management tool for nationalists with promises on anti-blacklisting and local job opportunities in the procurement of public contracts cynically broken. When the Peoples’ Assembly Scotland met with Scottish Ministers to discuss the Peoples Manifesto, the delegation were informed that the Scottish Government was already implementing the Assembly’s proposals!! This seems to be the stock-in-trade response from nationalists at both local and national level - “we are already doing that.”

Scotland

In reality what they are doing, is passing on Tory cuts to Local Authorities. Between 2013 and 2017, the Scottish government budget was cut by 1.5% but the nationalists insisted on slashing Council budgets by 4.6%. “Scottish Futures,” the SNP flagship instrument for investing in Scotland’s infrastructure, was initially ruled illegal by the EU Commission because it did not include enough private capital and a separate £10 bn investment deal with Chinese companies was still-born when one signatory withdrew amidst a public outcry.

A real opportunity to return rail services to public ownership was spurned by the SNP when they awarded the ScotRail franchise to “Abellio”, which is owned by the Dutch government! They also used EU law to allow privateers to bid for the island ferry services, with Serco winning the northern routes.

In the decade of SNP government, three Education secretaries have come and gone with Russell, Hyslop and Constance widely regarded as total failures and incumbent Swinney is desperately trying to pick up the pieces. Health secretary Robinson is failing to reach her own targets, Transport secretary Yousaf is the target of irate rail users, Police and Fire secretary Matheson oversees the complete shambles that is Police Scotland and the Housing minister hardly has a council house to his name. The First Minister, Sturgeon has obsessed so much about a second “independence” referendum that her government has not introduced a single piece of notable legislation for more than a year.

The SNP roll call of failure over the past 10 years includes:-  

Health  3,000 nurse vacancies, Hospitals & Wards shut, 6,000 beds gone, all category waiting target fails, U-turn on junior doctors hours, 30% student nurses cut, Glasgow shortest UK life expectancy.            

Education  4,000 less teachers, 1,000 less pupil support staff, class sizes up, 40% student teachers cut, record attainment falls in maths-reading-science at P4 P7 S2, £40 m cut student bursaries, student debt doubled, 150,000 college places cut, FE college mergers.       

Housing  50% stock sub-standard, 150,000 on council waiting lists, record homelessness. 

Transport  Bus/Rail fares hiked, bus routes axed.                                                                 

Policing  67 counters closed, Glasgow-Aberdeen-Dundee crime hotspots.                       

Poverty  420,000 kids up 150,000, 400,00 earn less than living wage, 100,000 on zero hours.

Employment  150,000 public sector jobs lost, 65,000 North Sea jobs lost, 80% new jobs below living wage.                                                                                                                 

Agriculture  Farmers CAP payments delayed 2 years running.                                         

Inequality 430 individuals own half the land, 100 richest people worth £25 bn, 4 families control £6 bn - same as bottom 20% of population.                                                             

Finance  North Sea revenues - 2011/12 £10.9 bn, 2016/17 £312 m. An “independent” Scotland would find itself with a budget shortfall of more than £15 billion which represents 9.5% of its GDP and falls foul of the EU fiscal compact which dictates a shortfall of less than 0.5%. The difference would have to be made up by increasing taxes, or cutting services even further. Leaving the EU would provide greater room for manoeuvre.

Rise and Fall

The early leadership of the SNP were interned during WWll because of their openly fascist views and support of the German Nazi Party. Apart from 2 isolated by-election victories in 1967 and 1973, the SNP arrived at the general election of October 1974, winning 11 seats. Having helped the Tories bring down the Labour government in 1979, they lost 9 seats, hanging on in Dundee East and the Western Isles. The leader, Gordon Wilson MP (Dundee East) became the target of a leadership challenge from the 79 Group, led by Alex Salmond. The party then decided to stand in local elections and won the Hilltown ward in Dundee. During the Thatcher years angry Tory voters deserted their political home and turned, in numbers to the SNP. This was the period when the SNP began to win control of local authorities, beginning with Angus Council. Salmond became party leader and he and his supporters styled themselves as social democrats. The party developed slowly up to the 1997 election which resulted in victory for the Blair Labour Party but in subsequent elections, spurred on by disillusionment with Labour, the SNP developed rapidly at both local and national level. They purported to be an anti-Tory organisation but the Salmond leadership was beginning to target the Labour Party. Some of their activists made no secret of the fact that they wished to destroy and replace the Labour Party as the majority party in Scotland and disgusted Labour voters moved to the nationalists in even greater numbers. The campaign for a devolved assembly/parliament in Scotland took root and grew in opposition to the Tory governments. This mainly trade union and labour movement initiative was boycotted by the nationalists who pursued the purist “independence” line. By the time of the formation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, the SNP was all for devolution, recognising it as a vehicle to deliver “independence”. This exploitation of the parliament together with anti-Tory rhetoric and a superficial social democratic veneer delivered spectacularly for the SNP up to, during and after the “independence” referendum. Following his failure to win the referendum, Salmond resigned and the leadership passed to Sturgeon. The SNP at base is a petty bourgeois nationalist organisation with no real substance, which aims to represent all Scots, including large employers, medium to small employers, the middle strata and employees. It attempts to be all things to all men/women and talks about Scotland without defining which Scotland it means. SNP campaigners are renowned for changing their message and policy depending on whom they are speaking to. The social democratic posture further confuses some working people but the majority among the Scottish proletariat continue to support the Labour Party, even more so since Jeremy Corbyn became its leader.                                                                                                         

Salmond is recognised as a competent bourgeois politician who, as the Chinese say, talks out of both sides of his mouth and his opportunism and suspect manoeuvring in smooching the likes of Trump, Murdoch and Soutar and his oleaginous, easy style hides a basically capitalist, pro-boss politician who ruthlessly pursues their interests. Salmond and his party pay lip-service to the working class movement and its interests, with the occasional nod in its direction. He has spent at least 38 years spinning the people of Scotland a tale about a magical heaven in an “independent” Scotland. His much vaunted “Scotland’s Future” which was delivered to every house during the “independence” referendum campaign was revealed to be a puffed-up, but empty vision of a country tied to the neoliberal European Union. There is a nasty anti-English streak running through the SNP and its support, who would rather operate jointly with the people of other nations than with the English worker, despite England being Scotland’s biggest trading partner.                                                          The SNP cohort in the Westminster Parliament act and talk left but their counter-parts in the Holyrood Parliament act and talk right. No-one can be all things to all men/women, a choice has to be made as to which opposing social and economic forces should be supported and policies developed which meet the needs of those forces. The SNP’s glaring weakness is its lack of any tangible, organic link with the organised trade union and labour movement.                                                                      For far too long the SNP has mined the vein of grievance in Scotland with no material benefit to Scottish working people. Its focus is on identity, which can be extremely divisive, rather than on the more positive and unifying concept of class and that is why it can never be a social democratic organisation, why it will never truly represent the interests of the Scottish working class and why its star is now on the wane. To all intents and purposes the “independence” train has hit the buffers and run out of fuel and over time the Scottish people will desert the SNP, which having failed to deliver for them, will increasingly become irrelevant along with so-called “independence”.