Trying to understand the SNP: Maybe a bit Tartan, definitely not Tories

In as much as it achieved anything, my medium piece ‘The N Word’ tried to reject the idea that Labour voters, in Labour Heartlands, abandoned Labour values for conventional ethnic nationalism. It also finished with this sentence: “We cannot win in Scotland, unless we understand Scotland.” My final statement actually exposed the stark limitations of my previous blog, because the SNP didn’t just win in Scottish Labour heartlands. It won in the North East, the Highlands, the South of Scotland, and it was actually within thousands of votes of turning the entire electoral map an SNP shade of yellow. The SNP didn’t just attract urban voters in central Scotland, it retained its voters in its traditional heartland in the North East. It has assembled an electoral map that is without precedence in modern Scottish political history. I appreciate the arrogance and presumptuous that will underline this piece, but to understand Scotland and Scottish Labour’s next steps, I think an effort to understand the SNP and its success is necessary.

John Swinney’s tenure

When I speak to people inside what might be cringingly called the ‘Holyrood bubble,’ a person who attracts nearly universal praise is John Swinney. He has emerged as a figure of comforting reliability, the sure hand at the tiller of Scotland’s finances during his tenure as Cabinet Secretary. People from other parties praise his decency, warmth and helpfulness when approached with issues. He feels like a brilliant Deputy First Minister, and general number two, as well. For both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, he is the Peter Taylor, to their more effusive Brian Clough. The CFO and COO, allowing them to head off and function as Chief Executive.

It wasn’t always like this. Reading David Torrance’s excellent biography of Nicola Sturgeon was a reminder of just how tumultuous his time as leader of the Scottish National Party was. His tenure was beset by internal infighting, party reform and in terms of communication, when he resigned he said that Scottish voters: “still do not have a clear understanding of what the SNP stands for, over and above an independent Scotland.”

I think this it is worth looking back at this time for two reasons. Firstly, I won’t pretend to be an expert on his internal reforms, but many SNP types that I speak to are quick to point out just how important these were. Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have taken the SNP to new heights, but without the foundations laid by John Swinney, this would not have been possible. Secondly, it has become easy to think of the SNP’s rise as an inexorable and inevitable tide of political history. This isn’t true, the fortunes of the party changed for the better, because the SNP changed, both structurally and culturally. Scottish Labour wouldn’t have been wiped out without the referendum, but there wouldn’t have been a referendum if the SNP hadn’t won a majority in 2011. They won a majority in 2011, after winning a narrow victory in 2007. Just over ten years ago, all of this would have been unthinkable.

How did the SNP win in 2011?

One of the lesser known names in the rise of the SNP is Claire Howell. Sometimes snootily dismissed, if acknowledged at all, Howell was the person who encouraged the SNP to think that an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament was actually possible, and that one of the ways to do this was to embrace positive campaigning techniques. And they did. The manifesto was positive. The candidates were positive. At the figurehead of their offer was a charismatic and forceful communicator (albeit a divisive one) surrounded by a few other prominent figures, particularly Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney. Mr Salmond actively seemed to polish some of his rougher edges, but retained the ebullience and energy that made him such an effective campaigner. Their opponents dismissed this as ‘style over substance,’ or a focus on personalities over policies. This is what political parties with struggling leaders always do. At the time, it felt like voting SNP was something voters could do to make themselves feel optimistic, about themselves, about Scotland and the future.

This was not to say that they didn’t have a policy offer. Combined with existing commitments from their first term, they had a suite of policies that voters across the centre of the political spectrum could find attractive. Left leaning voters could vote for ‘free’ University tuition and protected NHS funding. Right leaning voters might have found the small business bonus or Council Tax Freeze attractive. As policy platforms go, I think this it was essentially social-democratic. But it was social democracy that was pro-business, restrained on tax, and capable of attracting an endorsement from The Scotsman. Or to put it another way, it was to a certain extent, an example of political triangulation, not directly equivalent to, but somewhat comparable to the parties of Keating, Clinton, Schroder and some other bloke whose name I forget. A party of the centre left, but absolutely of the centre.

One final aspect struck me at the time, and I coined it at the time ‘changecumbency.’ (Shockingly, this elegant phrase never caught on.) In American politics, a candidate generally runs as one of two things. The person might run as the incumbent and so will run on their record. Conversely, the candidate might run against the incumbent, and so will establish them as the change candidate. Even though Primary politics in the US have a different dynamic, one candidate, for example Barack Obama firmly established himself as the ‘change’ candidate. Since the SNP have come to Government , they have managed to run as both. They’ve run on their record, on popular policies such as free prescriptions etc, but as a party of independence, they always been able to talk about ‘change.’ Sometimes this hasn’t always been explicit, but expressed in style and tone. Even in the last General Election, the SNP seemed to be running against the British political class, and promising to ‘change’ Westminster. This seems to be a distinct political advantage that no other party shares or can share.

Do the SNP have a progressive record or not?

Representations have been made that the SNP are not as much of a left wing party as they claim to be. SNP representatives have been asked to name a genuinely redistributive policy and they struggle to do so. I have a couple of responses to this. Firstly, (and Scottish Labour pals will love this,) I think they have a point when it comes to powers. Many of the policy mechanisms that can most directly redistribute wealth, including taxation, social welfare and monetary policy, are either wholly or partially unavailable to the Scottish Parliament. (The SNP actually did propose to put up the Scottish Variable Rate, and I don’t remember Scotland’s penny being particularly successful politically.) On many of the SNP’s flagship Holyrood pledges, particularly those universal ones, there is a serious debate about the practical impact these policies have had. For example, those interested in Scottish Higher Education might want to look at some of Lucy Hunter Blackburn’s research on Scottish student support.

A post referendum shift?

To some extent, the referendum and aftermath has challenged my perception of the SNP. The Common Weal movement, Radical Independence, National Collective, none of this could be described as centrist and corporatist. (I appreciate the SNP and the independence movement are not interchangeable.) The move to Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership from Alex Salmond has ushered in a change in both rhetoric and substance. The SNP’s commitment to cut Corporation Tax has been dropped, and I don’t think Alex Salmond would have been as comfortable as an anti-austerity cheerleader, as Nicola Strugeon was.

The austerity issue is an interesting one. Putting aside the full consequences of the complicated Full Fiscal Autonomy issue, the SNP were arguably not as anti-austerity as they might have appeared. The SNP still proposed debt and deficit reduction, it was just slower than what was advocated by others. The major difference was a rhetorical one, and in terms of messaging, I think Scottish Labour were hamstrung by UK Labour’s lack of clarity on this issue. From ‘too far too fast’ to Chukka Ummuna slapping down Jim Murphy on live TV.

The other major differentiator between the SNP and Scottish Labour is on Trident. I don’t wish to belittle the issue, but Trident renewal is not a litmus test to determine if a person or party is left wing or not. Conservatives can be unconvinced by its necessity as part of a wider defence strategy, and those on the left can consider it a necessary evil in a dangerous evil. I’m also not convinced about how fully a non-nuclear position can be reconciled with NATO membership, but ho hum.

The SNP and Scottish Labour manifestos in the last General Election were not fundamentally different. The advantage for the SNP wasn’t the content of the message, it was the tone, and the quality of the messengers. If voters like and trust the SNP, and dislike and distrust the UK political establishment, why wouldn’t they vote for a stronger Scotland at Westminster? Simple, succinct and persuasive. It was very easy for lots voters to complete the answer, ‘I am voting for the SNP because…’

There are challenges ahead for the SNP. The party has over 100,000 members, the majority of these having joined since the referendum. Will the SNP leadership feel pressured to utilise the new tax and spending powers delivered by Smith, in a more radical fashion than they would feel comfortable with? Could the Scottish Greens, or even a new Radical Indy/Common Weal party try to outflank the SNP on the independence supporting left? Will they be able to resist internal pressure to call a second referendum earlier than is politically expedient? Will it be able to keep together a coalition of voters from different social, geographical and cultural backgrounds? With an expanded set of powers at its disposal, we might well get a more definitive answer on the nature of the SNP’s social democracy.

The momentum of the independence referendum is likely to begin to dissipate. I don’t think the savviest of SNP strategists could have predicted the aftermath of the referendum going so well. This is not to say they do deserve credit, but even the most talented sailing crew, doesn’t pretend they control the tailwind. During the election, the First Minister was photographed crossing a balancing beam. As visuals go, it neatly summarised the balancing act the First Minister now has in holding together its diverse coalition of voters. Still, as problems in politics go, it is a nice one to have.

Why did I write this?

I have finished this note during a grim weekend for Scottish Labour. The irony of talking about the SNP at such a time is not lost on me. Nevertheless, I wrote this because it sets the scene for some thoughts I want to share about Scottish Labour and its future in another post. I’m not sure that those of us in the party can really understand its fall, unless we make an attempt to try and understand the rise of the SNP. I will concede that my own biases and lack of knowledge will make this a flawed exercise, but an imperfect attempt at understanding the SNP is better than none at all.

Thinking through some of these issues, has reinforced my own belief that many of our problems are not so much a result of our policy platforms or party structures, but a failure in our political culture.

I believe that the enmity expressed towards the SNP from some parts of Scottish Labour is destroying the party. The bitterness is quite so poisonous, become it stems from what Freud called the ‘narcissism of small differences.’ Underneath it all we don’t hate the SNP because of how they are different, we hate them because of how they are the same.

Sometimes in the Labour movement, we talk about social justice, equality, compassion as examples of our values. These are certainly the values of the Labour movement, but they are not necessarily ‘Labour values.’ We don’t own them. They are universal values and ideas that can be held dear by people across the political spectrum. Yet sometimes we react with a sense of misplaced spite, when someone talks about these things, like an angry toddler who doesn’t like having their toys borrowed. Our response to defeat hasn’t just been bitter, it has been puerile.

The SNP aren’t Tartan Tories. It is an intellectually lazy caricature, that so many in Scottish Labour use to feel better and morally superior. It is also immensely counter-productive. Even if it was true, which it isn’t, voters don’t react well to being told that they have been duped and have voted for a set of values they openly reject.

But you know what, Scottish Labour aren’t Red Tories either. The hostile tribalism that burdens Scottish Labour is often reciprocated by some in the SNP and wider independence movement. None of this is healthy or fair. Get past Trident, get past the ‘Anti Austerity’ rhetoric, and is the SNP really the party of the radical left that some SNP members and supporters think it is? Maybe I am wrong, but maybe self-declared socialist members of a party that uses the label social democratic, should pause before accusing others of selling out on their socialism.