Euan McColm: SNP is repeating Labour party's mistakes

Nationalists are starting to lose sight of the reasons they were put into power in the first place, says Euan McColm

By The Newsroom Wednesday, 21st June 2017, 8:14 am Updated Tuesday, 12th September 2017, 11:39 am

Like Tony Blair in Labours 1997 landslide, the SNP came to power after a campaign of optimism and positivity. Picture: Getty Images

The SNP’s relentless vilification of former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair always concealed a secret admiration for his political achievements. They may have denounced Mr Blair as a charlatan but savvy nationalists studied his New Labour playbook for tips.

When the SNP won the 2007 Holyrood election, it did so after a campaign of optimism and positivity that echoed Mr Blair’s 1997 romp to victory. The nationalists made an audacious leap into the centre ground of Scottish politics by appealing to the sort of small ‘c’ conservative voters who’d previously trusted Labour to govern.

Sign up to our daily newsletter The i newsletter cut through the noise Sign up Thanks for signing up! Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting...

The SNP did not win in 2007 by playing the parts of swaggering Bravehearts and nor did they do it by playing the tatty old grievance cards that made the party look such a miserable proposition. Instead, under Alex Salmond, the SNP told a positive story about Scotland and successfully reassured unionist Scots that a vote for them was not a vote for independence but for stable and competent government.

Just as Tony Blair had successfully overturned the Labour Party’s reputation for economic incompetence, so Alex Salmond destroyed the perception of the SNP as constitutionally obsessed zealots.

As First Minister Nicola Sturgeon continues to “reflect upon” the reason her party lost 21 seats and several hundred thousand votes in the general election, another comparison between the SNP and New Labour emerges. The nationalists have reached the part of the story where Labour forgot what it had done to attract voters in the first place and they are doing the same thing.

When Mr Blair left office to be replaced by Gordon Brown in 2007, the Labour Party did all it could do to ditch the “new” bit. This was a return to traditional Labour values went the spin.

In the end, the Labour Party was positively unable to bring itself to tell voters any kind of positive story about its record. Labour became this weird self-flaggelating organism. And if I know one thing about politics, it’s that weird self-flaggelating organisms don’t poll well.

Labour forgot that voters responded to a positive agenda that tickled their “enlightened self-interest”; the SNP has forgotten that voters responded to a promise that a vote for a nationalist government was not a vote for a referendum. Or for a lot of referendums, for that matter.

On the morning after the general election, Deputy First Minister John Swinney said that he believed the referendum question had played its part in the result. I was not alone, surely, in reading this as the launch of a flare signalling the imminent withdrawal of indyref 2 from the agenda.

Instead, Ms Sturgeon has drawn out this period of reflection to a pointless and damaging degree.

Key SNP strategists privately concede that a second independence referendum is not going to happen, as the First Minister once promised, by early in 2019. It is, they mournfully admit, a dead issue for foreseeable future.

The UK Government will have no qualms about blocking a second referendum; although this will elicit screeches of fury among SNP supporters, they will be confident that they are acting in accordance with the wishes of a majority of Scots.

Yet Ms Sturgeon clings on to the prospect of a referendum she cannot deliver at a time when the issue of the constitution is costing her votes. The First Minister’s ship is holed below the waterline but still she sails on.

Not every member of the crew is confident of this course of action. Some SNP politicians believe the First Minister should turn back, now. If the issue of the proposed second referendum has cost the party 21 MPs then it’s time for a rethink, they say.

Ms Sturgeon tweeted that she would not be dictated to by demands for quick headlines when it came to the referendum question. This uncharacteristically tetchy interjection missed the point that it is not the media pressing the First Minister to declare indyref2 off the table, but opposition politicians and members of her own party.

Perhaps the First Minister believes there is mileage to be gained by calling foul when Westminster blocks her desired referendum but this is a massive gamble. Right now, she looks less certain of her ground that at any time in the last decade.

The First Minister has said she wishes to play a part in the UK’s Brexit process. She would be wise to make this a priority and to do so in a spirit of collaboration and in good faith.

It is not only in the interests of the UK for Brexit to be as painless as possible, it would also help the SNP. If, in the future, the nationalists can point to a Brexit process that went seamlessly, they may remove a barrier to voting yes to independence for some voters.

Nicola Sturgeon should be the UK Government’s best friend during the Brexit negotiations, she should aim for achievable concessions and show she can play a productive role. For the time being, a second independence referendum is dead, if the First Minister wishes to revive the corpse, she needs to adopt a new approach.