One of the many unhelpful things about Brexit is that it obscures events elsewhere.
The UK Parliament struggles to find a way to disengage from the European Union without breaking the UK economy. From the safety of Holyrood Nicola and her pals , as well as most of the media , throw stones and call it a chaotic shambles. Yes, it’s messy, but the mess only reflects the reality that the UK as a whole is deeply divided on Europe, divided by region, by age, by level of education. What is happening in the UK Parliament only reflects how the UK feels – it is not a Tory plot.
What the SNP at Holyrood should instead be reflecting on is the deep damage caused to a society and economy by a referendum result which is very close on an issue which people feel very strongly about. One day it may be clear that the great majority of Scots want Scotland to seek independence from the UK – until that time there should not be another referendum. A 50% plus one result, either way, is a recipe for real trouble.
The second thing the SNP as well as the rest of us should note is that those who predicted Brexit would be easy and pain free were wrong – the truth is it has proved to be difficult, divisive and damaging. The same would be true if Scotland left the UK.
An unfortunate side effect of Brexit is that it lets the SNP Government off the hook on delivering on what it should be doing. The job of the Scottish Government is not, any more than it is the job of Glasgow City Council, to try to meddle in Brexit from the back seat. It is instead to deliver effectively and efficiently on the large areas of policy and public services for which it is actually responsible.
The failures on education, once a jewel in Scotland’s crown, failure on waiting times within the NHS and massaging the statistics to boot are clear.
What is less obvious is the ingrained hostility to business and wealth creators. Business is regarded as good only when it creates jobs and helps implement social policy. Otherwise businesses and even more so its owners are something bad, trying to make a profit, earning dividends, building personal wealth – all treated with suspicion.
The one really business friendly policy in the SNP’s last manifesto– the halving and then abolition of Air Passenger Duty – not delivered.
In 2018, new Scottish rates of Income Tax were set which, though complex, and meaning higher paid people paid more than in England, managed to achieve a broad consensus of support. In 2019 the faith of higher earners that there would be fair play was broken by the failure to increase the higher rate tax threshold by inflation, the news delivered with a smirk and the falsehood that to increase it to take account of inflation would be a tax cut.
The farce of support for Prestwick Airport – over £40 million of taxpayers money sunk into a vanity project , almost certainly down the drain. £45 million lent to Ferguson Marine to enable it to build two needlessly complex ferries. A daft idea to set up our own state energy supply company – a sure fire money loser which luckily has not seen the light of day and hopefully never will. All interventions by a Government which doesn’t understand business.
The noise of Brexit should not obscure the fact the SNP has an inherent hostility to business . People notice, they rearrange their affairs, they drift south ; Scotland loses out. The SNP is not fit to govern Scotland without adult supervision.
Pinstripe is a senior member of Scotland's financial services community.
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