The SNP keeps issuing a new clarion call for another independence referendum but John Swinney's demands are toothless, says feature writer and columnist Kevin McKenna, who believes there's no one left in the party with a plan to outflank Westminster.
Every once in a while, the SNP likes to remind its supporters that it still supports Scottish independence. Another of these moments arrived last week when John Swinney delivered a speech in Edinburgh that (all together now) urged the UK Government to agree to a second referendum on independence.
The First Minister then asked his fellow Scots to “come together and demand a say over our future”. Mr Swinney insisted that if the SNP wins a majority of seats at next year’s election it would constitute a mandate for another referendum.
There have been so many such clarion calls in the Sturgeon/Swinney era that they could have their own annual timetable. Each fresh call to action, of course has proven to be as worthless as the previous one. In recent years, the SNP has begun attaching independence White Papers to their defiant squeaks. They decided to call this one ‘Your Right to Decide’ and there have been a dozen of them.
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I’d be asking one of our top artists to paint a still life of a White Paper to show future generations that this was as good as it ever got for Scottish independence under the slumberous leadership of Ms Sturgeon and Mr Swinney.
I’ve tried wading through several of them, seeking in vain one of those verifiable nuggets that show this party has an actual plan to achieve independence. Failing that, even a hint that their husbandry of Scotland’s existing resources has been so efficient that they’ve earned the right to be entrusted with full autonomy.
We all know by now how this ends. Lacking any detail or plan on how to chivvy a positive response from the UK Government, Mr Swinney’s toothless demands begin to curl and die before he reaches the end of his sleepy perorations. The sitting UK Prime Minister simply pats them on the head and sends them on their way with a weary “not tonight, John”.
Have you ever sat through a John Swinney speech from beginning to end? Time seems to proceed in a different dimension and you soon start naming the 54 African nations in your head in alphabetical order or listing all the winners of the European Cup.
And besides: the SNP has hounded out people who actually did have a workable plan to outflank stubborn Westminster administrations on holding a second referendum. Joanna Cherry and Chris McEleny all possessed the detail and the know-how for a viable plan B. It’s just that whenever they did try to engage SNP conferences in this they were howled down by a semi-literate Matalan Army of imps in cheap suits hoping to be rewarded with researchers’ jobs and thence a decent place on the party lists.
In recent weeks, the SNP’s most gullible followers have been encouraged by the prospect of Reform UK winning the next Westminster election in around three years’ time and Nigel Farage big, cheery coupon smirking out at them from the steps of 10 Downing Street. Some estimates suggests that the pro-independence vote could be touching the fabled 60% if this were to happen.
They fail to factor in one crucial fact: that there must first be a pro-independence majority at Holyrood before you can even consider a second referendum. The old assumption that the social preferences of Scottish voters are rooted in higher morals and ethics than English voters has been exposed as a chimera. Reform UK’s startling performance in June’s Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election when they ran both the SNP and Labour to within a few hundred votes of victory ought to have been a warning.
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Professor Sir John Curtice suggested last month that a figure of 21 Reform UK seats at Holyrood was within reach. Nothing the SNP has said and done since then suggests they’re aware of the danger. I’ve visited many working-class communities all over Scotland since 2021 and the messages I’ve been receiving from them should worry the SNP. Many voters in these places are resentful at being regarded as bigots for seeing through the SNP’s gender self-ID fraud and their incessant flag-waving in support of Palestine.
Many had appreciated the values of the old UK left which had built the NHS, strengthened trade unionism, provided free higher education for working-class people and embarked on a life-changing programme of high-quality, social housing. They have seen these values and achievements replaced by a counterfeit, ersatz left which has achieved nothing of any value to the poorest communities in Scotland and the UK. In Scotland, the trade union movement is led by millionaire property tycoon whose many homes could alleviate the refugee crisis and kick-start a social housing turnaround.
And what if there was somehow to be a second referendum on Scottish independence? The prospect of this must chill the SNP’s pension-chasers and Matalan wing to the bone. They’d be expected to sell independence under far more scrutiny than they’ve ever previously had to withstand.
Meanwhile, the prospect of watching Neil Gray, under fierce cross-examination explaining his government’s callous indifference to the thousands of poor people dying of drug addiction in the SNP’s Scotland doesn’t bear thinking about.
In 2014, the independence campaign was backlit with the verve and charisma of Alex Salmond. He led a party that then still valued men and women of talent and experience. If I was a Unionist, I’d be insisting on a long campaign, knowing that the more people came to realise Mr Swinney is devoid of any principles and exudes the backbone and charisma of a goldfish, the more the Union is secure.
That SNP baby-box has done so much heavy lifting that you wonder if, like the Tardis, it’s a lot bigger on the inside than you imagine. But they’ll need a lot more than baby-boxes to convince us that they can be trusted with something as big as independence.
Kevin McKenna is a Herald writer and columnist. He is Features Writer of the Year and writes regularly about the working-class people and communities of Scotland.
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