THE Scottish Nationalist MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, Mhairi Black, likes to make the most of her visits to the House of Commons. On these occasions her vivid interventions are shared widely as she flays the Conservative Government with vitriolic diatribes that play to her gallery of social media devotees.

She was in grand form on Thursday as she announced her presence in the chamber with a speech that featured “the F-word”. Having previously referenced the C-word by describing gender-critical women as “Jeremy Hunts”, perhaps she was about to take aim once more at feminists. She moved quickly to explain.

“When I say the F-word, I am talking about fascism – fascism wrapped in red, white and blue,” she said. “You may mock and you may disagree, but fascism does not come in with intentional evil plans or the introduction of leather jackboots. It does not happen like that. It happens subtly.”

Hear, Hear!

By way of underpinning her points, Ms Black’s virtual fan-base posted a popular list of the main attributes of fascism. An unintended consequence of this was to draw attention to some traits that have recently come to characterise the conduct of her own party.

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These included: identification of enemies as a unifying cause; obsession with national security; intertwining of religion and government; protecting corporate power and suppressing the rights of organised labour.

The unifying enemy of the SNP and one which has provided rich pickings for the party’s careerist and professional wing is, of course, the UK Tories and their own set of iniquitous behaviours. As each of its own deadlines for delivering/pledging/vowing/demanding (delete as appropriate) an independence referendum passes those perfidious Tories are the gift which keeps on delivering SNP election victories.

The protection of corporate power is evident in the discounted auction of Scotland’s natural assets over the last 20 years to global energy giants, concluding with the paltry £700m the government received in exchange for 17 seabed plots. This figure represented a fraction of what Shell and BP made in the last two years.

The Common Weal think-tank, one of the very few left-wing forums that exist in civic Scotland, analysed this portfolio of assets and suggested – if managed adroitly by the Scottish Government – that it could have generated a pre-tax profit of between £3.5Bn and £5.5Bn. Its analysis contained much more detail than anything offered by the Scottish Government.

As the SNP was unveiling this unique business opportunity for the billionaires of the global energy sector some of its most senior figures turned on the trade union movement for using their right to strike in the Glasgow bins dispute. The right to withdraw labour is guaranteed by the European Court of Human Rights, yet Susan Aitken, the SNP leader of Glasgow City Council used the F-word when describing the Unions’ tactics. Ms Aitken, like others from her background who have risen to high office, is quick to forget that historic trade union activism helped her get there.

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The SNP’s anti-trade union rhetoric continued this week as the Transport Minister, Jenny Gilruth blamed work-to-rule train drivers for crippling delays on the railways.

Perhaps the SNP ought to review this line of attack. As it was revealed that Scotland’s billionaires got richer during the pandemic and that the oil giants recorded record profits, thousands of ordinary Scottish families face poverty with steep rises in food and fuel prices; the predatory behaviour of private landlords and an acute shortage of social and affordable housing. The Scottish Government should be preparing for more threatened strike action and cease its reactionary baiting of low-paid workers.

Perhaps the most widely recognised manifestation of fascism is an obsession with militarism and national security. The SNP has lately begun to fetishise these too, a process that started with the party abandoning its long-held opposition to the NATO military alliance. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there’s been an international conversation about the extent to which NATO’s rapid and sprawling expansionism towards Russia’s borders has contributed to the crisis in Eastern Europe. But you won’t find a trace of it among Scotland’s political classes, including Scottish Labour.

Pope Francis added his own concerns the previous week when he criticised NATO for “barking at Russia’s door”. In Italy, workers reeling with the effects of the recession are preparing for a 24-hour general strike in protest at its Government’s huge spend on providing arms to Ukraine.

Not to worry, Nicola Sturgeon told doubtful supporters, we’ll never permit nuclear weapons to be housed in an independent Scotland. Ahem, not so fast, Nicola, says the party’s Westminster Defence spokesman, Stewart McDonald, a chap whose Twitter time-line reads like a full-time NATO strategist rather than a politician elected to advance the cause of independence.

In an interview this week, Mr McDonald signalled a temporary leasing arrangement whereby an independent Scotland would host nuclear weapons. How “temporary” this might be is open to speculation but let’s start with the business end of “permanent”.

As it stands, the SNP wants the foreign policy of an independent Scotland to be dictated by an aggressive military alliance which favours gunboat diplomacy. It wants to adopt the UK’s banking system and unit of currency (“temporarily”) to underpin the economy. And its desperate to hand control of economic growth and workers’ pay and conditions to the European Union, a body whose richest members are quick to punish less affluent countries who can’t pay the crippling interest rates set by the west’s banking cartels.

All this doesn’t make the Scottish Government fascist, any more than the UK Tories’ hard-right agenda at Westminster. The fact that journalists can criticise both administrations without being imprisoned and that Ms Black can make her incendiary speeches after winning a free election tells us this.

There are many valid criticisms that can be made of the democratically-elected Johnson administration but when you use the “F-word” you immediately invite ridicule and thus undermine the points you’re trying to make.

And when a cult masquerading as a religion inside your own party orchestrates campaigns of intimidation against members who disagree with your leader then you also risk having the F-word thrown back at you.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.