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It is starting to feel like the Mull School saga might never end.
To recap: a new school is needed on the island, but the council’s preferred approach to delivering it means that children from the south of the island, some as young as 11, will continue to be shipped off to a state-run hostel in Oban in order to access high school education.
What's the latest with the Mull School saga, and what's next?
The council insists it has acted properly, and won a judicial review, but local campaigners, including the families expected to send their children away, insist that their local authority is forcing through a policy that will entrench a devastating generation injustice, while human rights experts have also raised major concerns about any move to reinforce the island’s educational status quo.
But for all the possible complexity of this issue, and the controversy over the way in which the community has been treated by Argyll and Bute Council, the solution has actually been obvious for a long time: reopen the process, put all options on the table, and let the people of Mull decide what is best for their island, their community, and their children.
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Today, the SNP has released a manifesto for the coming Holyrood election, and it includes a specific mention of this controversy.
Under a section entitled 'School Estate', it refers to a “continued commitment to delivering a new Mull Campus, following effective community consultation.”
Two things about this are particularly interesting.
The first is the reference to the “Mull Campus”. This was the name of the project when it began, but the council has already renamed it the Tobermory Campus after deciding to build the new school on a site on the edge of the village, thus continuing the exclusion of children from the south.
Are the SNP offering a nod to the idea of a high school campus for all children on the Isle of Mull?
The second interesting point is reference to “effective community consultation”, and the implication that this is needed before the new campus can be delivered. Pretty much from day one, people on Mull have accused the council and its officials of failing to carry out genuine and effective engagement over this project. Some even accused the authority of deliberately misleading and exploiting them.
Will those failures now be corrected by restarting the process?
It seems possible, but then again, the language used by the SNP also seems to have been left deliberately vague, so it is difficult to be sure where anyone stands.
On one hand, this could be the confirmation that an SNP government would reopen this whole process – a pledge that, though belated, will be welcome by many on the island.
On the other, however, this could all just be an example of political sleight-of-hand, with the SNP planning to do nothing at all to address the controversy on Mull, but hoping that by using sufficiently imprecise language, it can at least pull in some votes from residents before abandoning them after the election.
That is certainly a concern of Julie MacKenzie, a local councillor who has supported the campaigners from Mull and who recently resigned from the SNP.
Asked for her opinion, she said that there is a “clear disconnect” between the wording of the SNP manifesto, and the position of the SNP-led administration of Argyll and Bute Council.
She also offered a warning: “When that shift in language appears just before an election, people are entitled to question whether this reflects an agreed plan or something designed to win votes without providing any real detail.”
Read More:
- Expert calls for scrutiny of school policy creating 'deep and systemic injustice
- Mull school campaigners lose court fight but the wider battle is far from over
- The Mull school saga won't be resolved in a courtroom, a political solution is needed
Cllr MacKenzie added that the “communities of Mull deserve better” and that it is “well past time for clear answers, total transparency and a definitive plan for delivery.”
She is not wrong.
Either the SNP is planning to take some sort of corrective action on the Mull Campus Project, or it is not. Leaving either option open might appear advantageous to party strategists, but it also reveals a lack of respect and a level of cynicism that, even during an election campaign, should be considered unacceptable.
John Swinney, Jenny Gilruth, and local candidate Jenni Minto already know what will happen post-election. The SNP could come clean and give the people of Mull a straight answer any time they want to.
So, in an effort to move that process along, The Herald has approached the party and asked, in clear terms, whether the manifesto commitment should be read as confirming that the SNP will “support fresh consultation on a Mull campus that could lead to a different site being chosen if that is what people on the island want.”
In response, Jenni Minto simply said:
"I welcome the continued commitment from the SNP to delivering a new Mull campus, following effective consultation with the community."
We also contacted Cllr Kieron Green, who is not an SNP member but is the education lead at Argyll and Bute Council, asking if (as far as he understands) “the SNP manifesto commitment means that the Mull Campus Project can be reopened for new, ‘effective’ engagement with the community that could lead to a different site and/or approach being chosen?”
Despite his key role in the delivery of the new school, Cllr Green advised that he is “unable to comment on possible intent behind manifesto pledges”, although he added that papers coming to council next week, in advance of a meeting scheduled for just a few days before the election, will include ministerial correspondence from Jenny Gilruth.
All of which means that the communities of Mull, despite warranting manifesto mention, are thus far being left in limbo.
They deserve better than to be treated as pawns in a political game.
The SNP must come clean with the people of Mull before the election, not after it.
If they won’t, then the conclusion to draw seems pretty obvious.
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