The other day I wrote that the biggest impact of the death of Alex Salmond would be psychological. I mean, I think about Scottish politics relentlessly and it is making me see things slightly differently, or perhaps it’s giving me a different way to describe what I already saw. So let me look at an issue from last week which I didn’t cover because I’ve had what I think is Covid – and let me do it from this new perspective.
It is the question of Starmer’s summit of the nations and regions. This is quite clearly an intricate trap designed specially for Scotland. It’s whole purpose was to signal the degrading of Scotland’s status in the Starmer world view, dropping it from being one of a series of nations of equals to being on a par with mayors of English cities.
More importantly, it made clear Scotland’s relationship to Keir Starmer and Westminster itself. There was to be no more sitting round a table with the leaders of the four nations like equals. It was petty, small-man-syndrome power play stuff. It was a statement of his intention to tame Scotland.
But it was very particularly a trap because it was difficult to respond to. There has been a lot of entirely legitimate criticism of the Sturgeon era that it picked fights with Westminster, fights which were for their own sake. A genuinely capable leader picks fights when there is a clear benefit from the fight but quietly and constructively cooperates otherwise. Sturgeon didn’t.
It has left the Scottish Government vulnerable to the claim that it doesn’t want to make devolution work. That was the context in which the nations and regions summit was held, and because the Scottish Government was vulnerable, it seems to have capitulated. In so doing it has humiliated itself.
The SNP ran a kind of counter campaign, turning up dutifully for particularly subservient selfies but firing out lines in the National about disrespect and exclusion. It says everything about the current era of the SNP that its concern was with the ‘humiliation’ of Glasgow not being treated as an equal to Manchester, but it seems quite happy with Manchester being treated as an equal to Scotland.
Let’s think about our most recent Scottish leaders and how they would have reacted to all of this. As pointed out, Swinney just bent over and smiled throughout. He really did make himself like some provincial major. Yousaf would almost certainly have done the same, but perhaps he might at least have used the forum to have a go at Starmer’s position on Israel and Palestine.
Sturgeon would have objected more loudly and she probably would have posed for photos outside which were designed to look like she wasn’t happy. But I expect she’d have trooped in and smiled the smile. However, I find it difficult to imagine Salmond submitting to this.
When you are in a position of subordinate power you need to be able to carve out space to manoeuvre when you are backed into a corner
Had I been an adviser to any of them I’d have said ‘Starmer wouldn’t accept an invitation to go to a meeting hosted by Macron at which he was sat at a table with a bunch of leaders of local authorities’. I’d have presented two options; either simply say that you will meet as nations but you will not have Starmer place Scotland on a level with Huddersfield, or send someone insultingly junior.
My guess is that Salmond would have taken the former option. He would have made clear that it was an insult to Scotland, to its history and to its parliament to be lumped in with local authorities. He would have fought to turn this not into an insult to Glasgow (the Swinney approach) or to the Scottish Government (the likely Sturgeon approach) but to Scotland itself.
This is the point I was making and it’s the reason why this incarnation of the SNP is of little use to the cause of independence. When you are in a position of subordinate power you need to be able to carve out space to manoeuvre when you are backed into a corner. It’s the political equivalent of guerilla warfare where you need to outsmart your opponent and play to your strengths.
It takes three things to pull this off – the wit, the nerve and the guile. By wit I mean the spark of cleverness that is capable of identifying a way out of the problem. By nerve I just mean the courage to do it, because the thing you identify is likely to involve risk and shifting outside comfortable media narratives. By guile I mean the personal capability to land it, because a good idea badly executed isn’t a good idea at all.
Salmond had all three. Sturgeon certainly had the nerve (all her fake fights) but I’m sceptical she showed a lot of wit (it always ran to ‘tweet something’ or ‘make a standard sort of speech’) and she certainly didn’t demonstrate the guile to land it. That is why so many of her battles were seen as ‘being for the sake of it’. It only looks purposeful if you land the delivery.
That London wanted Scotland neutered and that Swinney dropped his boxers quite so willingly is an unnerving sign for anyone who liked those moments when Scotland felt strong, vibrant, ready
Swinney doesn’t have the wit. Nor has he ever shown any great evidence of guile. But it’s his lack of nerve which is crucial. Without it he is resigned to playing someone else’s game, and inevitably the someone else is always trying to rig the game.
Achieving independence or achieving net zero – it doesn’t really matter, in neither case will it be achieved through conventional politics. Both will take a leap. Talking about the leap without actually taking it makes you look fake (Sturgeon’s fate). Pretending no leap is needed basically just makes you disappear, fade from view altogether (Swinney). You need to try, well, something.
But you also need to have some awareness of where it all leads. I find it hard to imagine Salmond launching a ship with painted on windows, not because he wasn’t vain enough but because he was aware enough to ask himself ‘and what happens when they find out the windows are painted on?’
The nations and regions summit was a disaster for Scotland, the SNP, the Scottish Parliament and devolution. Before the election Labour was making clear that it intended to roll back on devolution not through legislation but by demoting the status of the parliament. They have started at a brisk pace.
In fact the pace is so brisk that it has left the SNP well behind, responding poorly and ineptly. It makes the party look what it is – weak, unsure, a victim of events, the office junior. Starmer all but told Swinney to run out and get him a coffee with two sugars and Swinney all but reached for his purse.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think this is actually clever on the part of the Labour Party either. It really is disrespecting the ancient nation status of Scotland and it just reflects the fact that Labour is still angry at Scotland for walking away from it. This was a circumstance ripe for political exploitation.
If I’d been running the show I’d have gone a bit Beyonce and just sang back about the English regions ‘if you cared that much you should have put a parliament in them’. I’d have held out for ‘make them parliaments and I’ll sit as an equal, but I will not have Scotland lumped in with Starmer’s own local government system’.
I guess had Salmond been running the show it would have come out something similar. That London wanted Scotland neutered and that Swinney dropped his boxers quite so willingly is an unnerving sign for anyone who liked those moments when Scotland felt strong, vibrant, ready.
No risk, no win. It will prove to be John Swinney’s downfall.