[Robin McAlpine Blog] And then?

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And then?

One of the most common things I have found myself saying to people who are trying to develop their own political strategy is ‘and then?‘. People who don’t do it for a living are always placing the end point of their strategy at the moment when they make their final move.

But then if you control when the credits roll you can turn Bambi, Dumbo and Finding Nemo into terrifying meditations on trauma and loss and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre into a short film about a pleasant teenage road trip.

Right at the end of your strategy is always… the need for more strategy. So as the politicians slump into their post-election exhaustion, let me ask the question ‘and then?‘.

This is easiest to do for Reform. It’s voters aren’t looking for a credible political party with coherent policies. Reform has one simple task – the more time it can make Holyrood spend talking about the kind of issues Reform likes and the others parties don’t, the more it’s winning. It is a really simple task – though not turning out to be total bams would help.

By contrast, the hardest ‘and then?‘ is for Scottish Labour. Let’s be realistic – there is a good chance that Anas Sarwar would be about to become First Minister if it wasn’t for his national party and in particular that Universal Buzz Kill Keir Starmer. Unless Scottish Labour decides to split from the UK party (which it won’t), it doesn’t really have an ‘an then?‘. It is just waiting for Starmer.

His universe is a really weird one. The timeline he seems to think he is on is like the one in Everything Everywhere All At Once where they’ve all got hotdog fingers, the one furthest from our own reality. I am utterly fascinated to know how he thinks this ends for him.

What movie does he think he’s in? As perhaps the most toxic political leader in modern British political history, what is his model for being hated at the end of act two but being a reviled and respected leader by the end of act three? It took Darth Vader a full three feature films to complete that redemption arc.

Does he genuinely think he can turn this round in 18 months by ‘delivering’, despite the fact that none of us can remember what he’s meant to be delivering anymore? Is it washing machines? Carrots? Knock-off perfumes? What’s the cargo Keir? No-one can remember what you’re for. Did someone convince you taking your tie off was a step forward?

Seriously, I genuinely don’t see how there is an ‘and then?‘ for Starmer at all. So does he enjoy being hated? His people keep briefing that he can’t step down because that would create ‘chaos’ across Britain. But would it really? Would law and order break down and the streets become no-go areas for right-minded people if Keir Starmer resigns? Perhaps briefly during the celebrations.

Labour is a party rigged totally in favour of a faction which has nothing whatsoever left to offer Britain but which is high on its own entitlement and refuses to believe that governing is not its birthright. So the best I can tell, Keir Starmer will stay on just in case someone who isn’t Keir Starmer takes power. I think that’s the strategy. Good luck guys.

Do the Scottish Greens have a strategy for pivoting back from ‘carnival of norm-defying diversity’ into ‘serious negotiating partner’?

The Lib Dems in Scotland have a much easier time of it. They are in the strongest position they’ve been in since they were in power along with Labour. They can offer Swinney a fully-fledged majority without having to rely on the Greens (whom I’m told Swinney is fundamentally suspicious of) so their whole strategy is about what concessions they can bleed from the government in return.

Another easy strategic task ought to have been the Scottish Greens. Two things guys – you have to take the step-up to looking like a serious, credible party on the verge of power. That’s how you get there, the transition from outsider or protest party to serious player. Above all they must not start to look like a clown show. Once credibility is achieved, the goal should be to pick a small number of issues where they can really have an impact. Be seen winning in parliament.

Well so far they have gone the other way with this one. The point about radical parties trying to look credible is that you are trying to answer the question ‘who do you serve now?’ without the answer being ‘ourselves’. Instead they have started out on a path which looks like their mission is to redefine what credible looks like. In this they will undoubtedly fail.

They can explain to their base why they got someone elected who is here on a student visa all they want and they can get a historic breakthrough and then spent the 72 hours afterwards talking to their base about trans issues – but then what? Have you a strategy for pivoting back from ‘carnival of norm-defying diversity’ into ‘serious negotiating partner’?

I’m interested because they’ll be the first people to find it. You make choices – you’re the avant garde breaking convention and your audience is limited, or you’re seeking to go mainstream so you reign in your instincts for anarchy. Getting back from the choice you make is really hard.

The real losers in this election are the Scottish Tories. Personally I think they only have one ‘and then?‘ which is to break away from the UK party and rebrand as a Scottish centre-right unionist political party. Neither being the Scottish arm of Badenochism nor trying to ape Reform is going to help. This patient needs major surgery.

For the indy true believers I have the same question; you’ve called us doubters names, you’ve shared every SNP meme on social media, you voted Two Votes SNP. Then what? Same again in five years? Do you have a new script to explain why those of us who are now sceptics are wrong to believe what we see with our eyes?

Apparently this week the Hail Mary is ‘but Wales’. But Wales fuck all – Plaid Cymru is not talking in terms of a push for independence but a credible step forward by showing they can run Wales effectively while using the mandate to secure some new powers for the Senedd. That is a serious and credible ‘and then?‘ – but it doesn’t nothing for Scotland.

I think the SNP is in trouble if it doesn’t change course but I’ve never seen a late-term administration actually change course successfully

So on the ‘and then?‘ front, Reform and the Lib Dems have it easy, the Scottish Greens should have had a fairly straightforward task but have run in the opposite direction, the indy loyalists will either have to reconsider or contort themselves into ever-weirder positions, Labour is in a coma that is taking place in Keir Starmer’s head and the Tories should cry ‘freedom!’ or start shopping for coffins(metaphorically speaking).

Which leaves the SNP. It really didn’t do very well in this election but is left in charge anyway, a rather toxic situation to be in. It’s boosters continue to pretend that setting a condition of a personal overall mandate was about independence rather cynical self-serving, but that sorry road comes to a final end really soon.

When it does, does John Swinney really have a Plan B? I very much doubt it in the terms you are thinking of. I don’t think he has a plan for delivering independence in the next five years. But perhaps he does have a plan for stretching this pantomime out further. Perhaps his troops will go along with it (for a while). Perhaps.

But reality will come calling and we won’t get independence and very soon he has to start relying wholly on domestic performance – and that would have been hard enough if the public finances weren’t just about to get worse. It is a pretty grim picture and needs some serious heft to tackle what is ahead.

Is it there? Let me put that back to you as a question – does the SNP have a compelling Finance Minister, Economy and Business Minister or Health Secretary? No-one in government now is known for their financial acumen (or arithmetic skills for that matter). Of the intake, Flynn, Smith, Gethins and Thewlis will all want a big job, but none are finance minister raw material.

And no-one sane will want it anyway, whereas at least the economy brief offers some positive opportunities. But with Ivan McKee rather stuck cutting the public sector workforce and Kate Forbes gone, I amn’t sure they’ve got a trusted, business-experienced candidate. I guess Alyn Smith would fancy it, but I think you’ll find out he’s another Angus Robertson – much more surface than substance.

So I can’t see a route to where next for the SNP that can be mapped out with personnel changes, which means more of the same or finding some kind of big change internally. Except I’m assuming that they didn’t become the government with the lowest satisfaction ratings in the history of devolution because they chose to be mediocre-to-bad at government.

Can they choose not to be bad at government? This is the thing – a big John Swinney pivot? At this stage in his career? A sudden surge of new thinking – coming from where? I think the SNP is in trouble if it doesn’t change course but I’ve never seen a late-term administration actually change course successfully. What dynamic sets them off in this new direction exactly?

I’ve outlined in this short article (and this longer one) the basics of what they need to do, but I suspect if you asked them they’d claim that’s what they were doing already. Can you change when you believe you’re already the thing you need to change into?

My conclusion from all of this is that Scotland’s politicians are not choosing, shaping or making Scotland’s immediate future, they’re just going to stumble into it and improvise from there. I doubt that will go brilliantly. Which begs a question.

What then?

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