I wrote a piece on the Scottish National Party and the 2015 General Election in February. That already seems like a long time ago (not to mention my last blog for Theos on the Independence Referendum in 2014). As we edge closer to polling day, a growing storm is raging around the SNP and its hugely popular and impressive leader Nicola Sturgeon.
The Daily Mail in Scotland launched a 'Stop the SNP' tactical voting guide. John Major was wheeled out on 21st April to add another warning, of merry hell and mayhem, to the Tories' relentless litany of fear. Boris Johnson this week compared the SNP to King Herod and Nicola to Lady Macbeth. Sarah Vine said life under a Labour/SNP regime would be like communist dictatorship. The Conservatives are funding poster campaigns in East Anglia featuring Alex Salmond with Ed Miliband in his pocket, and Ed Miliband has spent a lot of time ruling out a deal with the SNP.
Despite all – to borrow from Maya Angelou – and still they rise. There has been a realignment in Scottish politics, the effects of which are now being felt across all parts of the UK. Three things are key to understanding it.
First, the rise of the SNP since the return of the Scottish parliament in 1999 has been steady and consistent but had not so far been felt at the UK level. Between 1999 and 2014 there was a difference in voting behaviour at Holyrood and Westminster elections, which seems to be disappearing in the wake of the independence referendum. In 2011 around 45% of voters chose the SNP in the Holyrood Election leading to an unexpected outright majority under the Additional Member form of PR. In 2014 45% of voters said YES leading to defeat in the indyref. In 2015, if 45% of voters choose the SNP (a 28 April Mori Scotland poll puts it at 54%) in the Westminster elections, the distortions of first past the post will hand them a Scottish landslide.
Second, we continue to feel the aftershocks of the independence referendum. Of course the Yes camp lost in September 2014, by a clear but not large margin, but the campaign saw an extraordinary moment of political and cultural mobilisation in Scotland which has subsequently transferred to the SNP. After the defeat, just as exhausted SNP heads were beginning to drop, applications for membership began to pour in. Membership rose from 23,000 in September 2014 to 92,000 in December 2014. Today it stands at over 105,000. Labour in Scotland refuse to publish membership figures, but are reckoned to have under 15,000.
Which leads to our third point, which is the transfer in support from Labour to the SNP. The Con-Lib coalition has been deeply unpopular in Scotland, and its existence has fuelled the democratic deficit critique: we vote Labour but get the Tories. Labour in Scotland has lost its mojo: Johann Lamont’s "branch office" remark was deeply damaging and the party is seen to send its best talent to Westminster, while the SNP does the opposite. Meanwhile, the SNP minority government 2007-2011 and majority government since 2011 are widely felt to have been competent, pragmatic, social democratic administrations. Alex Salmond was a marmite/Laphroaig politician, but Nicola Sturgeon is both competent and hugely popular and Finance Secretary John Swinney is seen as decent and honest. The SNP have won the battle in Scotland to define themselves as proponents of a liberal, internationalist, progressive, social democratic, civic nationalism. Since Scotland is no longer afraid of them, the attempts by right wing media and unionist parties to whip up fear and loathing are playing badly in Scotland.
A week, even six days, is a long time in politics. The polls seem stubbornly set to deliver an SNP landslide in Scotland, but the voters still have to speak. The media fearstorm of the last two weeks of the independence referendum is still a vivid memory. The Murphy bounce may still happen. Surfing huge political waves is a dangerous business for any party – hubris, scandal and simple ‘events’ can lead to calamitous wipe outs. So far, Nicola Sturgeon has been the outstanding leader of the campaign. The tone and the tactics have been impressive. The SNP’s best minds know it needs time to regroup and rethink above all the economic case for independence, but few expect or want another referendum before 2024. For sure, if there are stand-offs at Westminster after the election, the SNP will try to use them to its advantage, but Plan A is not merry hell and mayhem. The gradualists are at the helm of the party now and they know that to move from 45% to 60%, they need a period of impressive, constructive and progressive engagement at Westminster, combined with competent and popular government in Holyrood.
The realignment of Scottish politics is driving a realignment in England. Time will tell whether, as the Psalmist said, the lines have fallen in pleasant places. For now, for the SNP, it is still a psalm of ascent.
Doug Gay is a Church of Scotland minister and a Lecturer in Practical Theology at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of Honey From The Lion: Christianity and the Ethics of Nationalism (SCM, 2013) and was active in the campaign for a YES vote in the referendum on Scottish independence.
Image by David Wilson from flickr.com under Creative Commons Licence.
