CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine expresses his concern about the direction of the SNP and says it's vital to listen to people, not lobbyists
IN recent years the approach of the SNP's annual conference has been marked by a real sense of enthusiasm, excitement even. I wonder if that's as true this year.
The self belief of the party is, of course, based in large part on a series of startling election results. But it is also based on a series of catechisms that I've heard many times from party members.
The SNP has a strong record of competence in government. It is credible, respected. It is a broad church which has managed successfully to encompass both the left and the right. It is a party of and for its members. It is in no-one's pocket. It still manages to be bold, strong, radical even. And above all it has clear principles and values and sticks to them.
For many years I've hated the words 'credible' and 'respected' because of whom it is that gets to grant these attributes.
The problem is that as time passes it becomes a little harder to get some of these claims to stack up.
The competence point has, for me, always been a red herring. Surely competence is the very, very least we'd expect from anyone. If you passed a car mechanic with a sign that said 'leave your car with us – we're competent', would you feel reassured? Might you have assumed that competence was taken for granted?
And what if, looking back, the first word that comes to mind when thinking of the actions of government isn't so much competence as mediocrity?
For many years I've hated the words 'credible' and 'respected' because of whom it is that gets to grant these attributes. Remember, New Labour was at its peak 'credibility' when it was deregulating the banking markets and encouraging housing bubbles, because it is rich people who get to define what is credible.
For me, when you have a national scandal of the scale and reach of PFI, the credible thing to do is to have a proper, wide-ranging inquiry to find out exactly why the public is being ripped off and new schools are falling down. But if you're a wealthy financier who is implicated in the whole sordid business, hushing things up may look like the credible option to you.
Remember, New Labour was at its peak 'credibility' when it was deregulating the banking markets and encouraging housing bubbles, because it is rich people who get to define what is credible.
So which credibility, which respectability, is the goal here? The trust and respect of the public or of the powerful?
As for broad church, you can certainly make that case. And if you're from the right of the SNP there is certainly plenty to be happy about. It's much harder to put your finger on the last time the left of the SNP got anything other than wooly rhetoric about austerity and xenophobia. Unless it was a poke in the eye.
A party of and for its members? I am regularly invited to give talks to SNP branches and constituencies. The parlous state of party democracy is never not a subject raised from the floor.
In no-one's pocket? I find this quite hard to accept. If the decision to repeat verbatim all of Heathrow's propaganda is entirely unrelated to the money Heathrow has thrown at the party (and is doing so again at this conference), it most certainly doesn't look or smell that way.
Bold? Strong? Radical? How would you really sustain that argument? Even former cabinet members see timidity rather than courage.
And on principles and values, it's increasingly difficult to pin down what they mean in practice. We understand that the SNP is for 'fairness' and 'effectiveness' and that 'Scotland should be stronger'.
So which credibility, which respectability, is the goal here? The trust and respect of the public or of the powerful?
For a short period this aligned the SNP with a kind of broad Nordic social democracy. Fairness was about more investment in public infrastructure and services, economic interventions to increase wages and productivity and to reduce inequality (though the highly democratic, decentralised nature of Nordic countries never made it onto the agenda).
But there is not a lot of evidence that these principles and values or this analysis of society and the economy are really informing action. Indeed, I think there has actually been a fairly substantial 'value-shift' without anyone particularly noticing.
Because if I am to get a sense of where the SNP leadership is drawing its values from, the winds are no longer blowing from the north but from the south. Nordic equality has been replaced with London liberalism.
It's possibly best understood as the merger of free movement (good, liberal, internationalist, virtuous) and free markets (economic status quo, deference to the powerful, but with occasional expressions of regret at the resulting poverty).
The ground-level priorities of the independence movement (largely curated and put together by people outside the political elite) has been replaced by the priorities of the Guardian. Conservative on the economy, radical on identity politics.
I think there has been a fairly substantial 'value-shift' without anyone particularly noticing.
(And make no mistake, Guardian columnists really love Nicola Sturgeon. So do rightwing Labour Westminster MPs. They see her as a role model for so-called 'centrism', an antidote to Jeremy Corbyn and all his talk of taking on vested interests.)
But this stuff is pretty unconnected to the concerns of most people in Scotland. It's not that defending immigration isn't the right thing to do, it's that it rather feels like it has absorbed all the available 'bravery' while powerful interests that hurt the working class are given an easy ride.
And when you import the policies of London into Scotland (as was done with the mandatory national testing of primary school kids), it doesn't fit well.
So London liberals may rate Sturgeon's summer performance highly, but the drop of 22 percentage points in her approval ratings in Scotland suggest that she's losing her connection with a substantial proportion of the population.
I suspect that there will be a little more hush over the SNP conference this year. I've spent an awful lot of time over the last 18 months talking to a wide range of people in the SNP at many different levels. There is a definite sense of unease.
If I am to get a sense of where the SNP leadership is drawing its values from, the winds are no longer blowing from the north but from the south. Nordic equality has been replaced with London liberalism.
Those who know most about how things are being done in the party are those now least comfortable reciting the old catechisms. Few members now say 'we're a bold, radical government' with any conviction – or indeed at all.
This isn't crisis stuff yet. This isn't splits or fall outs or disintegration. It's not Labour, not the Tories, not UKIP. And if the SNP just wanted to keep its bum firmly wedged in the seat of power, it probably wouldn't matter – for a while at least.
But the SNP doesn't just want power for the sake of power. It want's power to deliver Scottish independence. (Right?)
Scottish Labour ably demonstrated that mediocrity isn't necessarily a barrier to sustained electoral success. But there is good reason to believe that mediocrity is a bad foundation on which to build a referendum campaign.
There are some simple things that could head off the possibility of disillusionment. Proper party democracy is a must. A leadership which would reach out to a wider community rather than closing in on itself would set a very different tone.
But this stuff is pretty unconnected to the concerns of most people in Scotland. And when you import the policies of London into Scotland (as was done with the mandatory national testing of primary school kids), it doesn't fit well.
Rethinking who and what the party is for would be invaluable. Hint – it's not for Guardian editorial writers but for Scots on ordinary salaries. (If you want to know what ordinary means, it is worth bearing in mind that if everyone in Scotland on an annual income of about £20,000 or less voted Yes, we'd be independent.)
And if the Scottish Government would just select a small number of genuinely visionary projects to pursue, it could start to look purposeful (and relevant to voters) almost overnight.
Common Weal has tried really, really hard to be constructive and helpful. Our work on housing, democracy, a National Childcare Company, a Scottish National Investment Bank and a Scottish National Infrastructure Company alone would be enough from which to create an exciting domestic agenda. (All our policy work can be found in our library.)
But I'm pessimistic. The leadership of the SNP gives a very strong impression that it has little interest in what Common Weal or other groups like us have to say. I watch as our moderate, well-designed, socially-democratic policies are simply ignored while half-baked ideas coming out of London or the wish lists of corporate lobbyists seem to find an open door with little difficulty.
And Nicola Sturgeon and Angus Robertson seem to have built an uneasy alliance based mainly on the shared belief that the party membership must under no circumstances be allowed any influence over strategy or policy – or anything.
Rethinking who and what the party is for would be invaluable. Hint – it's not for Guardian editorial writers but for Scots on ordinary salaries.
I don't expect to see many explicit moments of dissent or rebellion during this conference. But nor do I expect to sense anything like the usual enthusiasm (not that I am actually able to get into the conference since I can't justify spending £900 on a three-day pass or £4,000 on a tiny exhibition space).
Every political party has the right to take a break from the attrition of daily politics to get together, pat colleagues on the back and feel good about itself. But they also need to find a moment for serious and critical introspection. Just now the SNP only seems capable of the former – and we can't pat ourselves on the back all the way to independence.
Picture: CommonSpace
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