Does the SNP fear independence?

Does the SNP fear independence?

Last week, Andy Burnham did something which the SNP leadership has failed to do in a very long time. He delivered a speech providing an overview of some of the big issues of the era and presented a vision for how to address them. Don’t mistake the stating of this fact as uncritical praise for the next Prime Minister’s political agenda, on which there is much to critique from the left. But it has exposed the lacklustre nature of the SNP’s approach to resolving the national question in favour of independence, supposedly its central project, and the sense of paralysis which defines it.

Just ask yourself a very basic question: when was the last time you heard a major SNP figure make a compelling and impassioned case for independence to the Scottish public? Despite the ructions in British capitalism and the volatility engulfing UK governance, this appears to be curiously absent. It is almost as if they fear their own raison d’être. For supporters of Scottish independence, it is worth asking why this might be. And what the future prospects are for Scottish autonomy, if the party meant to represent that cause is unwilling, or unable, to convincingly make the case for it. Far less, to engage in the kind of campaign that would be required to make it a reality.

It is possible to be generous and conclude that the SNP are in a period of consolidation following a series of bruising crises, not least the high-profile theft of funds. Attentive observers of the party, however, can identify the mechanical and stunted approach to independence as an embedded feature, rather than a temporary bug. Alongside demobilising the radical and democratic energies of the 2014 movement itself, the SNP have offered very little in the way of a vision and prospectus over the piece. And certainly not one that has inspired the masses into action or rejuvenated the intellectual scene around the issue. We have had the partially shelved Growth Commission, published in 2018, and a half-hearted slew of “Building a New Scotland” independence white papers.

All told, it is pretty thin gruel. Furthermore, none of the policy documents which promised a new Scotland came alongside materials for activists, or even an effective social media campaign worth referencing. They were not presented at public meetings or to gatherings of independence supporters on any scale, revealing the lack of elan and verve the SNP had once been known for. In truth, they were designed for a coterie of Scottish journalists as a tick-box exercise to “prove” the party was really serious about its founding objective.

In a similar vein, while independence was noted in the recent Holyrood election, it was discussed in rather opaque, technocratic terms. In a sense this was the purpose of the exercise for the SNP: to signal to their substantial independence-supporting base that voting for the party would keep the flame alive. Given this calibrated approach, it was quite naturally devoid of genuine inspiration and did little to raise the tempo. It is true that opinion surveys show that independence has declined as a priority. But almost nothing has been set out by the SNP to incorporate the cost of living crisis, for example, into an overall perspective on the future of Scotland as an independent nation. This from a party whose leading elements had urged members and supporters not to dwell on the process of independence, but the purpose, in order to persuade people of its merits.

Absent too, a serious analysis of the many dilemmas facing the British state, and how these might be addressed from a pro-independence vantage. Instead, behind the scenes, the SNP have acted as a cog in the corporate machine. In 2020 alone, hundreds of secret meetings between multinational corporations and wealthy individuals took place with Scottish Government ministers. The SNP signed off on freeports, subnational tax havens owned by private companies. They sold off Scottish wind energy to foreign capital. And the latest scheme is to reassure the arms industry that they are a more reliable ally than even Keir Starmer.

Abandonment and opportunism

In responding to the UK government’s £15 billion defence investment plan, SNP Westminster leader Dave Doogan used his platform at Prime Minister’s Questions to say the programme was “paper thin” and not enough to face up to the “very real threat” Britain faces. In taking up such a position, the party is further estranged from its earlier roots in the peace movement. Former SNP communications director, Kevin Pringle, posted on Twitter (X): “A personal opinion, but I don’t think we’ve had a thorough enough public debate before deciding to beat ploughshares into swords and pruninghooks into spears.” The SNP leadership on the other hand, have rushed headlong into the rearmament narrative, despite it being made clear that this will come at a high social cost, in the form of cuts to a welfare system already crippled by austerity.

And what a tangled web it weaves. The British state, the one the party of independence apparently want to dismantle, must do more to rearm. The contradictions should be obvious. Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon joins Michael Gove in a new reality television show, acting as his deputy Prime Minister at the head of a fictional UK government at war with Russia. There are some things you really couldn’t script.

It is little wonder that the response to the summary rejection of calls for a referendum, backed by a majority of MSPs, is so tepid. Far from being obsessed with the actuality of delivering independence as the SNP’s opponents often declare at First Ministers’ Questions, the matter takes on a far more artificial quality. Akin to an article of faith rather than a substantive political belief, it has become an abstraction, to be supported in the realms of theory, but shunned in practice. The dream shall never die, because it will never be born. And here’s the thing: that suits the SNP perfectly. It keeps the party in power, and ensures that accountability in office is permanently one step removed. Scottish nationalist aesthetics are adopted when the occasion suits, to be deployed where they have electoral utility, or to act as a decoy from domestic failings. Into the bargain, they never have to confront the wicked issues thrown up by independence itself. It is a proven formula.

That is why the pro-independence left has a special duty to confront the opportunism of such an approach. Because just as it ritualistically fosters illusions that will never be realised around the national question, it distorts policymaking and debate in the here and now. As Professor James Mitchell writes: “…Scottish politics in recent years has developed a policy gap through the prominence of constitutional politics.” As a result, “the long and winding journey from policy idea to implementation has been truncated. Policy formulation has too often involved dreaming up a newsworthy pronouncement without thought to delivery, far less evaluation. The consequences are poor delivery and failed outcomes.”

The idea of Scottish independence as a living concept, alongside the hopes for transformation embodied in the wider movement at its height, have been reappropriated as a party political tool to the extent that leading figures in the SNP seem to have forgotten how to make the argument for independence. It doesn’t matter how inviting the objective circumstances are, or how fertile the terrain is to make a big pitch, the endeavour has been sanitised. That is why even with the fall of six British Prime Ministers in a decade, the case is not being made with drive, tenacity or conviction. In fact, you would struggle to find it being made at all.

This article is based on a column published in The National.