JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK: Try as I might, its hard to see the funny side of a summit on unity held by a politician whose party thrives on division
I have tried to take the last 18 years in good humour.
I have tried to take the last 18 years in good humour. When that has failed, I have tried to compartmentalise politics – to seal it off from the good things in my life.
At the eleventh hour, as Scotland went to the polls in 2014 to answer the independence question, I even managed to reach a mental accommodation with the prospect of the answer being the wrong one, of the UK being finished. Democracy duly delivered our result.
This week I have been trying to take in good humour the fact that First Minister John Swinney convened a cross-party summit on unity to ‘safeguard Scotland’s democracy’. It should have been easy because, on one level, it is pretty funny.
It was one of those lop-sided cross-party summits which welcomed the far left – because the Greens are mates – but excluded the ‘far right’ because they’re loathsome. Mr Swinney characterises this unpalatable rump of ideological thought as the politics of Reform UK.
Indeed, his was a cross-party summit whose express purpose was to ostracise this one party which is said to be gaining ground in Scotland.
And the reason this party must be kept at bay? Why, to safeguard Scotland’s democracy.
So let us recap: it’s a left-leaning cross-party summit protecting democracy by ganging up on a right-leaning party which is expected to hoover up a significant chunk of votes in next year’s Scottish elections.
Measures taken to ensure our democracy remains intact include denying this party a voice at the summit. I don’t know about you, but this sounds more to me like a closed shop they’re protecting.
John Swinney held a summit of like-minded politicians and union leaders to discuss how to safeguard Scotlands democracy from the far right
Extreme left wing politicians like the Scottish Greens Patrick Harvie were front and centre at the summit
Is the idea that Scotland’s democracy is somehow threatened by the possibility that people may express their democratic will and vote for Reform in 2026? I hadn’t understood that freely expressing a preference undermined democracy if that preference happened to stick in Mr Swinney’s craw.
The summit becomes more laughable still when one considers that the one party almost everyone agrees will benefit most from a Reform surge at the polls is the SNP.
There are many reasons I wish Nigel Farage’s party no luck at all in the election next May but the most pressing one is the gift that squeezing the Labour and Tory vote presents to Mr Swinney’s party.
Yet, standing tall to see beyond the SNP’s narrow interests, speaking to Scotland in the guise of ‘statesman’, the First Minister warns darkly of the rising tide of extremists which, if we don’t have our wits about us, could sweep across the land – oh, and usher his party into power yet again.
One is almost tempted to wonder if whole spectacle in Glasgow on Wednesday – attended by more than 50 political, civic and faith leaders – was a carefully orchestrated charade designed to do the very opposite of the nonsense it said on the tin.
Certainly, if I had any leanings towards Reform, this little display of political parochialism would have propelled me headlong into their embrace.
Try as I might, though, I struggle to see the funny side. And I have failed thus far on this one to compartmentalise. Burning anger is the unavoidable emotion when I consider a summit on ‘unity’ is convened by a man whose party thrives on division.
There was a time for unity. It came when Scotland’s future was democratically decided in 2014 after prolonged campaigns which tore at the nation’s soul, fragmenting lifelong bonds. But unity was not on the SNP agenda.
Rage against democracy was what we got. The fragmentation went on. Disunity has become institutionalised. It is our national default setting.
Roll up for my unity summit, deadpans Mr Swinney.
I hear him declare it is the ‘start of a process’ to tackle dissatisfaction, inequality, disinformation and low participation in politics.
And again, a rueful laugh should be feasible. His party is 18 years into government and that’s the process he kick-started this week?
But no, it’s fury that overwhelms. Scotland is on its knees. Everywhere we look – health, education, transport – is calamity. Waiting lists are off the scale, our classrooms war zones, our universities going bust, our ferries a global joke, our justice system all about freeing prisoners early and our police force all about not investigating crimes.
Our councils are broke, public services steadily diminishing as we pay ever more for the few that remain. Our roads are a shambles, our libraries closed. Our countryside has been traded away to heavy industry to produce far more green energy than the nation can possibly use. Our high-achievers are punished, our shirkers rewarded and, with all of the above gnawing at our tolerance threshold, our government politicians’ brows are furrowed on the question of how a woman might be defined.
The summit attracted protests from Reform supporters who felt it was undemocratic
Might just a little of this start to explain the dissatisfaction of which you speak, Mr Swinney?
Inequality? Such as the attainment gap your former boss Nicola Sturgeon asked to be judged on her performance in closing, yet succeeded only in widening?
Disinformation? It’s the SNP’s stock in trade. It’s why their former chief executive – Ms Sturgeon’s estranged husband Peter Murrell – resigned. He was caught red-handed spreading it.
Our era of disinformation, of deliberately misleading the public about the affairs of the nation, is summed up by nothing so neatly as a giant shell of a ferry – years from completion – launched on the Clyde with painted on windows and plastic funnels as a beaming First Minister declared it a proud day for Scotland.
The low participation in politics is indeed a pity but, for the sake of one’s sanity, it is sometimes the only answer. I see Ms Sturgeon has lately been giving it a try, albeit she has a year left to serve as a Glasgow MSP.
The ‘process’ on which Mr Swinney embarks 18 years late, then, can only sensibly be understood as a promise to fix what his own party has broken. But he doesn’t want you to understand it sensibly. He wants these stinks he pledges to sweeten to be ascribed to suspects who could not possibly have caused them – because he knows perfectly well who did.
Quite what Labour and Lib-Dem leaders Anas Sarwar and Alex Cole-Hamilton were doing at the summit I could not fathom. Were they saying they didn’t like it very much that the SNP had tanked their country but those right wingers coming over the hill are the ones we really need to watch out for?
Reform will not lead Scotland after the election. I’d really rather they turned their fire on the shower they most fear will.
Of the party leaders invited to attend, only Scottish Conservative Russell Findlay comes out of this unedifying business with any credit – by staying away.
‘The Holyrood bubble went on tour and, as usual, did nothing to improve the lives of workers and families across Scotland,’ he said. ‘Scots will see it for what it is – a grandstanding diversion from the SNP’s 18-year record of failure.’
I think that is optimistic. Two decades in, knowing all we know, too many of us still cannot see the one thing we must unite around to lift our land out of the mire – the conclusion that the SNP is keeping us there.