Scotland Deserves Better
The Sunday Times leader didn't pull its punches over the spectacular collapse of the SNP's house of cards.
Scotland certainly does deserve better, but the only way this will come about is if people inside and outside the party accept that the SNP has made a unique contribution to the rotten state of Scottish politics.
Something is rotten in the state of Scotland — it’s the SNP
The imminent departure of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell from the political stage marks the end of an era - CIARAN DONNELLY/LESLEY DONALD PHOTOGRAPHY/GETTY IMAGES
The resignation of a Scottish National Party press officer is not usually significant news. But Murray Foote’s decision to stand down on a point of principle after giving the media inaccurate responses about the SNP’s membership numbers is a symptom of the deep rot in Scottish politics.
Last month, when the Glasgow-based Sunday Mail reported that the SNP had lost 30,000 members, Foote dismissed the story as “inaccurate” and “drivel”. The size of the ruling party’s membership base is, of course, a matter of huge public interest because these are the people who will elect Nicola Sturgeon’s successor, and hence Scotland’s first minister.
After initially refusing to confirm the real numbers — fuelling questions over the integrity of the leadership race — the SNP confessed that its membership had indeed fallen from 104,000 two years ago to just under 72,200. It offered a convoluted explanation for its first position, saying it had wanted to avoid giving the impression that 30,000 people had left specifically because of the mess over Sturgeon’s controversial gender-recognition reform bill and her failure to secure a second independence referendum. That buttered very few parsnips.
Foote quit, saying he had relayed responses from SNP headquarters in good faith and that their exposure as misleading had “created a serious impediment” to his role. A far more consequential scalp followed: Peter Murrell, the SNP’s chief executive and Sturgeon’s husband, resigned over the row yesterday.
Sturgeon’s imminent departure from the political stage is bringing the curtain down on an era. As the house lights go up, they are exposing an unsavoury rabble. By the time Scotland elects its next devolved parliament, in 2026, the SNP will have been in power for 19 years. Its longevity is remarkable. But it is also a party drunk on its own success, resistant to scrutiny and with a patchy record on getting done the things that matter to the 5.5 million people in Scotland.
The SNP’s independence monomania has come at the cost of improvements in public life. On education, it has overseen a decline in the quality of the country’s schools, with scores in maths and science falling and no sign of the attainment gap closing.
As in England, the NHS in Scotland has struggled badly since the pandemic, with hospital waiting lists at record highs and waiting times worsening for A&E treatment and critical illnesses such as cancer. Drug-related deaths have surged. On tax, Holyrood has had the power to control income tax bands and rates yet has done little with it, preferring to blame Westminster for all its ills.
There also been an increasingly dubious smell around its way of operating, typified by the affair over membership numbers. Murrell was already facing questions after it emerged he had loaned more than £107,000 to the SNP to help it out with a “cashflow” issue. And the party itself is facing a separate investigation into the whereabouts of a missing £600,000 donated for the next independence campaign.
Then there are the incidents that have raised concerns over the leadership’s judgment and its capability to execute: the scandal of the taxpayer millions wasted on much-delayed ferry contracts; the inquiry into the handling of sexual harassment complaints against Alex Salmond; and Sturgeon’s gender bill, which collapsed amid the disgraceful reality of transgender rapists with male genitalia being housed in women’s prisons. Many of these controversies have only been exposed thanks to a doughty media refusing to be cowed by a battalion of government-funded press officers.
Despite the SNP’s myriad flaws, Sturgeon has been a powerful figurehead, articulate in arguing the independence case and effective in driving wedges between Holyrood and Westminster. The three candidates to succeed her — Kate Forbes, the finance secretary; Ash Regan, the former minister for community safety; and the favourite, Humza Yousaf, the health secretary — are relatively lightweight. None has come up with a compelling vision for Scotland or how to secure a second referendum. The contest has featured sharp infighting. Attacking Yousaf’s record and questioning his status as the continuity candidate, Forbes said: “More of the same is not a manifesto, it’s an acceptance of mediocrity.”
Sturgeon has been a hugely divisive force in British politics and has bequeathed to her successor a virtual one-party state. But unionists and independence voters alike should not cheer the passing of the baton to a lesser politician. Scotland deserves better. A belated commitment to transparency in public life would be a small start.
