In May 2007 the SNP were elected to form a minority government in Scotland for the first time. Steve Arnott and Philip Stott look at the record of the SNP and the shape of Scottish politics one year on.

This May saw the anniversary of one of the most powerful shocks to the Scottish political system in recent years – the defeat of Labour at a Scottish wide election and the coming to power in Scotland of the SNP as a minority administration in the Scottish Parliament.

The erosion of Labour’s traditional vote in May ‘07 represented anger at years of their bending the knee to big business, resentment at the growing gap between the wealthy and the rest of us, and continuing anger over participation in the illegal and immoral Iraq war.

The swing to the SNP in 2007 represented not just increased openness to the possibility of independence and increased support for more powers for the Scottish Parliament, though that was undoubtedly part of the equation. More importantly, it represented a desire to see a left of centre, progressive, pro-public ownership and pro-public sector government in Holyrood.

contradiction

One year on and the SNP and Alex Salmond still leave Labour trailing in the opinion polls. They have announced or carried through a number of welcome, if moderate, reforms. Yet the fundamental contradiction at the heart of the SNP was demonstrated recently when they refused to come down unequivocally on the side of the Grangemouth oil refinery workers who took strike action to defend a pension agreement unilaterally torn up by their multi-billionaire boss, James Radcliffe.

With one eye on the corporate community they merely echoed New Labour’s demands for negotiations to end a potentially ‘damaging’ strike. Unlike Solidarity, they failed to point out that problems with petrol supplies and high fuel prices would not exist if our oil industry was publicly owned and democratically controlled.

Earlier that month housing campaigners across Scotland were angered when Nicola Sturgeon announced only £25 million pounds to help ‘incentivise’ new council house building across Scotland. While the removal of the ‘right to buy’ for new build council homes is welcome, cash strapped Scottish councils need proper funding to build quality affordable council homes for rent in meaningful numbers and thus tackle Scotland’s affordable housing crisis. £25 million may seem a lot of money, but it can only build a few hundred new homes across the whole of Scotland.  When it’s compared with the £500 million spent each year featherbedding business through Scottish Enterprise the scale of SNP mis-prioritisation becomes clear.

The contradiction at the heart of the SNP in government is that while the majority of its supporters look to it to behave as a left of centre social democratic party carrying out decisions to improve their daily lives, the strategy of the leadership of the SNP is to court corporate leaders and put the interests of big business first.

Consequently, while the SNP have carried through a number of reforms which Solidarity agrees with and has campaigned for – the abolition of the graduate endowment, cutting prescription charges, getting rid of bridge tolls, saving accident and emergency units due to be axed under Labour and so on, on the other hand they have continued to cosy up to the interests of big business.

budget - but for who?

The budget deal was voted through parliament with the support of the Tories on the basis of cuts in local business rates i.e. less money for local government to spend on public services. Falling over to pander to the likes of millionaire transport magnate and homophobe Brian Soutar, and the bewigged golfing American Donald Trump may be part of an SNP master plan to convince rich Scots and ex-pats that business will be well looked after in an independent Scotland, but it does not go down well with the party’s core working class vote.

There is massive popular support for the SNP proposal to scrap the hated council tax, but the problem for them is that their local income tax proposal is Tommy Sheridan’s Scottish Service Tax Lite. Because it shies away from taxing the most wealthy at a higher rate it simply doesn’t raise enough to fund local government services at the same level as the current iniquitous council tax. As a result , the current agreement on spending with COSLA, the otherwise principled abolition of ring fencing, and plans for further efficiencies are really ways SNP finance master John Swinney attempting to fit local government spending to the SNP’s local income tax plans.  It is a recipe for conflict with public sector unions and public service users and will allow Labour to hypocritically clothe themselves as public sector service defenders.

Thus far this process has reached its most advanced stage in Aberdeen, where Aberdeen City Council (SNP/Lib-Dem coalition) has proposed a series of swinging cuts to many well regarded and well  loved public services, resulting in a popular backlash. Well attended meetings and demonstration involving over 5000 people have been organised against the cuts – a movement in which Grampian Solidarity members have been wholly involved, but also a movement whose most enthusiastic cheerleaders have been Aberdeen Labour.

labour hypocrisy

As Solidarity pointed out following the May 2007 elections, Labour in opposition would, on occasion, opportunistically attack the SNP from the “left” in an effort to make up ground.  Scottish Labour Leader Wendy Alexander, who has been an unapologetic advocate of Blairism in the Labour party, supported the abolition of Labour’s pro-public ownership Clause 4, and championed the pro-market policies of New Labour has declared the battle between the SNP and Labour as one of “nationalism versus socialism”.

Speaking at the STUC conference Alexander – without even a blush of shame in her cheeks - attacked the SNP for being in the pockets of big business: "In Alex Salmond's Scotland some people are indeed more equal than others. The Trump Organisation, Macdonald Hotels in Aviemore, ScottishPower - all big businesses with a special pass to the corridors of SNP power." Labour in Scotland is feigning to the left, like a football player seeking to go past a defender, only to then make a turn to the right – especially when they are in power as the last 8 years of Labour rule in Scotland aptly demonstrated.

Backed by the full might of Scotland’s mainly pro-unionist media it might not be ruled out, under other circumstances, that Labour could undergo a mild revival, precisely because the SNP are wedded to big business and ‘free market’ ideology and that this will increasingly come into conflict with even the modest social democratic reforms they are proposing.

But Brown’s failure to make any change from Blairism, the oncoming economic crisis and the resulting possibility of seeing the return of a Tory UK government, will fill the hearts of many in Scotland – Labour supporters, SNP supporters, trade unionists, the progressive left and others - with horror. It will open up the possibility of a huge upsurge in demand for independence as memories of Thatcher return with a vengeance and the possibility of years of being run by a Tory government we never voted for hits home.

independence and socialism

Solidarity will continue to welcome positive reforms from the SNP and say why and when we don’t think they go far enough; we will criticise the SNP when they put the interest of business and the wealthy before the interests of the majority of society, and we will point out consistently that it is the left leaning measures of the SNP that have so far also proved the most popular.

Our support for an independent Scotland will not waver, but we want to see a socialist, green and democratic independent Scotland – not one run in the interests of the multi-millionaires and billionaire corporations.