They were all there – the First Minister, the leaders of Holyrood’s opposition parties (the Tories aside), religious leaders, the great and good of civic Scotland.
The summit called in Glasgow this week by John Swinney was, he said, to show “strength of unity” against the rise of the far right in Scotland. What he meant, of course, was Reform UK, which has surged in the opinion polls and looks likely to have a haul of MSPs numbering in the teens after next year’s Holyrood election.
Swinney had made clear that he was targeting Reform when he announced the summit in February, warning that “our values are under threat from Farage”.
On Wednesday, though, he seemed reluctant to let the party’s name pass his lips. Perhaps this was due to criticism that he was essentially providing Farage with a free advert. That’s certainly how it looked from the outside.
There is a pious certainty to the public sphere in Scotland that has a tendency, when it’s on full show, to leave one a little queasy. Too often, it appears to speak with one voice – a soft-left, big-state, aren’t-we-righteous-people vibe that has no room for those on the right, whether “far” or not. It barely has room for the centre.
The “pledge” issued afterwards, which all present signed up to, was a classic of the progressive genre. It contained the usual vague pieties and crimes against plain language: “We have a shared responsibility to map a way forward for Scotland, which is why we are committed to working together to ensure that our democratic structures evolve to meet our democratic ideals… There are certain fundamental principles and values that are already part of our understanding of Scottish democracy… that we believe should shape and guide our work.”
What were these? “Participation and openness. The sharing of power. Accountability. Equal opportunity.” Fair enough, but pass the sick bag, would you?
It is this monoculture that has driven devolution through its first quarter century, a period in which the parliament has too often followed bien pensant fashion and defined itself against what it sees as the market-driven meanness of Westminster. It has failed to challenge vested interests, the producer class of the public sector, which has led to stasis as the rest of the world has changed and reformed. As Holyrood has celebrated its self-declared decency, the results of this inaction are plain to see: schools in decline, an NHS in crisis, a private sector wondering why it is so unloved, and an electorate that is paying high taxes without a commensurate improvement in state services.
You don’t have to be on the right to think this. But that is often how critics have been portrayed. It can be an alienating experience.
One needn’t have any truck with the policies of Reform to understand its surge in popularity. There will be some who share its anti-immigrant, anti-net zero opinions, of course, but for many others the calculation is of a more basic kind: the mainstream has failed for decades; it is time to blow everything up. A similar sentiment animated some of those who supported Brexit in 2016 and Scottish independence in 2014.
It is possible, therefore, to view Swinney’s summit as sending a harsh message to voters currently tempted to vote for Farage’s outfit: “you over there, you’re a racist!” Is this kind of inference likely to persuade such people that they are wrong, or make them feel even more misunderstood and pushed to the margins?
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, attended the summit, but clearly found it an uncomfortable experience. One, it placed him under the chairmanship of the First Minister, who he wants to unseat next May. Second, he was well aware of the optics.
Sarwar made his discomfort clear, attacking the SNP for its record in office. “The harsh reality is that people across our society feel as if government doesn’t work for them, the economy doesn’t work for them, public services don’t work for them” he said. “Fundamentally, unless we address those challenges, we will continue to see people pushed towards divisive rhetoric and divisive political parties.”
To my mind, he nailed it when he added that “many people are going towards that direction, to put it in a crude sense, as an ‘FU’ vote because they are so scunnered with institutions, political parties, with governments.”
Given this, I asked Sarwar why he agreed to attend. He felt he should, he admitted, due in part to the coming together of religious leaders. Who was he to stand aside?
Whatever one thinks of the meeting, it can be seen as a political masterstroke on Swinney’s part. Most of the votes Reform is winning come from the Conservatives and Labour, and far fewer from the Nats. Occupying a hardline anti-Reform position doesn’t cause the First Minister many electoral problems, especially given the progressive nature of modern SNP support. The party isn’t anywhere near as popular as it once was but it is comfortably ahead of Labour in the polls, and is on course to win again next year. All Swinney has to do is consolidate his position.
Indeed, by using the bully pulpit of his office – by, in a sense, forcing his opponents to bend the knee – he portrays himself as a sort of father of the nation.
But does this posturing, this brief display of unity, get us anywhere that matters? After a few hours in a room together, the politicians were back to knocking seven shades out of one another. There will be no similar coming together on NHS reform, or educational improvements, or social care, or any of the other long-term problems afflicting the nation. Still, they all hate Reform so, y’know, there’s that.
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