Tommy Sheppard: SNP must inspire if they are to win back voters

Since then there has been a clutch of polls and by-election results, which all give us an immediate insight into the public’s perception of the political choices before them.

The story is not of SNP recovery but Labour implosion, with the latest poll suggesting the party has lost fully one-third of the voters it had in July. It took the SNP five years to lose that amount of support; Labour have done it in less than five months.

Against this haemorrhaging of support for Labour, the SNP’s performance looks relatively good. But it is a chimera. The improving fortunes are illusory, and do not in reality show lost voters returning to the fold.

Actually, the people who can take most comfort from votes in recent by-elections are Reform UK, who have come from nowhere to establish themselves as the fourth party in Scotland.

Some of these new Reformers will be Conservative voters disillusioned by former leader Douglas Ross and switching to a more robust champion. The most worrying thing, however, is that the combined vote of Tories and Reform is considerably higher than Scottish Conservative support alone over the last decade.

So, it looks as if Reform are attracting people not just from the Tories, but from supporters of other parties and those who previously supported no party at all.

This means that Reform is acting as a gateway to reaction, building support for its anti-immigrant, anti-independence views. These bad seeds could germinate and bloom if and when the more right-wing politicians in the UK and Scotland get their acts together.

But the biggest story of the spate of recent by-elections – many looking to replace a councillor after the previous incumbent became an MP in the summer – is the abysmal turnout, ranging from 20% to as low as 12%.

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This means that between eight in 10 and nine in 10 people don’t give a toss about who will represent them in their local council chamber.

It is that absence of motivation, of even the very lamest political conviction, that undermines our flawed democratic system. And without changing it, there is no basis to win an election – never mind set up a new country.

It is difficult to inspire people when the official government line is “things can only get worse”. The new Labour Government, elected on a single-word mantra – “Change” – is determined to change very little.

Worse, it has so constrained itself by ruling out policies that might offer real change, that it now says little can be done. It’s the political equivalent of tramadol, taking the edge off aspiration and hope. If you can’t do anything about it, why bother trying?

It’s clear Labour’s Scottish lieutenants, including leader Anas Sarwar, know there is a problem. But the response of flipping from support for Keir Starmer to promising that Labour in power in Scotland would overturn his polices, is unedifying to say the least. And it will just double down on stoking cynicism and disillusion.

The SNP need to do better. And to rebuild hope they must take care to challenge Labour from a radical perspective, not join Conservative attacks from the right. There is, for instance, much that needs to be done to support Scottish agriculture and farmers, but protecting millionaire landowners from inheritance tax isn’t part of it.

In the aftermath of the General Election, I identified three key tasks for the SNP:

1. Get better in government with the powers and money we do have.
2. Be very clear about the limits of devolution and show how in every area of policy independence would allow us to do more.
3. Provide a viable and believable strategy to challenge the denial of the right of people in Scotland to choose an independent future.

These challenges are all still there.

The coming Scottish Budget will be an opportunity to move forward on two of these fronts. It can embody decisions that reflect the priorities of people here for social justice and equity. It can offer policies that are different from the choices being followed south of the Border – different because a different government, with different priorities, is making them.

But it must also explain what cannot be done, and how Scotland’s choice is heavily constrained by others. It should exemplify what could be done if a Scottish government had the same fiscal powers as the UK.

These include the power to tax corporate profits to protect small businesses whilst realising greater revenues from global monoliths. The power to invest in and take public control of our vast green energy reserves and accelerate the drive to renewables. The power to tackle the housing crisis with a social housebuilding programme the like of which has not been seen for generations.

It is by making these arguments that we present the case for Scotland’s independence as an opportunity to improve the lives of ordinary people. Not an abstract notion, but real power – real change.

Unless we do that, why would anyone want to drag themselves out of the despond of disillusion? And in doing it, the Scottish Government will also have the tools to face down their own critics, snipers and hypocrites who will try to make us take the blame for the constraints and constrictions of devolution.