On the surface, it should have been a good week for the SNP.
Without having to even make the point, the party could bask in the stark differences between Scottish nationalism and the British nationalism playing out in riots on the streets of England and Northern Ireland.
There was also some reflected glory thanks to Humza Yousaf, who has emerged as a man of real stature after his dreadful term as First Minister. His full-throated denunciation of the riots as far-right racial and religious “pogroms” aimed at British Muslims and people of colour was admirable and necessary – as was his castigation of Twitter billionaire Elon Musk as “one of the most dangerous men on the planet”.
Yousaf drew real and much-deserved sympathy when he spoke of his family’s fears of race hate and Islamophobia and how it might drive him not just from Scotland and Britain but the west entirely. He also showed a self-deprecating and comic honesty when he admitted that he “f**ked up” by kicking the Greens out of government, precipitating his own fall from power.
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However, beneath the surface – and crowded out by the chaos of the far-right – facts and figures have been emerging which should make the SNP very despondent indeed. New research by the Scottish Election Study showed that the link between how Scots view independence and how they vote has come to a “decisive” end.
The Scottish Election Study is an independent academic body which researches how the nation votes and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. It’s run by academics such as Ailsa Henderson, the much-respected professor of political science at Edinburgh University.
At the 2021 Holyrood election, 92% of us voted for a party aligned to our constitutional position. Remarkably, however, at the last general election, the areas which voted Yes in 2014 were now actually less likely to back the SNP than areas which voted No.
It’s quite the turnaround. The research concluded that Scottish voters’ views on independence and the party they back have suffered a “decisive break”. Indeed, more Yes voters now back unionist parties, than vice versa. The SNP has also lost more support in Yes areas than No areas.
Ergo, Labour’s election victory and the SNP’s trouncing.
Marta Miori, from Oxford University’s Nuffield College, complied the findings. She said: “The relationship between referendum vote and support for pro-independence parties has become so weak that it no longer constitutes a meaningful correlation.”
She added: “Going further, the weak relationship that does exist is negative. Although only marginally, places with a higher share of Yes vote in 2014 are now less likely to support pro-independence parties than No areas.”
Miori explained that “throughout the period of constitutional alignment, the relationship between support for independence and party choice was stronger on the Yes side. While almost all Yes voters supported a pro-independence party between 2015 and 2019, No voters were more likely to spread out across pro-indy and pro-Union parties.”
However, the “picture for 2024 is completely different”, she explained. “Relative to the percentage of 2014 Yes support in each seat, pro-independence parties have now under-performed in almost all constituencies.
“With pro-Union parties winning a majority of seats across both Yes and No areas, it is now pro-independence voters that are making a bigger constitutional compromise.”
In truth, the research simply shows that academia now accords with what everyone with a brain in their head knew to be true. The SNP has performed so badly in government that soft Yes voters – especially Labour voters who shifted for a time to the SNP after backing independence – have sickened of the nationalists.
The SNP has neither delivered on its endless promises that ‘indy is coming’, nor functioned when it came to domestic policy. The party has been a shambles, filled with division and back-stabbing, constantly tripping over its own clown shoes, and frankly voters don’t really know what it stands for beyond independence. Is it socially conservative or socially liberal?
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So, in effect, the SNP has now become something of a ‘booty call’ for left-leaning voters. A booty call, for any shy and retiring violets among readers, is a late-night phone call placed to someone you can potentially hook-up with when you’re feeling frisky and want a bit of no-strings fun.
In other words, if Labour disappoints, then an increasingly promiscuous electorate may return to the SNP to satisfy its political needs. But if Labour don’t let them down, then there’s no reason to go bed-hopping. The fortunes of the SNP, as always, depend on what happens at Westminster.
For a party which once bestrode the political world like a colossus, it’s all a rather sad and humiliating fall from grace.
Matters are unlikely to improve. This week we saw the attainment gap between the richest and poorest parts of Scotland for Highers hit record levels. Remember, Nicola Sturgeon told us all to judge the party on education.
Well, it seems Scotland has judged the SNP and found the party thoroughly substandard. Voters today want good schools, safe streets, decent hospitals and the pound in their pocket to go further. They don’t want promises of indy never-lands and endless policy failure.
Disgruntlement is growing in SNP ranks – not that disgruntlement was ever far away, to be honest. There’s reported discontent over the draft agenda for the upcoming conference.
Proposals to examine how to convince No voters have been excluded, while “pointless and performative” motions – like what Scotland’s national anthem should be – are on the agenda.
The irony appears lost on the SNP that they should be discussing neither issue, what they should be doing is working out how to govern Scotland better. The SNP is evidently incapable of getting it through its increasingly thick skull that good governance is the only way to save its bacon at the next Holyrood election.
Of course, maybe they just want to be the electorate’s late-night booty call. If so, carry on as you’re doing, SNP.
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