Ideology and policy repositioning after Devolution (1999-2009)

3.3.3. Ideology and policy repositioning after Devolution (1999-2009)

As discussed above, during the second half of the 1980s and the 1990s the SNP managed to overcome factional divisions and to position itself on the left. Under the leadership of Alex Salmond, the party discovered unity and electoral success by re-styling itself as a party of the left but avoiding the socialist radicalism of the ‟79 group in the early 1980s. The moderation strategy was greatly helped, or indeed dictated, by the emerging post-Thatcher consensus which saw New Labour accepting some of the basics of neo-liberism as a means of fostering economic growth. As New Labour‟s principles were injected, though not without some resistance, into the Scottish Labour party, it became easier for the SNP to maintain a leftist profile without flirting with socialist ideas. Nonetheless, Salmond led the party into the campaign for the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999 with a radical social-democratic manifesto which clearly outflanked Labour to the left in several respects (Dodds and Seawright, 2004, p.

98). The underlying strategy was to show how New Labour had absorbed Thatcherite ideas and was producing neo-liberal policies, while the SNP remained faithful to social-democratic principles and policies. The flagship of such social-social-democratic agenda was the „Penny for Scotland‟, i.e. the proposal to use Parliament tax powers to increase taxation by 1% so as to fund education, health and housing (SNP, 1999 Manifesto, p. 2).

Analysts and commentators considered the „Penny for Scotland‟ policy as not particularly rewarding and perhaps damaging (Jones, 1999, cited in McEwen, 2002, p.

52). The proposal was adopted only two months before the election as a response to Gordon Brown‟s proposal to cut the basic rate of income tax by 1% and left the party

exposed to criticism of economic dilettantism. Beyond the tax rise policy, the manifesto proposed abolition of tuition fees and harshly criticized the privatization of public transport, health and education.

The resignation of Alex Salmond and the election of John Swinney as party leader in 2000 marked a clear departure from the socio-economic approach of 1999.

Already in the 2001 general election, commentators had noticed a shift towards the centre (The Herald, 19/05/01, cited in McEwen, 2002, p. 56). Not only did the party drop the „Penny for Scotland‟ (which also remained out of the 2003 manifesto for the Scottish Parliament) but it also abandoned the commitment to increase National Insurance contributions and to restore benefits for 16-17 year olds. For Swinney the priority was to establish the SNP as a party competent to run the Scottish economy in the modern globalised context, a party that the people could trust as the next office-holder in Holyrood. The focus on economic growth entailed the acceptance of the mainstream, New Labour approach on socio-economic matters. Now, New Labour policies were not criticized for their continuity with Thatcherite policies but for being tailored to English rather than Scottish concerns. Under Swinney‟s leadership, therefore, the SNP moved much closer to New Labour, absorbing the basics of the post-Thatcher neo-liberal consensus. As one MSP put it:

Thatcherism has had a profound impact in Scotland and the rest of the UK. What people expect from governments today is different from what they expected back in the 1970s, and the SNP has not been immune from this ideological change (Shona Robinson, 31/10/06).

Swinney saw this shift as the completion of a trajectory which brought the SNP back to its decentralists and anti-bureaucratic roots of the 1960s and 1970s:

Up to the 1960s and during the 1970s, in my view, the SNP was still a strongly decentralist and anti-bureaucratic party. That ideological perspective entailed a rather limited role for the state and for state ownership. This prevented the party moving too much to the left. However, as a result of Thatcherism and as a consequence of the 79 group‟s influence, the SNP adopted a much more leftist ideology. The state was seen as a solution to everything. In my opinion, in doing so, the party moved away from its decentralist ethos. But from the 1990s we started a process of stepping back from the view that the state should run everything. That brought us back to our roots of a party which is radical, decentralist and moderate

left of the centre, not hard left of the centre. That process… was a very important ideological jump for us. (John Swinney, Edinburgh, 07/11/06).

However, the adoption of New Labour‟s ideas was not confined to the economic policy sphere. The SNP also started to address social problems from an „individual responsibility‟ perspective. This was particularly evident in the case of youth anti-social behaviour, for which the party started to propose repressive policies rather similar to those of Labour and the Conservative party (McEwen, 2002, p. 57). The adoption of a new approach to socio-economic matters, nonetheless, did not represent a rejection of social-democracy. On the contrary, it represented the maturation of a party which had been prone, because of its permanent position at the fringes of the political system, to make sometimes unrealistic promises. It was time now to come to terms with fact that

“you‟ve got to have a vibrant economy and high levels of economic growth if you want to spend money on social services that can improve peoples‟ lives and can create a decent society.” (John Swinney, Edinburgh, 07/11/06).

As discussed below, the synthesis of pro-business, pro-economic growth policies with social-democratic ideals elaborated under Swinney‟s leadership has remained the guiding principle of the party to the present day. However, in the short run it did not pay off electorally. At the 2003 Scottish elections the SNP had to face three main problems. First, it was extremely difficult to push through an agenda of more constitutional reform as the devolution settlement was still too fresh. The party was therefore compelled to tie its economic policies to the actual powers of the Scottish Parliament, thus limiting the breadth of its proposals. Secondly, the SNP‟s anti-Iraq war stance was probably damaging as the UK government was able to announce „victory‟ in the run-up to the election. Last, but definitely not least, the shift to the centre happened when new political competitors on the left were emerging, which resulted in a loss of votes. According to respondents of the Scottish Election Study 2003, the SNP lost 3.9%

of the 1999 party list vote to the Scottish Socialist Party and another 3.9% to the Scottish Greens (Scottish Election Study 2003).

Since having been re-elected leader of the SNP, Alex Salmond has mainly built on the job done by Swinney and the party‟s economic experts, such as Jim Mather, to

make an economic case for Scotland‟s independence and to keep pressure on the Lib-Lab executive for delivering economic growth. One of the papers produced to develop new economic policies states: “it is time for us to stop talking about social democracy in Scotland and start earning it” (SNP, Let Scotland Flourish 2007, 2006, p. 4), a sentence which is definitely in tune with Swinney‟s approach. However, the SNP has also paid more attention to the way in which the party intends to use the benefits of a better economy. It now appears more united and comfortable with its centre-left positioning. As a senior member of the party and MSP revealed: “At the last meeting of the parliamentary group Alex Salmond said „we are a social-democratic party‟ and everyone said „yes‟” (Andrew Welsh, interview with the author, 08/11/06)

In the manifesto for the 2007 Scottish election, economic growth (cutting business taxes) and the anti-social behaviour proposal (getting tougher on those who sell alcohol to teenagers) were „sandwiched‟ between more spending on health services (to keep health centres closer to citizens) and a commitment to scrap the council tax and replace it with a local income tax (SNP, 2007 Manifesto, p. 6). The determination shown by the SNP executive to fulfil its pledge on the abolition of the council tax has caused the party, especially in the context of the economic downturn linked to the consequences of the global financial crisis, to clash with the CBI, the Institute of Directors and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland (Telegraph, 03/09/08).

Opposition to the plan from the Labour and Conservative parties means that the policy has little chance of being approved. However, the Executive has already frozen council tax until 2011, with the Scottish Parliament compensating local councils for their consequent loss of revenue (ibid.). In February 2009, when the Liberal Democrats withdrew their support for the plan too, the executive had to come to terms with reality and decided to give up on their policy until the end of the term (The Times, 12/02/09).

Although this climb-down has been exploited by the competitors, which painted the executive as a liability for Scottish economy, it can be argued that the SNP has prepared a favourable battleground for the next (2011) election. As the now super-minister of the economy John Swinney stated: “Make no mistake, this government will fight the [2011]

election to win a parliamentary majority that backs the abolition of the unfair council tax” (quoted in The Times, 12/02/09).

Table 3.12

SNP (and Labour*) support by self-assigned class, 1997-2007

1997 % 1999 % 2001 % 2003 % 2007 % Middle class 13 (28) 18 (20) 20 (26) 11 (9) 30 (19) Working Class 16 (46) 21 (34) 21 (64) 16 (18) 43 (29)

Source: Scottish Election Studies 1997-2007

*Figures in brackets refer to Labour All data refer to constituency votes

Table 3.13

Best party for working class people

and best party for people running a business, 2007

Lab SNP LibDem Con d.k.

Best party for working class 32 22.8 10 8.1 27.1

Best party for business 12.3 8.9 3.4 49.2 26.2

Source: Scottish Election Study 2007

In spite of the move to the centre and the attempt to create a more constructive relationship with the Scottish business community, the SNP remains a party positioned clearly to the left of the centre and, as far as party competition is concerned, to the left of Labour. This is confirmed both by recent studies based on MSP surveys (Massetti, 2009b) and on mass surveys, as reported in table 3.11 and 3.12. Actually, what surprises is that, after seven years of moderation and attention to business concerns, the SNP is considered the best party for business by less than 9% of voters, less than Labour and five times less than the Conservatives (table 3.12). Further evidence of the leftist stance of the SNP is provided by the analysis of the flow of vote between the 2003 and the 2007 elections, in particular, the collapse of the radical-left Scottish

Socialist Party (which during the term broke up due to the formation of the splinter group Solidarity). Of the 2003 SSP‟s (party list) vote, only 7.5% went to Labour in 2007; 33.9% went to either the SSP (11.33%) or Solidarity (22.6%); 20.8% went to the Greens and 30.2, the biggest share, went to the SNP (Scottish Election Study 2007).

3.4 Party Ideology and Policy: the European Integration Dimension 3.4.1 The Eurosceptic turn: ‘No voice – No entry’ (1950s-1970s)

In the inter-war period, the SNP and the wider Scottish nationalist movement had played little attention to discourses about European integration. However, from the 1940s, under the leadership of the Young and McIntyre, the party started to consider projects of European integration as functionally positive for the advancement of Scottish independence. The European entity that the party envisaged had to be substantively intergovernmental and with Scotland participating on equal basis with the other states:

The SNP welcomes steps towards the Federation of Europe but emphatically declares that the only just basis for such a federation is the equal co-operation of self-governing democratic countries. Domination exercised by such as the British government over Scotland can have no place in a free Europe. Scotland is entitled to direct representation in any European Federation which may consider matters of customs, trade and military co-operation (Minutes of the 1948 National Conference, quoted in Lynch, 1996, p. 28).

Such pro-European attitudes were maintained during the 1950s, when the European project started to develop concretely through the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The SNP demanded direct representation for Scotland because of the centrality of the Steel and Coal sectors in Scottish economy and harshly criticized the decision of the UK government not to join the Community. However, until the early 1960s the party did not devote much of its attention to European integration. In Aims and Policy of the Scottish National Party, a 15-page pamphlet published by the party in 1962, „European co-operation‟ was barely mentioned. The SNP interest in Europe increased when the UK government started to apply for EEC

membership. The party had two main interrelated concerns about EEC membership.

The first was the feeling that the Common Market could have negative effects on the Scottish economy, in particular on the fishing, agricultural and steel industries. The second was that Scotland would be dragged into the EC not as a member-state but as region and that the accession negotiations would be dealt with by London on the basis of English, not Scottish, concerns. The second concern, in fact, reinforced the first one (Lynch, 1996, p. 31). These negative attitudes turned toward an explicit rejectionist position in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the negotiations for UK accession proved some of the SNP‟s concerns to be well founded, especially regarding fisheries.

The party leader, Billy Wolfe, was very critical of the bureaucratic nature and structure of the EC. In 1970 after a visit to Brussels he declared “The Common Marketers of today are as doctrinaire centralists as their opposite numbers in the Kremlin in Moscow” (Billy Wolfe, 1973, p. 139). In 1971 the party committed itself to campaign against UK membership of the EEC and proposed an alternative membership of a free trade agreement similar to those negotiated by Sweden, Norway and Austria.

The SNP defended its position on several grounds. First, it was argued that Scotland had more affinities with the other Northern European countries of the EFTA rather than with the six member-founders (SNP Manifesto, February 1974). Second, in keeping with a longstanding British critique of European integration, the party perceived the EEC as an overtly bureaucratic organization (Ibid). From a „domestic politics‟

perspective, the SNP could freely exploit the „European issue‟, since it was not constrained by any governmental responsibility. The party focused on the sacrifices that the Scottish economy, in particular the fishing industry, was going to suffer from membership of the common market. In this way it tried to highlight the „disgrace‟ of depending on London for the negotiations with Brussels, thus strengthening the argument for independence. In addition, given that all the major British parties were in favour of EEC membership, it attracted many voters amongst the „losers of accession‟ - at the expense of both the Tories (who bore the responsibility for the negotiations) and Labour which, having returned to office in 1974, had renegotiated the membership terms. In particular, the SNP was able to capitalise in electoral terms in the costal

communities depending on the fishing industry. The SNP candidate for the North Angus constituency in 1974, recalls a telling episode: “I remember that the Tory MP had to escape from a meeting with the fishermen. He was photographed running away through fish boxes followed by the crowd” (interview with Andrew Welsh, Edinburgh, 08/11/06).

The extremely positive results of the two 1974 general elections, therefore, can be also explained by the increased visibility that the SNP acquired on the issue of EEC membership. Such visibility increased even further during the referendum on UK‟s continued membership of the EEC which was held by the Labour government in 1975.

A UK-wide referendum represented a unique opportunity for the nationalists since, if different majorities had emerged across the border (in particular an English „Yes‟ vs. a Scottish „No‟), the issue of Scottish sovereignty would have been pushed to the fore of public. The SNP, in spite of some internal divisions (interview with George Reid, Edinburgh, 03/11/06), was the only party in Scotland which campaigned against membership, using the slogan „No voice – No entry‟ (Lynch, 1996, p. 35). This allowed the nationalists not only to reinforce their electoral grip on the costal areas where the fishing industry was concentrated but also led to its taking up of some of the concerns of the Scottish Trade Unions, while the party also benefited from the evident divisions within the Scottish (and British) Labour party.

Opposition to the EEC, indeed, was also linked to the ascendancy of the nationalist left, represented at the highest level by the leader Wolfe, which saw the EEC as a free-market, capitalistic club caring only about big business rather than about people and communities (Interviews with Alasdair Morgan and Bruce Crowford, Edinburgh, 01/11/06 and 31/10/06 respectively). In addition the emergence of the EEC as a military (nuclear) bloc aligned with NATO, also clashed with the SNP‟s anti-nuclear weapon proliferation stance (SNP, Scotland’s Future, August 1974, Manifesto for the October 1974 election, p. 11). Therefore, the rejectionist position was not only based on cost-benefit calculus regarding both Scotland and the party but also ideological distance. However, principled distance from the EEC was not restricted to the left of the party. European integration was, to a great extent, a cross-cutting issue

with many members of all ideological orientations opposing membership and few people being in favour. As a fundamentalist and traditionalist SNP MP declared during the referendum campaign, the EU “represents everything that our party has fought against: centralisation, undemocratic procedures, power politics and a fetish for abolishing cultural differences” (quoted in Lynch, 1996, p. 35).

The results of the referendum were rather disappointing for the SNP, as the

„Yes‟ won by 58.4 against 41.6. Although the „No‟ votes were more than 10% higher in Scotland than in England, that was not enough to build up a political case. However, the party had succeeded in maintaining strong visibility and attracted the sympathy of a strong minority of the electorate. In the following years, the SNP focused on the devolution issue and there was little re-consideration of European integration. Actually the party leadership remained very convinced that the position adopted in 1975 was the right one and that it was the Scottish electorate that got it wrong in supporting the „Yes‟

vote. As the deputy leader Gordon Wilson declared in 1978: “A massive re-think by Scots about the ECC may be needed soon. Evidence is growing that the EEC is proving hostile to Scotland‟s national interest” (quoted in Dardanelli, 2003, p. 275).