The familiar frown across First Minister John Swinney’s face becomes a scowl whenever he is asked about the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) election campaign. And it’s not hard to see why! The SNP are facing a calamity at the ballot box, resulting from the general dead end the party is in.
Swinney angrily complained about the snap election announcement being ‘disrespectful’ to Scotland, as polling day falls during Scottish school holidays. But this inconvenience is the least of his worries.
Decline
Swinney has just taken hold of the Scottish government after a year of slipping popular support, a worsening crisis in public services, and a simmering civil war within the SNP that recently ousted the previous party leader.
Even more worrying for Swinney, the SNP is loaded with debt that adds up to nearly a million pounds, donations have all but dried up, and members have been leaving in droves. Without much of a ‘war chest’, and with hardly any troops to take into the field, the SNP won’t be able to mount much of an election campaign.
Last year the party was caught using zero-hours agency workers to deliver leaflets for the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. This was due to the emptying out of SNP branches, and a general lack of enthusiasm for the party, even among its most loyal supporters.
In the opinion polls, the SNP find themselves neck-and-neck with their old rival Labour, whom they almost buried in the 2015 Westminster election. Then the SNP won a landslide victory in Scotland, gaining all but three seats and nearly 50% of the vote.
Nearly ten years later, that enormous mandate has been betrayed again and again by the SNP leaders. The party continues to style itself as a pro-independence, anti-austerity party. But with nothing to show on these fronts, its appeals increasingly fall on deaf ears.
Cynicism
Working-class voters can see the cynicism with which Swinney and his lieutenants try to rally supporters. They promise independence referendums, demand Scotland’s ‘right to choose’, and so on, while having no actual proposals, nor any intention to follow through.
It is the same political ploy once used by Nicola Sturgeon, reused by Humza Yousaf, and now recycled by Swinney.
With this approach the SNP leaders are in fact setting up the independence movement for another decisive setback. As the SNP loses most of its MPs, the call from the conservative wing of the party to admit defeat, postpone the question of independence, and instead focus on government, will become louder.
This same faction is in its ascendancy, with their key figurehead Kate Forbes appointed as Deputy First Minister. She and Swinney openly talk about the need for a ‘pro-business’ agenda in Holyrood, criticising the policies of their SNP predecessors to raise taxes, increase environmental regulations, and make big promises on healthcare and education.
It appears that they are aping Keir Starmer, who himself is just imitating the Tories.
Swinney’s belief that the SNP will push the incoming Labour government ‘to the left’ is absolutely laughable, considering the nationalist party’s own rightwards rhetorical drift, and the billions of pounds of cuts already lined up by the Scottish government.
Get organised
This general election will be a harsh punishment for both the SNP and the Tories.
Although the logic of the ballot box means many will lend their vote to Labour, it will be without any illusions in Starmer who has shown himself to be a complete stooge for the hated Westminster establishment. There will probably be a large degree of abstention, along with votes for independents and minor parties.
What is needed is for the working class to get organised and fight against all the ruling class parties. Only through militant class struggle can we kick out all these careerists, criminals, and bloodsuckers.
This is the message the Revolutionary Communist Party is taking to the streets in the coming weeks – and beyond.
