On 25 March, the UK Government blocked Ming Yang’s bid to build Britain’s largest wind turbine manufacturing plant on the Moray coast. The Chinese renewable energy company had proposed to invest £1.5bn at Ardersier Port to create 1,500 green jobs before their plans were rejected on “national security” grounds. One week later, Alexander Dennis announced its intention to close the company’s bus manufacturing factory in Falkirk, laying off 115 workers amidst plans to move the business south of the border. Following the closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery and the Mossmorran ethylene plant, these decisions constitute the latest in a series of heavy blows to the promise of a ‘just’ energy transition.
Both pieces of news broke during the initial weeks of the ‘short’ campaign for this year’s Scottish Parliament election. Neither, however, had any impact whatsoever. Having released brief statements shirking responsibility for their country’s diminishing industrial footprint, the political class moved quickly on, returning to more comfortable terrain: A homophobic joke told in 2018, the mirage of independence and piecemeal policy announcements.
In less than a month, Scotland will elect its next government. Yet beyond the headlines, one can’t escape the sense that this May’s poll is passing voters by. Engaged solely in ritualistic electioneering, Scottish politicians lack even the dynamism to adapt their pitches to reflect the concerns of workers in Central and Northern Scotland. In this sense, as in so many others, the election campaign exists apart and detached from the public which candidates claim to engage.
For all that political parties fetishise being “out on the doors” and engaging with the electorate, there’s little evidence to suggest they care about the response. No Scottish party leader is viewed positively overall by the public. John Swinney is the least unpopular but still boasts a ‘net’ favourability rating of -12. The grim logic of this election, consequently, dictates that, without any enthusiasm, the Scottish people have no choice but to grant a faction of their deeply unpopular governing class a further five years in office. For aspiring MSPs, particularly those in the SNP, this drastically lowers the stakes of the campaign.
The average healthy life expectancy in Scotland fell to just 59 years in February, with the number proportionately lower in post-industrial areas. These are appalling figures which require dedicated political action, but such change isn’t on the table this May. Assured of a lacklustre victory, there is no imperative for John Swinney’s SNP to even discuss, let alone deliver a material offer to the Scottish population which extends beyond the status quo. Indeed, much of the Party’s campaign pledges only to “defend” existing policy, be it free university tuition or NHS prescriptions. There is no political pressure to extend such commitments for as long as Scotland’s governing party of 19 years retains a polling lead of almost 20 points.
Recent polling suggests the SNP’s share of the constituency vote, however, has diminished by around 13% since 2021, when the Party won 47% of yellow ballots. Saving John Swinney’s blushes, support for Scottish Labour and the Conservatives has experienced a similar downturn.
With this context in mind, it follows that the Scottish election campaign, characterised by a distinctly uninspired electorate and an outcome that feels pre-determined, should be remarkably well choreographed — or, to put it less kindly, dull as dishwater. The banality of Scottish Labour’s promise to “get the basics right” or the SNP’s “fresh start” belies something else: The composition of Scotland’s political economy is not up for democratic contest. If it were, one could have expected a more determined effort to politicise Alexander Dennis’ closure or Ming Yang’s ill-fated investment. Neither was forthcoming — from anywhere. That’s because, in an election campaign where public consent is taken for granted, politics and ideological confrontation are optional extras. Candidates and Party leaders alike can afford to take their lead from sites of power other than the public, be they wealthy donors or fawning lobbyists.
This will not be a new experience for the majority of those running to represent the Scottish electorate in May. Despite an unprecedented number of sitting MSP’s standing down, more than 65% of Scottish Labour, Tory and Green candidates are already considered ‘political professionals’. Staggeringly, this is the case for 98.6% of those contesting the election for the SNP. The point here is not simply that “the shout of the welder” and “the speak of the Mearns” will be noticeably absent in the next Parliament. It is rather that Holyrood is talking to itself by drawing new blood almost exclusively from the offices, consultancies and organisations already in its orbit. This cycle insulates the Parliament from genuine democratic accountability and relegates politics to the maintenance of a settlement which guarantees secure employment to Scotland’s devolved establishment.
In this climate, it is no surprise that stories of sleaze and misconduct have dominated the early stages of the election campaign. These are each, ultimately, symptoms of democratic decay and a governing class which has grown all too comfortable after a quarter century of devolution. Importantly, the sense of impropriety which has descended on the contest is all-encompassing. While the background of Reform UK’s candidates (just 25% of whom are ‘political professionals’) may be distinct from their competitors, their behaviour is not. More than half a dozen of Malcom Offord’s colleagues have been suspended or resigned in the last two weeks, denting the Party’s aspiration to populist insurgency in a compelling illustration of the extent to which it too resembles Scotland’s existing governing apparatus. “They’re all the same” is a complaint against which Nigel Farage’s Party has sought to make itself immune. Their efforts look ever more likely to have failed with each passing day of the campaign — hence the desperate and racist “Scotland is at breaking point” advertising vans displayed around Glasgow’s East End in recent days.
With the quality of this year’s election unlikely to improve as polling day draws near, maintaining a clear-eyed analysis of devolution and the structural causes of Scotland’s malaise is critical. It may be tempting to view Scotland’s politicians’ current lack of vision as a new development. The Scottish Greens, for example, have begun to pitch to swithering SNP voters by contrasting John Swinney’s pivot to the “centre” with Nicola Sturgeon’s supposedly progressive track record. Such a rewriting of history, ignoring as it does the former First Minister’s embrace of neoliberalism, does not stand up to scrutiny. Only by beginning with an honest appraisal of Scotland’s democracy and political economy can we hope to elevate our national discourse from the post-political desert in which it is stuck.
