No, Anas Sarwar does not look "increasingly credible as a future First Minister" - don't be so unutterably silly

I've been asked by a couple of people what I thought of Mandy Rhodes' article in Holyrood magazine claiming that Anas Sarwar "looks increasingly credible as a future First Minister".  The politest way I can put it is that I thought it was an extremely poorly reasoned piece and an example of the Scottish media at its very worst. I say that with some regret, because Mandy Rhodes has been a breath of fresh air in the way she's fearlessly covered the GRA issue.  But using the bog-standard weasel word "increasingly" to try to confect an appearance of momentum behind the Labour party is fairly typical of what happens whenever the Scottish media get bored with the political status quo and try to weave a narrative of "change is coming"- with the "change" naturally meaning a return to the old comfort zone of perpetual Labour-Unionist domination.  It would obviously be justified if the facts actually supported the notion that we're in the early stages of a changing of the guard, but they simply don't.

Although Labour have managed to reclaim second place in Scottish politics after several years in which they mostly trailed the Tories, they still find themselves a formidably long way behind the SNP.  The average SNP lead on the constituency ballot in the last six Holyrood opinion polls is twenty-one percentage points.  Realistically, if a change of government was on its way, you'd be expecting to see Labour in the outright lead at this stage of the electoral cycle, not twenty-one points adrift.  And even if they were in the lead, you'd still be wondering how likely they'd be to stay there, because it's common for there to be a swing back to the governing party as an election approaches.  The reality is that Labour remain light-years from reclaiming top spot and it's very difficult to see what will change that.  There was certainly not much sign of a looming breakthrough in the local elections last month, when the SNP took slightly more gains than Labour did.

It's true that if Labour win back power at Westminster, there's a possibility that Sarwar could ride on Keir Starmer's coattails and take a few Scottish seats in the House of Commons from the SNP with a 2017-style result.  But remember that even by narrowing the SNP's lead to ten points in 2017, Labour still only won a relatively modest seven seats.  And power at Westminster is a double-edged sword, because it means that the 2026 Holyrood election will take place in mid-term for a Starmer government, by which point voters may be ready to give Labour a kicking.  It could actually make things a lot harder for Sarwar, not easier.

There is, of course, a caveat to all this, which is that the Scottish Parliament is elected by proportional representation, meaning that there could be a unionist majority after 2026 even if the SNP remain the largest single party by miles.  And if there's a unionist majority, it's theoretically possible that Sarwar could replicate what happened recently in some local councils (such as Edinburgh and Fife) by becoming First Minister from a distant second place with support from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.  The problem is, though, that such a Labour-Tory deal at national level would be much more visible than the equivalent deals in local councils.  It would be noticed by voters and it would destroy Labour's mythologising of themselves as an anti-Tory party.  They were once seen as "the only possible alternative to Tory rule", but after a deal they wouldn't even be "an" alternative to Tory rule. They would be Tory allies, the Tories' path back to influence.

And in spite of Mandy Rhodes' best efforts, this would not be in any way analogous to the informal understanding that existed between the SNP government and the Tories in the 2007-2011 parliament.  The SNP were the largest single party back then, which meant the Tories didn't even have to vote for Alex Salmond for him to become First Minister - they abstained on the vote, as did the Liberal Democrats.  For Sarwar to become First Minister from a distant second place, the Tories would have to actively vote for him.  It would be clearly seen and understood by voters that he was only there because the Tories put him there.  I doubt if Sarwar would be foolish enough to even accept such a poisoned chalice.  If he did, the likelihood is that any government he led would fall apart fairly quickly - but the consequences would linger on for potentially decades.  It would be a "1979 moment" on steroids.

If Labour have any thoughts about becoming the largest party in Scotland ever again, they'll need to win back the Yes voters who abandoned them in 2015 and have stuck with the SNP ever since.  Doing a deal with the Tories would exclude any chance of that for a very long time.  By taking power as Tory allies once, they would ensure that the only way they can ever be in power at any point thereafter is as Tory allies.  It's fool's gold.

Incidentally, Ms Rhodes blasts the SNP over a sense of "entitlement" in criticising the unionist deals that have frozen them out of power in some local councils.  Although I'm not in the SNP anymore, I'm not sure that's entirely fair.  OK, coalition deals are a normal part of any proportional voting system, but they're also a choice that political parties freely enter into.  It's entirely legitimate to hold up a mirror to Scottish Labour and point out that the choice they have made to deal with the Tories rather than progressive parties is hopelessly at odds with the values they have always tried to project, and that voters should draw some conclusions from that.

*  *  *

Scot Goes Pop Fundraising

Over the years, Scot Goes Pop has provided extensive Scottish polling analysis and political commentary, as well as commissioning no fewer than six full-scale opinion polls, and producing numerous podcasts and videos.  If you'd like to help me continue this work, donations are welcome via any of the following methods...

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.  

#Referendum2023 : It's ON! Preparations for our guaranteed referendum next year move into frenzied new gear as it emerges more details will be set out SHORTLY

So here we are in the second week of June 2022, the referendum we've been guaranteed by December 2023 is thus supposedly just eighteen months away at most, we have a BBC reporter not unreasonably making the point that activity on independence campaigning seems peculiarly absent if the referendum is actually going to take place on the promised timetable, and yet Nicola Sturgeon has chosen this moment to reiterate the guarantee of a 2023 referendum in absolutely watertight language.

"People in Scotland will have the ability to make their views known on independence whether Boris Johnson is Prime Minister or not because that is democracy and that’s what I’m focused on. I have a mandate to give people the choice within the first half of this parliament and I intend to honour that mandate and I will set out more details on that shortly." - Nicola Sturgeon, SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland, 7th June 2022

For the uninitiated, the first half of this parliament ends midway during the autumn of 2023, and therefore Ms Sturgeon is once again explicitly guaranteeing that a referendum will have been held by then.

So Philip Sim and the BBC really ought to set their cynicism to one side.  It may look like nothing is going on at the moment, but shortly, by God just you wait, shortly there's going to be activity and stuff.  Details, even.  You won't know what's hit you.

SCOT GOES POP #Referendum2023 COUNTDOWN CLOCK

There are just 211 days until the earliest possible date for #Referendum2023 (5th January)

There are just 561 days until the last possible date for #Referendum2023 (21st December)

(Note: the Countdown Clock calculations assume that tradition will be maintained by holding #Referendum2023 on a Thursday, and that it will be before Christmas.)

The result of the confidence vote is a total vindication of the strategic genius of the SNP-Green government in guaranteeing that the independence referendum will be held BEFORE the next general election

In many ways, the tight result of tonight's confidence vote is the dream outcome for the Yes campaign in #Referendum2023.  Even by the standards of Tory PMs, Boris Johnson is horrifically unpopular in Scotland, and now he will stagger on, further weakened, and be the vision of government that unionists present as the alternative to independence next year. The hardening of Brexit, which also forms a key part of what the Yes campaign will be arguing that Scotland needs independence to avoid, will also now not be thwarted in the interim by the election of a more moderate Tory leader.

But of course these massive advantages for Yes only hold true because the majority SNP-Green government have guaranteed that the referendum will take place well before the general election in 2024.  If they hadn't done that, and if there was any question of the referendum not taking place until after 2024, tonight would have considerably eroded the prospects for independence.  Labour are more likely to win the 2024 election now that a weakened Boris remains in harness, and Brexit is thus more likely to be softened a little after that election.  The post-2024 environment would be a much less favourable one in which to seek a Yes majority.  So there can no longer be any doubt that the SNP leadership did absolutely the right thing by facing down those in their own party calling for a further kicking of the can down the road, and instead saying absolutely firmly, "no ifs, no buts", the referendum simply MUST and WILL be held during 2023.  Bring it on, because we all know that now the promise of a 2023 referendum has so wisely been made, we can count on the SNP-Green government to deliver it.

SCOT GOES POP #Referendum2023 COUNTDOWN CLOCK

There are just 213 days until the earliest possible date for #Referendum2023 (5th January)

There are just 563 days until the last possible date for #Referendum2023 (21st December)

(Note: the Countdown Clock calculations assume that tradition will be maintained by holding #Referendum2023 on a Thursday, and that it will be before Christmas.)

*  *  *

Scot Goes Pop Fundraising

Over the years, Scot Goes Pop has provided extensive Scottish polling analysis and political commentary, as well as commissioning no fewer than six full-scale opinion polls, and producing numerous podcasts and videos.  If you'd like to help me continue this work, donations are welcome via any of the following methods...

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.  

What are the implications of today's Boris Ballot for the Scottish independence campaign?

As you'll almost certainly have seen by now, the much-anticipated confidence vote in Boris Johnson's leadership of the Conservative Party has at last been triggered, and will take place tonight.  It's completely ludicrous that a ballot is taking place on the same day that it's announced - I can't think of any other context in which something like that would happen.  It presumably indicates that Graham Brady is working in Johnson's interests and has calculated that a quick vote will prevent momentum building up against the Prime Minister.

The delicious aspect of this, though, is that Douglas Ross is still the Westminster MP for Moray (one of the multiple jobs he refused to give up when he became Scottish Tory leader) and thus will have a vote tonight.  At first I wondered if the speediness of the ballot would be a get-out clause for him due to the difficulty of getting to London in time, but it turns out that there will be provision for remote voting.  So he's going to have to jump one way or the other, and realistically he's going to have to tell us how he votes.  It's not tenable for a party leader to hide behind a secret ballot. Past precedent suggests Ross has no moral compass whatsoever and will be solely motivated by being seen to be on the winning side - but he's been badly burned before after he incorrectly guessed what the winning side would be. My guess is he'll play it safe this time by backing Johnson but making a show of reluctance for the TV cameras: "I didn't vote FOR Boris Johnson as such, quite frankly Colin I was voting AGAINST Vladimir Putin."

An even bigger issue for us is how the outcome of the ballot will impact upon the prospects for independence.  Boris Johnson is uniquely unpopular in Scotland, and given that the majority SNP-Green government at Holyrood have guaranteed us that an independence referendum will take place before the next Westminster election in May 2024, there's a strong case to be made that it would be better for the Yes side if Johnson remains in harness to become effectively the leader of the No campaign in the referendum.  But unthinkable as it may seem, let's just suppose that the SNP and Greens renege on their #2023ReferendumGuarantee, perhaps because of a volcanic eruption in Inverurie or something.  In that case, the next general election would go ahead before any vote on independence.  Assuming it would be more optimal for the case for independence to be contrasted with ongoing Tory rule from London, it's arguable that it would be better if the Tories went into the election with someone capable of winning in England - and it's also arguable that someone like Jeremy Hunt is now more capable of that than Johnson.

The last time I made that point, our old friend Scottish Skier (you know, the one with the French wife and the Irish passport, although he rarely mentions them) took to the comments section of Wee Ginger Dug to accuse me of outing myself as a Tory sympathiser.  Er, no, Skier, it's called realistic and honest political analysis - something of an alien concept for you, admittedly.

*  *  *

Scot Goes Pop Fundraising

Over the years, Scot Goes Pop has provided extensive Scottish polling analysis and political commentary, as well as commissioning no fewer than six full-scale opinion polls, and producing numerous podcasts and videos.  If you'd like to help me continue this work, donations are welcome via any of the following methods...

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.  

If the SNP want to persuade people of the need for independence, don't tell us what you love about the British state - tell us what is wrong with it, and what makes Scotland different

Someone pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago that my little gang of stalkers in the Wee Ginger Dug comments section were claiming that my blog, of all things, is to blame for the fact that the Yes vote isn't even higher than it currently is.  I forgot to look up the comments at the time, and it's long enough ago now that I'm unlikely to find them. But let's assume for the sake of argument that these barking mad comments were actually made.  I think I worked out once from my stats that Scot Goes Pop reached approximately 2% of the Scottish population in one calendar year - which is not at all shabby for a one-man blog, but nevertheless a lot of those are people who just visit once or twice in a year, perhaps because they've followed a link from social media.  The idea that I could have a transformative effect on the independence debate, whether in a positive or negative direction, is pretty fanciful.  But it's not at all fanciful that Nicola Sturgeon and her Scottish Government ministers, who are on our TV screens every day of the year, could have either a positive or negative transformative effect.

Let me gently remind my stalkers that during the remarkable period from mid-2020 to early 2021, every single opinion poll (including three that I commissioned myself) showed a pro-independence majority.  Nicola Sturgeon quite rightly received a huge amount of credit for that, and many of her cheerleaders argued that it was total vindication for Ms Sturgeon's cautious strategy of continually kicking the referendum can further down the road.  It would be crazy to change a strategy that is plainly working, they said.  But then when the Yes numbers started dipping again, suddenly Nicola Sturgeon and her government weren't responsible at all.  A few individuals (naming no names, but Mark McGeoghegan) absurdly tried to blame it on the Alba Party instead (!), and when that inevitably failed to stick, the next claim was that it was all down to some mysterious force of nature that was holding Yes back.  "Scotland is inherently a conservative country and won't be ready for independence for some time yet!  This is total vindication for Nicola Sturgeon's strategy of delay!"

Hmmm. Isn't it remarkable that, no matter whether the Yes vote goes up or down or remains static, it's still proof that endless delay and prevarication is a great idea?  Scientists might say that there's an issue of 'falsifiability' here.  If you're claiming a certain turn of events as proof that delay is desirable, then if the opposite thing happens instead, it really ought to be proof that delay is a bad idea.  But mysteriously it doesn't seem to work that way.

When Russia invaded Ukraine a few months ago, there was self-righteous anger in many quarters if anyone tried to draw any parallels at all between Ukraine and Scotland.  In the hope that we might have more of a sense of perspective by now, let's take a deep breath and have a look at a few of the similarities and difference between the countries - because there are both.

* Scotland has a much longer history as a sovereign state than Ukraine does.  Scotland was internationally recognised as an independent country for several centuries prior to 1707.  By contrast, Ukraine's history as a sovereign state is mostly confined to the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and to a handful of years after the October Revolution in 1917.  At other times, Ukraine has generally been part of a Russian Empire in some form or another, albeit while being recognised as having a distinct culture.

* As in Scotland, millions of Ukrainians natively speak the language of their larger neighbour.  Millions of others have Ukrainian as their native language - which is analogous to the Scots language, because it has roughly the same degree of close similarity to the Russian language as Scots does to English.

* There are very close family ties between Ukraine and Russia, just as there are between Scotland and England.  During the indyref campaign, it was often claimed that 50% of Scots have family in England (although of course that would mean 50% don't), and in a similar way there have been countless stories of Ukrainians trying to explain the reality of the war to their disbelieving fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters in Russia.

* Because of the immense historical, political, family and linguistic connections between Ukraine and Russia, it is often claimed that the two countries essentially make up the same culture, the same country.  Exactly the same claim is made about Scotland and England.  In both cases, those who disagree are accused of "the narcissism of small differences" (by Michael Ignatieff, for instance) and of causing trouble for its own sake by ripping families apart and creating artificial distance where there ought to be closeness.  In particular, both Ukrainian and Scottish "separation" is supposed to create a "security risk" - and it would be hard to dispute that the point has been proved in Ukraine, even though it's categorically Russia's fault rather than Ukraine's.  In Scotland's case, the idea of a security risk seems rather more fantastical.

And yet in spite of all this, what is sometimes referred to as "the international community" is fully behind Ukraine's defence of its national independence, while it is neutral at best and hostile at worst to the idea of Scottish self-government.  Why would that be?  Well, admittedly to a large extent it's because of Ukraine's good fortune in already being a sovereign country.  When it comes down to it, the international community regards the abstract concept of sovereignty as far more important than the rights of peoples to determine their own future.  

But could there also be something more?  Even before the war broke out, Ukraine's leaders were not exactly squeamish about talking up their country's differences with Russia and talking down the similarities.  Zelenskyy even said last year that Ukraine had "nothing in common" with Russia - and remember he's a native Russian speaker who owes much of his career as a comedian and actor to success in Russia, just as so many Scottish creatives owe their careers to success in England.  But he's plainly not a slave to the "narcissism of small differences" argument, and it would be a bit hard to argue that he'd be more effective as a national leader if he was.  If you believe the threat to Ukraine's independence is an emergency, if you believe that Ukraine needs to be independent from Russia, then there's plainly an imperative to remind people of what makes Ukraine and Russia different from each other, not what makes them similar.

That's a lesson that it appears the SNP leadership have yet to learn.  They go to royal concerts in London and sit behind Prince Charles, taking selfies of themselves in front of Union Jacks.  They enthusiastically talk of their love and support for Emma Raducanu - not because they like her brand of tennis but specifically because she is British.  They wax lyrical about what a "cherished" institution the BBC is - even though by Nick Robinson's own admission, it exists to "bring Britain together" and thus by extension to oppose our country governing itself.  They insist on "four nation", ie. London-led, approaches to the most serious challenges such as Covid.  They ally themselves with middle-class pan-British liberal movements and seem to care far more about gaining approval from The New European or Guardian leader writers than from working-class people in Scotland (the "Cringe" in a nutshell).

All of this begs the obvious question from voters: if you like the British state so much, why do you want to leave it?  And how on earth do you expect to persuade us to leave it if you keep telling us how great it is?  And why should we tell pollsters that we want an independence referendum with any great urgency when you don't seem to think it's particularly urgent yourselves?

If WGD commenters really want an explanation for current polling numbers, I'd suggest that's the kind of direction they should be looking in.

Nothing beats Nicola (selfie) Sturgeon with her phone out in the Royal box surrounded by Union Jacks. pic.twitter.com/BtGUt2BYoT

— Tim Cooke (@sqlblues) June 5, 2022

@NicolaSturgeon delivering independence from the Royal Box outside Buckingham Palace at the Jubilee Celebrations pic.twitter.com/vfdcrDdfsL

— The Ornithologist (@ornithologist90) June 4, 2022

And this is the organisation that claims it can *and has* reported the Scottish independence debate fairly and even-handedly.

If you believe that, you'll believe anything. As Nick Robinson says himself, the BBC's objective is to "bring Britain together".https://t.co/teUyKKkTcE

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) June 5, 2022