A new normal

Scottish politics continues to excite, enthuse and in some instances, confuse. In the space of a few days, a visit to Hutchesons’ Grammar School to give the John Maxton lecture to senior students, sharing a political breakfast panel with Lord Maurice Glasman, of ‘Blue Labour’ fame, then, later in the week, hearing Prime Minister Cameron describe the new powers for the Scottish Parliament as “the right resting place for devolution”, convinced me that there is a new normal in Scottish politics – but nobody is quite sure what it is or what the consequences might be. 

John Maxton was a former Hutchesons’ pupil, a red Clydesider, an ILP member and iconic socialist, converted to the progressive cause at Glasgow University, appalled at the poverty and scale of deprivation in Glasgow. But he was also a passionate home ruler at a time when the Liberals, Gladstone and Westminster were debating the Irish Question and when Scottish home rule was a subject of interest in the House of Commons.

Today, home rule is fast emerging as a possible alternative to nationalism and independence. Without a sustainable, credible, popular, attractive and defensible alternative, we will continue to drift towards the break-up of the UK. Despite our third instalment of Westminster powers being announced, we are no closer to a positive constitutional outcome and are in danger of making a difficult post-referendum situation much worse.

Opening up a Holyrood magazine breakfast panel at the National Library, I asked Lord Glasman what he thought Labour stood for. His reply posed another question: who did Labour stand for?  In post-referendum Scotland, the traditional parties are perceived as distant and disconnected with many people they don’t represent or speak for them.

Glasman was right to highlight the plight of working people, the marginalisation of the disadvantaged and excluded, and the unfettered nature of markets extinguishing the hopes of millions and elevating the acquisitive and atomised society over any notion of solidarity and the common good.

Labour has to analyse Glasman’s central thesis of a modern socialism; maybe that is why Labour Party membership and electoral support in Scotland are declining because people are disillusioned.

"Trust and politics are now more important than taxation and powers in the minds of Scots as to how they are governed"

David Cameron’s assertion that his new devolution proposals were “the right resting place for devolution” also contradicts the prevailing wisdom and certainly confronts the much more informed views of the late John Smith about “the settled will of the Scottish people”.

More worryingly, even accepting that the threat of UKIP is never far from his mind, was the comment that there would be no let-up on his plans to prevent Scottish MPs from voting on English matters at Westminster. This confirms that the politics of England are much more pressing and that there are few votes for Conservatives in devolution for Scotland.

But what Cameron ignores or fails to understand is that he is now endangering Scotland’s membership of the UK. Trust and politics are now more important than taxation and powers in the minds of Scots as to how they are governed. 

So the idea of home rule as a counter to independence, political parties defining what and who they stand for and a PM whose partisanship could destroy the Union, provide many challenges for a nation energised and enthused by a rebirth of democratic engagement. But are the traditional parties listening? 

Our post-referendum world suggests that the current changes in Scottish politics are fundamentally different from those in recent years. There is a new and complex mix of ideas and issues but as yet it has not led to the change needed to save the traditional parties. Was 18 September a tipping point? Are we experiencing not merely another turn of the political cycle but a restructuring of the political order where the elections of 2015 and 2016 will be a real test of whether we have a new normal in our politics? 

For some political parties near term survival is the only agenda while others are looking through a fog of uncertainty, hoping against hope that yesterday will return. Certainly, Scottish politics will not look like the normal of recent years.

New forces and ideas have arisen directly from the referendum campaign but others have been steadily at work as the Union has declined, traditional political parties have lost their footing, and global changes have raised serious doubts about the ability of politics and parties to foster our interests and deal with problems that transcend nation state boundaries. 

The referendum showcased the long-term decline of Scottish politics but, more importantly, unleashed new energies which hopefully will transform Scotland and maybe the UK. The last decade of SNP hegemony reflects the new strengths and skills of the nationalists but, equally, it reflects the decline and disintegration of what used to be the strengths of the old parties and their diminishing appeal to a more restless and less trusting electorate.

It is change, stupid! There is a new normal emerging and the old parties have to adapt or decline. Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address in 1863 defined the new covenant of political life and freedom as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. Not a bad place to start in shaping, defining and bringing a new political order to the new normal.