From the fiscal framework to Scottish Labour's list selection - 'deal or no deal'

"There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing,” said Robert Burns, and as Scotland celebrated his birthday, its politicians marked 100 campaigning days to the Scottish Parliament elections.
How they marked the occasion was less clear, however, as a number of high-stakes discussions took place behind closed doors.

Finance Secretary John Swinney racked up the air miles, travelling from discussions on Holyrood’s new funding settlement with the joint exchequer committee in London, to facing the MPs of Westminster’s Scottish affairs committee in his hometown of Perth. 

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He told the committee: “We are getting very close to the end of the road and I think we’ve still got a lot of distance to travel” if the so-called Valentine’s Day deal would materialise. This backed up what the Deputy First Minister had told Holyrood in January: “I will just not agree to a fiscal framework that is not consistent with Smith. 

“If we do not have an agreement before the 12th of February then I will not put a legislative consent motion to the parliament and if it is not put by the 12th then it can’t be considered before dissolution.”

Is he trying to extract a better deal, or is he sabotaging the Scotland Bill? 

Whispers of a stalemate behind the closed doors in Whitehall, fears over the future of the Barnett formula and academics questioning the workability of the principles of the framework have only added to a sense of mounting tension around the talks. 

Economist Professor David Bell told Holyrood’s Devolution Committee the principle of “no detriment”, in which neither the UK nor Scottish Governments should suffer financially from policy decisions made by the other, would be unworkable in practice.  

Valentine’s Day, not for the first time, could yet lead to disappointment.

There was no love lost at Swinney’s next private engagement either, as he faced down council leaders furious with his budget.

The ongoing council tax freeze, coupled with a £350m cut in funding, was “totally unacceptable” said local authority umbrella body COSLA, but the counterargument has been the allocation of funding for social care through the health boards as part of the ongoing integration of services.

Integration of health and social care is “the absolute gold nugget of public service reform”, according to Swinney, but many councils may be asking where corners should be cut to accommodate it.

Some councillors, of course, will have an eye on what they might see as a promotion in May, and all of the parties have published their candidates for the regional list ballot. For Scottish Labour, however, the deal hasn’t yet been concluded, with Kezia Dugdale due to announce the results this weekend. 

The switch to a one member one vote system has meant the internal canvassing within Scottish Labour may yet have some radical repercussions for Scottish politics. 

If the endless stream of opinion polls pointing to the SNP consolidating its dominance are to be believed, the regional list could be many Labour incumbents’ best chance of re-election, but Dugdale’s revised selection system means they are competing with former MSPs and MPs, councillors and party talent groomed for success over many years.

And making that selection are branches revived in numbers by the Corbyn effect. Dundee and Fife branches backed Corbyn in the national leadership election, along with almost all of the Edinburgh branches and many others.

At a UK level, members of Labour’s parliamentary group continue to brief the press on every detail of discussions behind closed doors in an attempt to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. The Scottish list selection may prove to be the first opportunity for the majority who voted for him to send a statement of their own. 

Dugdale travelled to meet the UK shadow cabinet for a private meeting of her own. There was speculation as to what was said, but one confirmed outcome was an offer of help to send the ‘big guns’ north to help with the election campaign. If they are the same big guns who are gunning for Corbyn, what reception will they get?

Corbyn himself told ITV’s This Morning “everyone is getting along just fine”.

Once selection is finalised, the battle for manifesto pledges begins in earnest, but some punches have already been thrown. Organisations such as Shelter, Oxfam and the Royal College of Nursing were among those releasing their own early manifestos.

The Royal College of GPs said the SNP were making the profession ‘dispensable’ via budget cuts – perhaps an indication of how their own private chats with government are going.
Meanwhile, alliances formed during the independence referendum still mark Scotland’s political landscape. The unionist parties appear to have picked the same topics to put at the heart of their campaigns: education and Scotland’s new tax powers. 

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie promised to “save Scotland’s education system” with a pupil premium, while the Scottish Conservatives have pledged to scrap free tuition to pay for a £60m college fund, as well as many policies for schools including splitting school inspections from Education Scotland.

Kezia Dugdale has also said education will be a priority for Scottish Labour, paid for by raising the top rate of tax from 45 per cent to 50 per cent.

The Scottish Conservatives, talking up a poll which appeared to show them closing in on Labour for second place, are considering a 30 per cent ‘middle band’ of income tax recommended by their tax commission.

Meanwhile, the SNP’s former allies in the Yes camp have also staked their claim for that second vote. 

The Scottish Greens seized on the fact several SNP branches had motions to ban fracking rejected from the party’s conference agenda, along with remarks by Nicola Sturgeon at First Minister’s Questions rejecting calls to divest from fossil fuels.

The left-wing electoral alliance RISE sought to gain purchase from the fact the SNP may omit a second referendum on independence from its manifesto, pledging to fight for a second referendum within the lifetime of the next parliament.

All parties look to have a mountain to climb regardless, with the most recent poll by Panelbase for the Sunday Times finding support for the SNP at 50 per cent for the constituency vote and 48 per cent for the regional vote.

Against this backdrop, the Scottish Parliament election campaign is in danger of being upstaged by a very real referendum which could take place shortly after. A number of UK cabinet members, including Scottish Secretary David Mundell, have said they expect the referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union to take place in June. 

Sturgeon said David Cameron would be “selfish” and “disrespectful” to hold it so close to the Holyrood election, but concerns about voter fatigue also exist in London, which elects a new mayor around the same time, and in the other devolved nations.

The apparent preference for an early referendum date seems to contradict Cameron’s progress in the negotiations with other European leaders over redefining Britain’s role in Europe. The Prime Minister has said he’s “not in a hurry” to secure a deal in February, but European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said he was “quite sure” talks would be finalised at a summit in Brussels this month.

This week Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, will table a draft of Cameron’s proposals for the summit, but what has the PM managed to secure? He wants the UK to have the ability to further deregulate the markets and curb benefits to immigrants, and to opt out of further political integration or having to bail out other European countries.

Although it is understood in her attempts to stop a Brexit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has offered Britain the right to halt some in-work benefits for immigrants, it is expected to fall short of the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge to stop all such payments for four years.

Given Cameron’s aim has been to renegotiate a settlement that will appeal to the most Eurosceptic elements of his own party, the stakes couldn not be higher for the Prime Minister in his last parliament.

“It has got to be the right deal. If it is not there we’ve got plenty of time. We don’t need a referendum until the end of 2017,” Cameron told reporters in Ireland.

Sturgeon has warned against a repeat of the negative tactics of Better Together for the pro-EU campaign, but Britain Stronger in Europe has already been accused of scaremongering. 

“It’s a huge risk, we’re taking a huge risk,” said the campaign’s chair, Stuart Rose. Rose forgot the name of his own campaign in an interview with Sky News, prompting a new nickname by opponents. Vote Leave’s Jon Moynihan said instead of making a positive case for remaining in the EU, the Europhiles were “trying to create FUD – fear, uncertainty and doubt”.

Scots smiling at the familiarity of it all will enjoy the moniker Project FUD, even if their future lies in the hands of those talking behind closed doors. 

Burns might say suspicion is a heavy armour, it impedes more than it protects. 

Image: © Anthony Devlin/PA Wire