The SNP government in Scotland is in trouble. The coalition agreement with the Greens in Scotland (who are a different party to the Greens in England and Wales) has collapsed over the admission that the Scottish government cannot meet its 2030 climate targets.
The SNP is a minority government now.
Former SNP MSP, Ash Regan, now with Alba, is setting out her terms for supporting the SNP.
And there is a real risk that Humza Yasouf might lose a confidence motion shortly before a general election, which can hardly help the SNP's electoral prospects in Westminster polling. None of this is good news for the independence movement.
I am not in the business of defending the SNP. I do not do party politics. Nor am I supporting any other pro-independence group, even if my overall bias in favour of the cause they promote is clear. What I am in the business of is spotting political problems, and Scotland has a massive one right now.
Leave aside the fact that it suffers the general problem of attracting seriously competent people into the political arena. Instead note that in Scotland this problem is exacerbated by the fact that the Holyrood parliament might grant titles like first minister, and allow parties to form cabinets, and posture as if they really are governing the country, but they are not.
This is not to say that the Scottish parliament is without powers. It clearly has some. In general, it has used them to Scotland's advantage. Even in areas like education, where both Scotland and Wales have been criticised for allegedly poor performance it can be argued that is because neither country prioritises the meaningless rote learning that Tories - and Michael Gove in particular - have long been obsessed with. In other words, they have exercised their right to choose.
But - and that is a massive but - that right to choose is quite extraordinarily constrained. Some issues are not devolved to Scotland to decide upon. Others that are cannot be delivered upon because the devolution of financial powers to Scotland is far too limited.
Most taxes in Scotland are subject to decision making by Westminster alone. Corporation tax, VAT, national insurance, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and income tax on anything but work, plus most income tax allowances, are all subject to Westminster control. Almost the only tax levers Holyrood has are over income tax rates, local taxes and some specific charges that raise little.
Since, as I gave long argued, tax is not primarily about revenue raising but is instead a tool for controlling inflation, with massive opportunities for influencing the delivery of all other policy built in, then what is clear is that in the situation in which Holyrood finds itself, there is only a limited chance of ever effecting significant change. That is because the most fundamental range of tools for doing so - called taxes - are beyond Holyrood's control.
This is why the green agenda of the Scottish government failed, above all else.
And that is why the Bute House agreement between the Greens and SNP has failed.
And this is why any government in Holyrood is destined not to deliver. It can't, because London created a system that was bound to fail as a way of securing continuous control whilst ensuring that blame would be directed inward in Scotland itself, as might well happen now.
How does the SNP address that? The answer is straightforward. After many years in supposed power the SNP has to say that is not the case. It has to drop its own pretence that it is in charge, when it isn't. It has to say that there is nothing that can be done about some problems in Scotland because Westminster will not let it act on them. It has to call the Unionist's bluff, because there is nothing they could do to make things better in the system that they created. And they have to say time and again that if Scotland wants to be different it has to totally reject the failed Westminster agenda.
Bizarrely, Wales' Labour government will have to do the same thing, even if Labour is in office in London.
The pretence of devolution has to end. It's time for power to leave London. Unless it does the gross injustice of institutionalised regional inequality in the UK is bound to continue. And to prevent devolved governments taking the blame for that they have to make clear none of that failure is their fault. Only then can things change.
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The Ferries Fiasco doesnt look like a great example of competent administration.
They could of course have reformed Council Tax but apart from an extra band haven’t been proactive in the way that Wales is now.
Sadly though even Wales seems to be having its problems with the new Labour leader in the Senedd
Sorry to see you believe the brainwashing John. On the 24th, April, 502 CalMac sailings, 99% on time. And if you think this is a one off, just research the previous days. Just one of the many instances of M.S.M propaganda.
Now which Ferries Fiasco would that be which ” doesnt look like a great example of competent administration ” ?
The one which was in Contract between the Client CMAL and the Constructor FMEL under Conditions of Contract which make it ILLEGAL for any to interfere including the government administration?
Oh that one…..
It also helps if the the party commissioning the ships provides AND STICKS TO the specifications in the contract. My understanding is that the shipyard was plagued with change after change to the construction specifications, which obviously delayed construction while simultaneously adding to costs as work already cpmpleted had to be ripped out to accommodate the latest changes.
With specific regard to the ferries, often quoted as evidence of the incompetence of the Scottish Govt, it’s worth bearing in mind that the contract was awarded to a Scottish shipbuilder at the insistence of all parties in the parliament in order to protect jobs. The yard in question had never built anything with these new engine types and mistakes were made, but at all times ferry routes continue to run (weather excluded).
Yes, they are over budget, but shall we look at the ovetbudget fiascos perpetrated by Westminster and compare?
Tanks thar can’t fire and move £5B, two aircraft carriers that are never out of repair docks sbrcause they constantly break down £3B, and who could forget the amazing track and trace system that didn’t work, a snip at in excess of £30B.
The SNP and Scottish govt are far from perfect, but neither are they as incompetent as unionist media would have you believe.
Here in Scotland our wee parliament spends money to mitigate the 2 child benefit cap, our kids enjoy free higher education and we all enjoy free prescriptions, because no-one should have to decide whether to pay for their medicine instead of eating.
We do this with the limited budget and restricted fiscal powers we have tied to Westminster. Imagine what we could achieve with access to the full fiscal powers of an independent nation.
Read Professor Alf Baird on the design failures of the ferries: a failure if the company making the choice. Then look at the Byzantine structural mess of CalMac/C-Mal. SNP should have fixed it, but the problem was deeper and the political critics are not interested in solutions, just finger pointing.
Absolutely clear message. This needs to be disseminated widely and repeated until it changes. In that sense it is an opportunity – to expose and ram home the reality of the trap set up for the devolved administrations.
I agree with the blog analysis ref tax etc and what needs to be done.
In terms of this: “the Scottish government cannot meet its 2030 climate targets”, which kicked off the current contretemps- I hope the following is not too off topic.
I’d suggest that climate targets are within the remit of the Scottish gov – even if revenue raising/tax collecting powers are absent.
Meeting climate targets is a function of renewables & their availability or lack thereof. There are two main costs building any renewable, anywhere. First the administrative fart around (a technical term) and second the capex. The admin stuff includes land ownership problems (they are not “issues” they are problems!). Most communities outside of the central belt could be energy independent both for elec, heat and transport, all driven by renewables. That they are not is a function of a lack of expert input at the community level, the problem of land owners (“noo I dinna want a single wind turbine on ma land!”), and the failure to make the permitting of renewable community systems a rubber stamp process – coupled to obliogations on land owners (I’m not talking about the confiscation of a couple of hectares for PV, but the siting of a wind turbine or two).
The central belt is a somewhat different problem – as large conurbations always are. Building thermal efficiency should be the focus and mortgages one route to encouraging thermal rennovation. Even the useless Euros are looking at this.
One possible reason for failure (to meet climate targets) is the need for politicos to have some technical understanding, to allow them to grasp what needs to be done and what can be done. Years ago, I met a Scottish MEP, nice guy. Clueless with respect to even the basics of how elec is delivered to households. Enough to make you weep. Ditto the current situation.
Thanks
Iacceopt all your points – but the issues I raise still remain
This energy independence based on renewables is a myth. 75% of households in Scotland still use gas for heating, cooking or both.
You do realise that is precisely why a transition is necessary, don’t you?
I have worked in both community renewables and insulation projects in rural Scotland and the biggest problem has not been a lack of professional expertise.
Unlike England, we did not ban on shore wind turbines in 2015 so these have continued to be developed.
However, wind power development, in particular, has failed to address issues of poor grid connections, and the issues of exceptional costs of grid infrastructure. That has suffered from lack of investment, and the fact that SSE are a private company,
The grid used to be a national asset ….
Community projects have found that recharging of the costs of grid connection is more expensive that the actual turbines themselves.
The large wind farm developers have failed to provide adequately for local rural community benefit, and have adopted all the attitudes of predatory capitalism in how they develop sites. Profits are mostly extracted, community benefits are trivial.
We also have the dichotomy of depending on tourism and our rural landscapes cannot take both continued development of wind turbines and new lines of pylons, without degrading those scenic attractions which attract visitors. However, our PV capacity has barely been recognised, but recognising that as a priority requires integrated and coherent renewables policy implementation at national level.. Scotgov, where are you ?
We have precious little hard engineering manufacturing capacity here in Scotland to provide renewables jobs, and the growth and development of a stable renewable engineering sector has just not happened. The Danes have shown us how it could have been done.
We import most of the hardware – even wind towers, for which there is already Scottish based but unused manufacturing capacity.
Added to that, development of the most important and predictable renewables technology – tidal stream – has been stifled through inadequate investment and, as above, the costs of grid connection.
Thanks
Tony, responding to some of your points:
“However, wind power development, in particular, has failed to address issues of poor grid connections”
A local/community energy system would have no impact on the grid – regardless of its poor connections. The aim of a local energy system is to produce and consume all energy locally. I’m doing something like this in Wales – with a FOAK and then roll-out. The combo of a wind turbine or two, some PV a battery and an electrolyser eliminates the need for significant export and in turn any significant grid costs. Obviously, the DNO will bullshit away about a whole series of “issues”, but this can be (as we will do) politicised. In the case of Wales, we have proposed that the Welsh gov should have regulatory control i.e. a Welsh Ofgem. Scotland could do the same – strip out the DNO aspect – which in any case is regional and leave the TSO stuff for the bunch of useless buggers in Milbank. Alternatively the DNOs should be stripped of their systems control and operation side and this moved back into government ownership. I have said as much to a House of Commons committee.
As for large wind farms & community benefit, Denmark solved that one about 25 years ago. Statutory offer of an equity stake. I am not surprised that in neo-liberal UK, this has not been considered – why give serfs a piece of the action?
In the case of visual impact, most communities would need one or two WTs, not a farm. In the case of PV, Ok in the summer, not in the winter – which is when wind comes into play. I agree with tidal stream – that needs gov support and thus the ability of the Scottish gov to raise money.
Mike,
We have four community turbines – and ours was the first community scheme in Scotland in 2004.
Our most recent community Enercon 350 turbine required a grid connection which was almost 50% of the total cost. Copper is expensive.
There are very few freestanding local grids in rural Scotland, except on some isolated islands like Eigg and on Orkney.
My own island is 3m offshore and we are fully connected to the mainland. It all goes into the wider grid.
Local rural community size energy distribution companies have phenomenal upfront entry costs, and the barriers are deliberate set high, with the aim of preventing small communities wanting to operate on an generate and supply basis, that actually is cost effective. If the situation is easier in Wales, fair enough, but it is exceptionally difficult here, or we would have done it twenty years ago.
Even domestic PV systems are mostly grid connected, (we have one) with relatively few totally off grid residences. Some battery storage can be added on, now the price has fallen, to provide backup with local power cuts, (of which we have many), but a fully independent system is pretty expensive.
Even when I worked on government grant aided schemes for retrofitting home insulation, entry criteria were difficult to satisfy and unduly bureaucratic. Several schemes were not fully spent up.
The relative cost of small turbines, below 1MW, is such that larger units, often over 2.5MW, are the most cost effective and these tend to be about 150m to tip, and a local large wind farm upgraded to turbines at some 700ft+ to tip height. These have a clear visual impact even at almost 20m away.
My friends on Skye, the mega tourist island, are having a real battle against a new large scale wind farm proposal, with major community opposition, and an extensive scheme on Lewis was defeated a few years back on similar grounds. Multi national developers often game the system by putting in for very large schemes, and then scaling back once they have identified the nature of local opinion to appear as if they are compromising.
Holyrood was never a “wee pretendy parliament” as the Big Yin described it, and the Scotland Act 2016 did assign further tax powers, including tax banding, and some VAT authority, but Brexit, in particular, has allowed the Tories to repatriate previously devolved powers, and seek to undermine Holyrood even further by overriding even simple green policies like glass recycling, though that initiative that was badly handled by both Greens and SNP.
The saddest thing is that devolution, with PR, aimed to reshape UK adversarial politics with a much more consensual and negotiated approach. Coalition was built into the system.
This worked well for a few years with Labour / LD coalitions at Holyrood, during the Blairite period, but then the UK parties reverted to type, and so the SNP / Green coalition has been in the face of this retrenchment.
Party leaders like DRoss exemplify the lowest common denominator in that adversarial style, as well as the utter mediocrity of much of the body politic at Holyrood.
Paradoxically, the SNP leadership have themselves been centralists within Scotland, and have considerably reduced the effectiveness and answerability of Scottish local government, as well as bringing other functions like policing under central control, reducing local democratic accountability. They have even recently attempted to centralise education.
We’ve had Devo-Max discussions as the sop proposed by the main unionist parties since before Indyref 1 in 2014, and it was Brown who then aligned with the Tories to prevent that succeeding, after the unionist panic over that Sunday poll showing the Indyref would be won. Some 30%+ of Labour supporters voted for Indy in 2014, and it is one of those issues that the SLabs have swept under the carpet somewhat.
The continuing visceral hatred between the centre and right of the Labour party and the SNP has militated against a sensible set of independence proposals being worked through, though the YES campaign involved many people on the left in Scotland, and there is a strong strand of socialist independence thinking.
Only 200,000 further votes would have provided a YES vote in 2014, and there has been support for independence hovering around 50% ever since. That has not faded with the dropoff of support for the SNP and has hit 55% in some polls, but sadly not consistently.
The devolution ‘settlement’ as it stands is unsatisfactory, being neither fish nor fowl, but was always fudged in favour of Westminster, which holds the jokers in the pack. Unless there is a rethink post 2024 GE, the current situation will not improve.
I cannot see that the current Labour party leadership, being very much London and SE oriented, and with little understanding of Scottish politics will pay much attention to our current democratic deficit.
Humza made a bold and correct decision. Now take it to its inevitable conclusion. Stand down, and call a General Election. Make Independence for Scotland the only campaign aim. Have we got the b**S? Well have we. Or will R.B Cunninghame Graham be proved correct when he said it wouldn’t be the English who stop us becoming Independent, it would be the Scots.
Of course it’s the Scots that prevent it. Deliberately. I wish we would stop pretending.
If Mike Parr imagines he would hear a Scottish landowner speak in the way he suggests, he is badly mistaken. Far more likely he would hear the toffee-nosed tones more familiar in the posher parts of the Home Counties. While there are still some who adhere to the Keep Off My Land idea today there are more who are eager to get their noses in the subsidies trough for ‘green’ development.
Surely the answer for urban areas is to build district heating systems as in Scandinavia but, as Richard points out, the ScotGov does not have the money (and perhaps the will) for such investment.
Pay heed to Tony who writes a great deal of good sense.
Your fundamental point re economic powers is, of course, correct, Richard. The only solution is independence and the SNP hardly needs to be told this. However, the suggestion that the political way forward is effectively to stop acting as though the Scottish Goverment was a real government is no solution.
A huge part of the political difficulty of gaining the independence, which any rational assessment of our situation makes obvious as the solution to our problems, is the long, long effects of having been governed contemptuously and exploited incompetently like a colony for generations. This bred a lack of self-confidence which almost any supporter of independence knows was exactly where he/she emerged from before the penny dropped. The pre-SNP years at Holyrood were the public manifestation of that ‘cringe’ write large and a lot of the huge achievements of these past SNP minority, majority and and ‘coalition’ years has been the undoing of the damage done by the wasted years of the Labour and LabLid ‘executives’ – across almost all areas of policy.
Holyrood is indeed fundamentaly shackled by Westminster – all the exploitative pro-union parties without exception – and intentionally so. The ‘British’ state never yet gave anyone their own country back – until they were forced to concede. 2014 looked enticingly as though it might happen for the first time – but the ‘cringe’ did its job abd the MSM here is dedicated to making sure it never gets that close again. The SNP has always said that only independence will do – but to declare its own government powerless is to ask too much of the shakey psyche of what is – despite all the vile distortion thrown at it – a still growing confidence in our own future. The present is not a good place to be – but it knocks seven bells out of where we were when Attlee’s Labour tossed aside the 1949 Scottish Covenant with its 2 million signatures in 1950 and all the weary decades since. The fight for Holyrood is, of course, far from the end – but it is the only battlefield that evidences that our independence remains the cause which must be won.
I am not saying ignore Holyrood, I am saying use it as a platform to demand more. Right now the SNP seem far too happy with it.
The real problem here is twofold, and the same effectively in Scotland as Britain. A Party system in which the Parties, just like the Post Office, are not fit to run anything whatsoever: any of them. And second, which proves the first, the Parties, membership and MPs, MSPs, all represent what is best described as – with honourable exceptions – the collective Chumpocracy. I include the media, which is pathetic. Over the last 24 hours I have listened to a deluge of hysteria conjured up by a gaggle of nonentities incapable of anything but pot stirring or panic. Just like Westminster. Beam me up Scottie.
What you’re effectively saying is that all politicians are the same and that all of those politicians are incompetent?
That being the case, I’ll take my Scottish incompetents over Westminster incompetents any day.
My Scottish Government don’t fill their pockets at cost to the Scottish people.
Money is used by central government (and of course by the City of London banking narrative) as a powerful means of control.
Hence we have English local authorities submitting ‘bids’ for (artificially) limited amounts of government money. It costs a fortune to submit the bids and is a literal dead loss if the bid is not successful. The Tories complain that too much local govt money is spent on consultants but they encourage it since the bids where consultants help are mostly more successful.
Ideal for the Tories who both wield their arbitrary power and get to belittle ‘spendthrifts’.
Surely the solution to the democratic deficit and to a rebalancing of power for either local authorities or devolved nations is local money creation. It would need to be limited to stave off the inflation hawks so why not set it very low – like £5 per head per year.
Once that was established you’ve got the principle out there. And with £5 per head I reckon inflationary risk is all but zero.
Then you can campaign for an increase.
But importantly, nobody can tell you that it doesn’t work or it isn’t possible.
Spot on Peter
In 2014 a case wasn’t made FOR the union. Instead it was all scary stories of how Scotland would collapse, pensions wouldn’t be paid etc etc if it became independent. In 2024 the case for the union isn’t as elusive as it was in 2014. It’s much worse thanks to Brexit.
As with so many things, money is at the heart of it. The question that remained too often hidden in 2014 was why England didn’t also want to become independent? After all apparently Scotland was a basket case kept afloat only by the generosity of rUK (ie England’s taxpayers). Seems like a no brainer. Unless of course none of it was true.
Scotland does need to fully control it’s own destiny, and beneath the negative soundbites in 2014 about how badly Scotland would fare as an independent nation, there was silence about how England would fare as an independent nation too (Wales & NI would be making their plans explicit by that time). So how would England fare as an independent nation?
https://fortune.com/2014/09/17/scotland-uk-independence/
The point of all this is to highlight just what Scotland is up against in trying to become independent. Follow the money. As true in 2024 as it was in 2014. Probably even more so. Scotland may have a decade long political problem at the moment, but England has much longer run economic problems that rely on Scotland economically far more than it has ever admitted. After all, the McCrone Report was hidden for 30 years by successive UK governments while also lying about and squandered a gargantuan lottery win.
The case for independence and against the union is very strong for Scotland. Not so for England. Behind the UK bluff and condescension lies a reality that Westminster wants to conceal at all costs. The future of England as an independent nation.
Thanks
Adding to Ian’s arguments, England has always relied on external suppliers in resource terms, through the Industrial Revolution, the Age of Empire, and since the 1970s, the £300bn North Sea oil profits retained by WM, and used by Thatcher for tax cuts for her wealthy and corporate sponsors.
Down the line .. well, we already have huge water supply deficits in East Anglia, London and the South East, and some very serious hydrological problems requiring massive infrastructure.
Similarly, it is no longer coals from Newcastle that are needed, but electricity from a North Sea interconnector with Scottish renewables supplying the power.
England needs Scottish renewable energy.
We currently pay more per kWhr for our electricity here than London and the SE, as the supply market is heavily weighted in favour of SE England, and we pay a transmission cost premium despite our domestic market being supplied from our own renewables, not some gas plant in the beautiful south.
Renewables are often criticised for their intermittency, but there is one group of technologies that is not and whose outputs are entirely predictable, hence suitable for baseload. Tidal.
THE key next generation renewable technology is tidal stream, now suppressed for some 20 years by ignorance, lack of funding and political will.
Entirely coincidentally, some 50% of the UK’s tidal stream generation capacity is in the Pentland Firth, with another key location in the North Channel between Kintyre and Antrim.
Wales too, has good tidal stream resource options off Pembrokeshire and the Lleyn, and England off Portland, Cornwall and a number of other smaller locations. Alderney Race is another major resource option.
The prototype phase of this technology is long past, and scaling up to full generating capacity ought not be problematic given the marine engineering skillsets transferable from Scottish offshore oil and gas.
The Meygen scheme is already providing plenty of data and management nous on upscaling.
That tidal stream technology has not reached maturity, as onshore wind has, is mostly down to government decision making, unbelievably poor energy policy, absence of resource planning, shortfalls in investment, but mostly lack of will.
With 11.5GW potential (Royal Society) and a current capacity generating estimate of 34 TWh/year* (high estimate c.50Twh/pa) , so 11%+ of the UK electricity market, something has gone seriously wrong.
Free market conservatism is partly responsible, as is lack of vision, but even a mild cynic might conclude that handing Scotland another very large lever in cross border trade post independence is not in the interests of unionist politics, and that mindset has influenced the lack of support for the technology.
The scrapping of the Peterhead carbon capture prototype, almost ten years ago now, exemplifies the UK approach to Scottish technology and resource advantages. It is political suppression.
Energy is what will confer wealth post net zero transition, and the pure spite inherent in unionism is what is really holding us back.
True Tony. Every word. Spite and fear having to accept that Scotland can be more succesful than England. Proving that decades of lies and propaganda have hidden the truth of this useless union.
A long commentary Tony, but you nailed it there and not a word wasted.
Thank you
Enoch Powell’s remark that power devolved is power retained, although now something of a cliche is fundamentally true. The Indy project is now becalmed, devolution can’t meet our needs, but there is no clear route to an internationally acceptable means of achieving independence. Another referendum has been denied by a militant unionist government and endorsed by the government in waiting. Yes, it’s a voluntary Union, but there’s no way out. Furthermore the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the sovereignty of the mainly English parliament without commenting on what that says about the democratic rights of other parts of the UK.
We are here because of the failure of the first referendum, which in my view was held too soon, before convincing a substantial proportion of Scots to support Independence and before dealing with all the tricky issues related to currency. Sterlingisation was insane.
Holyrood politics is a great disappointment, regardless of the calibre of many MSP’s, (but I don’t think we have as many compulsive liars, racists, victim blamers, neo-fascists in government as WM) because we have 3 Unionist parties which seem to start from the position that independence is not a legitimate political aspiration. And this manifests itself as oppositionalism, particularly with Labour- opposition for its own sake even on policies they previously supported – known as the Bain Principle which is to oppose anything put forward by the SNP. The Tories are beneath contempt and are fundamentally opposed to devolution.
In the opinion of Prof. McCorquodale (report for Alba) there is no easy route out of the impasse – devolution inadequate and a democracy denying Westminster – that would be internationally recognised. A possible route he offers, and suggested by others, would be through a constitutional convention steered by civil society rather than by the Scottish Parliament and including representatives from across Scotland, civic and political. But it would not be a quick fix.
I agree with the last
This will take time…