- 19 hours ago
Alistair Grant, Rachel Amery, David Bol and Catriona Stewart discuss the SNP conference in Aberdeen this weekend, and the party's internal frustrations over independence
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The Steamy, a politics podcast from the Scotsman.
00:11Hello and welcome to The Steamy, the Scotsman's politics podcast. The SMP is gathering in
00:16Aberdeen this weekend for its annual conference, a time when the party is comfortably ahead
00:20in the polls and looks set to return to power for a remarkable fifth term. But as delegates
00:26meet in the vast cavernous space of the P&J live arena, the complex legacy of two individuals
00:32Nicholas Sturgeon and Alex Salmond will nevertheless cast a shadow over proceedings.
00:37Meanwhile, the SMP is also grappling with internal frustrations over its independence strategy,
00:42which has stalled in the face of Westminster intransigence. John Swinney may have successfully
00:47steadied the ship, but can he sail it to that bright horizon? To discuss all this and more,
00:53I'm joined by David Ball, the Scotsman's deputy political editor, by political correspondent
00:58Rachel Amory and by education correspondent Katrina Stewart. Rachel, where do you see the SMPs
01:04standing going into this conference? Because the polls look pretty good for the party, don't they?
01:08Yeah, the most recent polls that we have seen suggest that the party could be
01:14almost where they are right now, or where they were in 2021, which would be an amazing result for
01:19the party if that's what's to be achieved. That being said, a lot of that relies on the fact that
01:24people are really unhappy with the other parties, particularly Scottish Labour and the Scottish
01:28Conservatives. And because the rise of reform in Scotland is very much splitting the unionist votes.
01:34So a lot of the reason why they are so far ahead, partly into popularity, but also is because of these
01:39factors here. And I think the SMP needs to not be too complacent about that, because relying on other
01:46parties failing is not going to win them an election. So I think when it comes to this weekend, there
01:50needs to be a lot more thought put into things such as, how is the independent strategy that we've got
01:55really going to cut to? What are we really going to be offering people that are new?
02:00They have been government for 18 years of what's new? What's exciting? Getting the members, bringing
02:06them together and getting them excited and getting them wanting to go out and knock on the doors when
02:10it comes to this election campaign and getting them feeling confident that they're going to win this election
02:14because they are the winners and not because the others are the losers. So I think that's one of the
02:18main things that the parties focus on this weekend when it comes to the election.
02:23David, what do you think? Because I spoke to the pollster Mark Diffley for a piece I'm writing
02:28this weekend and he, quite similar to what Rachel was saying there, was making the point that while
02:32the SMP are doing well in the polls, they've still not recovered to anything like their 2021 levels.
02:38I think they've lost about 13, 14% of the vote since then, which is a huge chunk of voters.
02:44Where do you think the party stands?
02:47Yeah, I think that's quite fair to see. I mean that they are topping the polls and look like
02:52they're set to become the biggest party once again just because Labour have messed it up basically.
02:59Just a year ago in the general election they were neck and neck with Labour and that's obviously ebbed
03:02away as people who voted Labour last year to get rid of the Tories have gone to undecided or to reform.
03:10So they are relying on other parties, particularly Labour, not being popular. So as Rachel said,
03:17activists will be looking for kind of a pop sort of positive message to be set out by John Swinia
03:23ahead of the election. Independence, his independent strategy, there's people within the party
03:30who don't agree with it. So maybe that's going to be a bit of a sticking point. It is quite similar to
03:34what we've heard before from the SNP, which obviously hasn't got them anywhere. It hasn't
03:38moved forward at all. John Swinia insists that they want to keep that sort of gold standard national
03:44referendum, but others in the party want the SNP to kind of force the issue a bit more. So
03:49that could be a potential sticking point and I guess it will be a big part of the SNP's offer in
03:55the election next year. But yeah, I do think the SNP is lacking sort of ideas or new things they can
04:02bring to the table after such a long time in government and the conference will be the first
04:05time for John Swinia to really put that across to members and the wider public.
04:10Yeah, we'll come on to kind of dissect that independence headache potentially awaiting John
04:17Swinia. But Katrina, I mentioned the complicated legacies of Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond,
04:22and Sunday will mark one year since Alex Salmond's death. In many ways, the party is still grappling
04:29with their legacies, isn't it? It very much is. Nicola Sturgeon is still commanding
04:36big crowds. She still has a core popular section of the electorate who we saw in Tuesday night fill
04:46out the Usher Hall and I interviewed at the Usher Hall on Tuesday evening and it was quite an
04:51interesting experience because there are people who absolutely adore her. When she came on stage,
04:57she had an almost immediate standing ovation and they're willing to overlook any sort of issues that
05:04were there under her leadership. John Swinia is giving evidence today to the COVID inquiry. There
05:09are still lots of questions around how the pandemic was handled, the use of the deletion of WhatsApp
05:17messages, all of these sorts of things that people are willing to overlook just because of the sheer
05:23force of her personality and her popularity. And Alex Salmond is the same. There's still a lot of
05:29internal wrangling between various camps who were team Alex Salmond, team Nicola Sturgeon. It's really
05:36difficult for John Swinia to have these two political behemoths sort of looming over his shoulder.
05:43They're just constantly the ghosts of the feast. And even after Nicola Sturgeon stands down next year,
05:49she's not going to be back in Parliament next year. He will still have to separate himself out from her,
05:55which he can't do because she's so intertwined into SNP politics. It's a difficult step for John Swinia.
06:03He is, as you mentioned earlier, the man who has steadied the SNP ship, but he also needs to be the
06:10man who invigorates the party, who comes with new ideas, new policies, something that's not going to
06:16just excite the core of voters, but is going to scoop up the people who are just really disillusioned and
06:22who are bleeding away to other parties. And it's difficult for him to do that when he is seen as
06:28part of this long running establishment that hasn't had the fresh ideas and that the legacy is perhaps
06:37not there. And he's still having to deal with issues like the implementation of the promise,
06:42which is a huge piece of legislation that has been in the news this week. That was a Nicola Sturgeon,
06:48Nicola Sturgeon gold standard piece of legislation that's not coming off the way that it was supposed
06:53to. So John Swinia, he just has relentless headaches to try and deal with that are hangovers from his
07:01predecessors.
07:03Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And Rachel, we know that Nicola Sturgeon will be at least making an appearance
07:09at this conference because she's down to speak at a fringe event, I think. Where do you think her
07:15her legacy stands? I mean, we obviously can't really go into any court cases involving her
07:20estranged husband, Peter Murrow. But there's all sorts of, yeah, she certainly casts a huge shadow
07:27over the party.
07:28Yeah, I believe the fringe events that she's going to be speaking at is to do with the promise,
07:34actually. So it's quite interesting to see what she has to say at conference when she does appear there.
07:39And to see as well how the party reacts to her appearance at a small fringe event compared to
07:45how they react to someone like John Swinia making his big keynote address on Monday afternoon, I believe
07:51it is. So when it comes to what she's going to do next, we've seen over the last year, at least,
07:56that she's clearly setting herself up for a career outside of Hollywood. And as Katrina was saying,
08:01in the Usher Hall this week, at the book festival earlier in the summer, lots of events that she's
08:08been doing, the book that she's released and all the rest of it. That being said, that's something
08:12the SNP needs to perhaps think about. When Alex Salmon stepped down and when he then left
08:18front-wing politics, perhaps the party wasn't really sure what to do with him. And that's perhaps
08:24where we then saw a bit of a split and we then saw him sort of going in his own direction there and
08:29trying to control the narrative there. Whereas perhaps what the SNP should have thought is,
08:32we've got somebody here who knows how to speak to the public and knows how to win elections. We
08:37need to use him in some sort of way. So again, the party perhaps need to think, right, we didn't get
08:43it right when Alex Salmon stepped down. Now that Nicola Sturgeon is stepping down, can we find a place
08:48for her within the party that still shows her strengths, still uses the strengths and the experience
08:53that she has while not being a frontline politician? So it's a challenge for the SNP. It's something
08:58they've not had to face before and the one time they did face it, they didn't perhaps do the best
09:03job. So that's something the SNP needs to think about now. What do they do with her within the
09:07party and how do they use her strengths going forward? I mean, I wonder if she would want that
09:14or if she just wants to kind of get out of politics and go more into the kind of book festival circuit.
09:19I mean, she was talking the other day, I think, of writing some kind of novel, some book that she's
09:24working on. She's certainly got more books up her sleeve, I think. But we should talk about that
09:30independence strategy, or lack thereof, because it's set to play quite a big role during this
09:36conference. John Swinney launched his latest independence paper this week. And it was, David,
09:41it was fair to say it was a bit of a dud, wasn't it really? I mean, there's nothing in it that we
09:46hadn't heard before. It was kind of a collection of policies we've already heard the SNP's position on,
09:52but with absolutely no detail. So for example, there was stuff about how Scotland would initially
09:57use pound sterling before moving after a period of time to a separate Scottish currency. There was
10:01nothing about the timeline for that. There's nothing about the timeline for Scotland joining
10:05the EU. There was no serious attempt to kind of grapple with the impact of a border for checks on goods at
10:14the border between Scotland and England, if Scotland was in the EU, but the rest of the UK wasn't.
10:18It just didn't seem like a serious document, did it?
10:22David O' No, it was just a rehash of bits and pieces
10:26we've been hearing for years. This was supposed to be them setting out the kind of updated economic
10:31case for it, which is back in 2014 was one of the biggest problems for the Yes campaign was that
10:37people weren't convinced on the economy. So you would think that this would be the focus and they
10:41wanted to get this right. But as you said, it was just things we've heard before, no detail on the
10:46practicalities of a lot of it, which again was one of the big issues. And then there was this quite
10:52ludicrous sort of claim on almost like an independence dividend, but it was just based on
10:58kind of similar countries. It wasn't based on any sort of Scotland specific evidence. So
11:03it's not the greatest lead up to conference when independence is going to be that on the on the
11:08forefront of everyone. It's one of the big debates on the first day of the conference on Saturday.
11:12John Swinney is facing a kind of a rebel amendment by people who want this sort of de facto
11:19referendum that Nicola Sturgeon kind of flirted with when she basically ran into a brick wall after
11:25losing that Supreme Court case for Holyrood to hold its own referendum. I do think the ALBA party has
11:33taken away a lot of the people within the SMB who would maybe stand up and make it a shouting match. So
11:40there is maybe going to be a bit more calm than previously when independence has flared up at
11:44a conference that we've seen. But it's still potential for John Swinney to face quite an
11:49embarrassing situation if members are upset by the strategy. But the paper that was launched yesterday
11:56is not the good starting point that he wants. And as he's building it as a fresh start, it seems very
12:02much nothing like that. What so ever.
12:04John McClendon What do you make of this? I mean David was obviously talking about the debate
12:09that's going to happen at conference in this and John Swinney is putting forward a resolution
12:12arguing that securing a majority at the Holyrood election is the only uncontested route to a second
12:17vote. There's obviously this rebel amendment we think you know it's likely to be voted down but the fact
12:22it's there at all does point to an element of restlessness within the party.
12:26John Swinney There is definitely an element of restlessness in the party with regards to the
12:33independence paper. I mean I suppose it's nice for everybody to have all of the old ideas collected
12:38in one handy document for perusal. But I'm not really sure there was going to be anything significant
12:46in that document to move things forward because at the moment that's not what they need. What they need
12:51is to keep the core voters happy so that they can invigorate them enough to get them out on the doors,
12:57get them speaking to people, persuade them that the SNP is the right party to continue leading the
13:03parliament through the next five years. And they don't have that at the moment and they need to build
13:11that up and they need to build it up quickly because what we've seen in previous years is the SNP having
13:16this extraordinary election machine, this juggernaut that battles forward and scoops up votes.
13:25I think they just need to get people happy enough to get them out
13:28on the doors and that's what this is about. It isn't going to please everyone but for the wider electorate
13:35I just don't think that enough people care about independence at the moment. There isn't a clear route
13:40to independence. It's not what people want to be talking about. The sorts of people who are taking
13:46a vote to reform are not going to care about having in-depth discussions about what we do about
13:51borders, about what we do about currency, about who after Scotland becomes independent is going to be
13:58paying for their pensions whether that's the UK government or the Scottish government. People don't
14:03care about these things. Core voters, core SNP voters care about these things. They can wrangle with
14:09that independence paper as much as they want but there wasn't a huge hullabaloo about this being
14:15launched. I think the launch was done in what 20 minutes, half an hour, Al, you were there, you know
14:20better than I do. It wasn't a huge big 2014 style white paper extravaganza. It is just enough to get their
14:28core voters satisfied enough to get them out ahead of the Hollywood election and other than that I
14:36don't think it bears much scrutiny or analysis. I think that's absolutely right. It was all about
14:44party management. It wasn't really about anything else. The launch was so low key. It was at the
14:49National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. Beautiful surroundings but it was just so small and so kind
14:56of we were told about it the day before. I mean you think back to for example when you said it there
15:01when the white paper launched ahead of the 2014 referendum. You had global media interest. You
15:05had journalists from around the UK from much further afield who attended that. There was, as I say,
15:10interest around the world and with this one I'm pretty sure that not even every newspaper in Scotland
15:16was there. It just wasn't. People just aren't. It seems so divorced from reality and I think you know
15:21John Swinney and the SNP leadership know that but they just have to kind of go through the motions
15:26they have to just do this and go into conference and have this debate and then sort of move on.
15:32I mean Rachel, how do you think this will play out at conference? Are you expecting fireworks or are
15:38you expecting a kind of a bit of a damp squib? Because I have to say I've attended SNP conferences
15:44since 2017. It's obviously not a massively long time but in that time there's often been talk you know
15:50this is going to be a dramatic conference. There's going to be a conference floor showdown about
15:54independence and there absolutely never is beyond you know a certain outspoken activist who speak at
16:00every conference. I think the fact that this independence debate that's happening at the
16:06weekend on in the conference agenda is being led by John Swinney. Now John Swinney is known for
16:13as the party's been saying steadying the ship and having getting his head down and doing things. He's not
16:18known for creating fireworks and making big exciting displays. So that in itself I think
16:23is probably going to temper emotions quite a bit. It's going to be a very calm and measured debate and
16:30I think that will then perhaps not go as exciting as it potentially could do. It's not going to generate
16:35the headlines but it perhaps will as well. So yeah I think when it comes to this debate it's to please the
16:40party members. You can't have SNP conference without some debate on independence and some question for what
16:46we're going to do independent particularly when we're so close to a Scottish Parliament election.
16:51So it had to be done. You can't not have an independence debate at an SNP conference. That being
16:57said I don't know how much further it will go and I don't think there'll be any sort of big headlines or
17:01big fireworks come out of it. Yes there's a straddle amendment but the fact that it's already been
17:06something that's been done before and proven not to work before I think will be a big summary box for
17:11those who are wanting to see that happen. And David I mean John Sweeney will surely
17:16need to make some kind of a big policy announcement at his speech on Monday just to sort of rally the
17:22troops ahead of that general election campaign. I mean this is essentially firing the starting gun
17:26in many ways for that. I mean what do you think? I mean what kind of things could we hear about?
17:31I mean he's been saying a lot in the past about his main aim to tackle poverty, tackle child poverty,
17:36but more recently he's been saying that you know what actually devolution has kind of reached its
17:40limits in this and there's only so much we can do to improve living standards in Scotland which
17:44feels like quite a defeatist thing to say going into a Hollywood election when you are trying to
17:50you know be re-elected as the first minister of Scotland. Yeah I think there's a real risk that
17:57it does fall a bit flat in terms of policy. Obviously we had Hamza Yousaf announce a conference about
18:03the council tax freeze which went down like a lead balloon but it was a big headline policy announcement and
18:08it was intended to be a popular one although obviously a lot of people were angry about it
18:13but there is a risk that he's just kind of again rehashing things we've already heard. He'll talk a
18:19lot about lifting the two child cap which is coming sort of just ahead of the election. I do think
18:25there'll be a lot of focus on independence and rhetoric is how his speech will go. I don't think we're going
18:30to see a queue of new policies and new ideas because we haven't really seen that from John
18:37Swinney but ahead of his program for government early in the year he said it was going to be radical
18:42in advance and we were all a bit like oh really we'll wait and see and then nothing came out of it
18:46that was moderately even you can even pretend it was radical. So John Swinney's version of radical might
18:54be different from the public's and it's it's hard to see some big bold policy levers coming forward in
19:00his speech. I think the independence thing will be what he goes on because largely and we've talked
19:05about the SNP's popularity um declining since 2021 but independent support is pretty much the same it's
19:13just under 50 percent so it's much more popular than the SNP at the moment so it's a good recruiting tool
19:19for for John Swinney to use when um the SNP's kind of polling itself it is in decline or has been in
19:27decline so I do think he'll be pushing that that message that Britain is broken um probably he's
19:34he's kind of hinted at and used it a few times this line that well we thought if we got a Labour
19:38government at Westminster it would fix everything that hasn't happened look how unpopular they are
19:43and the only way out of it is is independence I think that will be the main strain of his speech
19:48but we'll just have to wait and see until he he delivers it on Monday. And Kat we uh we've obviously
19:54talked about John Swinney having successfully steadied the ship uh he's got that target of winning an
19:58SNP majority at the next Hollywood election uh do you think he will hang around for long after that
20:04election regardless of whether he achieves that somewhat unlikely ambition or do you think he will
20:09view it as job done you know what I steadied the ship I rescued the party at a horrific time for it
20:15I'm going to leave the future to someone else. Oh what a question what a curveball you've thrown
20:20to me Alistair Grant it's really tricky to tell so we we know when he came back for the uh aforementioned
20:28steadying of the ship that he hadn't intended to be back front and centre of the party but he
20:34sacrificed other things in order to come back and dedicate a few more years of his life to the the
20:42party that he loves there has been some succession planning going on behind the scenes but it's been
20:48fairly gentle fairly low-key they are losing so much experience and talent from the number of MSPs who
20:59are standing down ahead of the Hollywood election that it's I think it's difficult to see him going
21:07anywhere quickly they also went through quite a rapid run of first ministers and I don't think they
21:15want to be doing a big switcheroo this soon after an election so I imagine he will stick around for a
21:25decent amount of time I don't know whether he'll do another five years I don't know whether he'll try
21:31and take the party into another election I think maybe halfway through this term he'll decide that
21:38he's had enough and that gives him a little bit of time to bed in policies post-election but also to
21:45ensure that there are some credible options for alternatives because at the moment I don't think
21:51there is anyone who is ready to step right into those shoes and that's where the problem comes so
21:57I think he's a little bit stuck where he is for the time being yeah I think that's a good I think
22:04that's a good a good prediction that he'll stay around for a couple of years I mean I certainly
22:08can't see him doing the full term I just think he's not his heart will not be in it once he's kind
22:14of done that job and it'll be interesting to see what happens because obviously the big mistake or what
22:19many people view as a big mistake Nicola Sturgeon made was lack of succession planning and the kind of mess
22:25that the party was in when she stood down but that's all we've got time for this week thank you
22:30very much for listening we're back at the same time next week I won't be because I'm on holiday but
22:36everyone else will be apart from Kat who's also on holiday but Rachel and David will be back then and
22:41I'm sure there'll be lots happening in the world of Scotch politics. Holyrood will be in recess but that
22:46doesn't mean that politics stops and there's already things being planned by the various parties but until
22:51then please stay tuned to the Scotsman's website for all the latest news comment analysis thank you very
22:56much The Steamy a politics podcast from the Scotsman
Recommended
9:26
|
Up next
24:05
25:24
17:51
18:02
7:46
4:48
6:19
1:00
9:32
Be the first to comment