|
Our Media raised
a collective eyebrow of mild interest as three Tories made it first
past the post. They accepted with an affable lack of excitement the
wearisome return of the permanently governing Liberals. They would not
have wished Labour’s losses to be any more severe, but they have been
willing to suggest a need for the pulling up of Labour socks. But when
they come to reflect upon the setback suffered by the SNP then all is
joy and celebration. Parliament has profoundly disappointed the
people, so the Press has concluded, and the fault lies with the SNP.
Strange reasoning indeed which blames an opposition party for the
unimpressive display of a government.
The profession which produces the content of the
tabloids is barely definable as journalism but we should at least try
our best to make a better impression upon the many capable columnists
who write for the daily and Sunday broadsheets or analyse events on
TV. It is these columnists who have pointed out that the campaign
which so impressed them had
largely bypassed voters and our own activists. You have to feel
sympathy for our leaders who are thus rewarded for their work but who
must now face the fact that the incantations of 'nurses, teachers and
policemen schools and hospitals' bring us little benefit when exactly
the same script is being memorised and chanted by Labour and Liberal
rivals.
There can be no question of any
attack on our leaders, John or anyone else. The chosen strategy was
adopted over a long period and was supported throughout all testing
stages by clear and convincing majorities of the party’s
representatives. And still we suffered a setback and no-one,
mercifully, has so far insulted our intelligence by pretending
otherwise. We should now be well aware that we must quickly learn to
see ourselves as others see us, and mend our ways accordingly.
Our expectations have
to be limited because our greatest
handicap is that we arc not Labour - a simple fact which bars doors,
shuts minds, and distorts judgments especially in the industrial West.
Many Labour voters would happily take independence if offered by
Labour but not from our hands. For this very reason some of us for
years saw our best hopes as lying in using our growing political power
to force Labour to concede independence as they had already conceded
devolution. It’s hard to bear even for those of us not personally
present in these battlegrounds, when competent and hard-working
colleagues are still persistently buried under majorities of something
like 14 to 5. "We must win there" SNP leaders
have all proclaimed for the duration of the party’s
post-war existence, and we are no nearer extensive or enduring
success, even though on two or three occasions we have caught Labour
on the hop.
So what do we do? We have tried
being more Labour than Labour but that hasn’t worked because
Labour-voters have not believed us and now we have competition in this
area from Militant and its various aliases. Let’s emphasise instead
what makes us different. What is our unique message? Are we not agreed
that our objective is good and wise and full
of hope?
Our Party was formed
specifically to secure independence by working to elect members of
Parliament who would vote to achieve that goal. As Gordon Wilson has
pointed out, we did not set out to elect members to secure a
referendum on independence.
We can surely make up
our minds quickly and firmly just exactly what we believe to be the
merits of independence, and then proclaim them from every platform and
vantage point that we can find. Surely we retain the belief that
voters can be brought to want independence. John has very aptly summed
up the Party’s post devolution strategy as "proving us fit to govern".
It is true that voters are more likely to turn to us if they regard us
as trustworthy and competent so let us by all means persevere in our
quest for this kind of trust. But let us abandon any notion that
independence should be pursued by stealth and with apology. Our next
campaign, and any others necessary, should be to make independence
popular, desired and in due course demanded. Never for an instant
yield to the notion that independence is to be earned by good
behaviour.
Bear in mind that
Westminster can confer independence. Holyrood can not. Suppose that in
due course we were seen to be fit to govern and were entrusted with
Holyrood executive office. How then do we avoid being simply left to
get on with it? Suppose we gained office in 2007 and even again in
2011, and perhaps even 2015 and 2019. So what?
 |
