Swinney lacks the backbone to say NO when Greens come knocking with outrageous demands
JOHN Swinney’s greatest weakness as a politician is his dullness. He’s a low-energy leader, short on charisma. Lacking the roguish cockiness and alpha presence of the late Alex Salmond or the easy connection with voters enjoyed by Nicola Sturgeon, Mr Swinney is one of life’s plodders. But political strategists work with what they’ve got and so, long before he became First Minister, they spun his greatest weakness into his greatest strength. He wasn’t dull, he was dependable. He was steady.
This idea of Mr Swinney as a stable political presence worked to his advantage for years. His bank-managerly demeanour was perfect for a Finance Secretary. He gave the impression of seriousness to the governments of both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.
As a frontman, however, Mr Swinney leaves much to be desired. Lacking any vision (beyond the need for independence regardless of consequence) or serious ideas for tackling the issues – the cost of living, the growing crisis in the NHS, falling standards in schools – that matter to Scottish families, he’s a weak and ineffectual man-without-a-plan.
Throughout a frequently dull, occasionally fiery, and grinding election campaign, Mr Swinney spoke often of his plans for governing after the SNP had secured an election majority. There was much talk of the need for a second independence referendum.
Indeed, so important was this matter that he pledged the inaugural vote when MSPs return to Holyrood would be on the need for a second referendum. In the end, Mr Swinney fell short of achieving that majority. With 58 seats, the SNP is seven shy of being able to govern without the support of any other party.
Despite this result, the First Minister intends to proceed with his plan to debate independence when MSPs go back.
AND so here we are, on the brink of the seventh parliamentary term, with families struggling to make ends meet and global instability causing ever-rising prices, and John Swinney’s great plan is to hold a meaningless vote on a hypothetical Indyref2.
The Supreme Court has already made it clear that the Scottish Government has zero authority when it comes to staging a vote on the constitution.
The 2014 referendum took place only after then Prime Minister David Cameron signed an order under Section 30 of the Scotland Act, temporarily transferring power on the matter to Holyrood. The current (at time of writing) occupant of 10 Downing Street, Keir Starmer, has no intention of granting the same order and John Swinney knows as much.
But a vote will be held. Mr Swinney with 58 MSPs and the co-leaders of the 15-strong Scottish Green group, Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay, will argue that their combined might of 73 represents a clear pro-independence majority in a parliament of 129 members.
They will declare their ownership of a mandate for a second referendum. The PM will remain unmoved and he should feel confident to do so.
While the result of Thursday’s election produced a majority of pro-independence MSPs, most votes were actually cast for Unionist parties.
Between them, the SNP and the Greens – the two main pro-independence parties – received 40 per cent of the vote across Scotland’s constituencies and 41 per cent in the regional lists.
The main Unionist parties – Labour, Reform UK, the Scottish Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – on the other hand scooped 58 per cent of the vote in constituencies and 54 per cent on the lists.
The first joint enterprise of the SNP and the Scottish Greens will be to display, in the Holyrood chamber, their contempt for the preference of the pro-Union majority of Scots.
But, after that piece of theatre is over, what comes next?
Nothing good, so far as I can see. John Swinney is about to be up to his eyes in hock to a Scottish Green Party that resembles a carnival of extremists. New Green MSPs from a social media generation will not settle for cosy deals with Mr Swinney.
Rather, they will demand huge concessions on the sort of policies that send shivers up the spine of anyone who hasn’t completely lost their senses.
Just look at the sort of things they demanded during this year’s campaign.
TAKE Kate Nevens, elected as a Green MSP for the Lothians. Might Mr Swinney be persuaded to adopt her suggestion that – I kid you not – all prisons should be abolished and criminals released?
If not that, perhaps he may be willing to – as trans-identifying new Glasgow MSP Iris Duane wishes – permit biological males to use female single-sex facilities at Holyrood in return for Green votes at Budget time?
The 15-strong group of Green MSPs is packed with cranks whose luxury views range from the impractical to the deranged.
These are the people to whose tune John Swinney will have to dance if he is to govern securely for the next five years. The signs are that progress made by feminists and free-speech defenders against a new wave of Left-wing authoritarianism may be under threat.
There are now, for example, a majority of MSPs in favour of pushing ahead with a ban on so-called ‘conversion therapy’.
By this term, Green and Nationalist MSPs – including John Swinney – do not mean the brutal, primitive practice of trying to force gay people to deny their sexuality.
Instead, they wish to classify as ‘conversion therapy’ any discussion between a parent or therapist and a trans-identifying child in which the child is invited to explore why they believe what they do. A ban on ‘conversion therapy’ would, in fact, mean a legal obligation for everyone from medical experts to parents to support any child – no questions asked – in believing they are, in fact, a member of the opposite sex.
People who play by the rules and make this country all it is need a First Minister who understands that hammering them with taxes at a time when they’re struggling to get by is not the way to rebuild their enthusiasm for his project.
More than that, they need a First Minister with the courage to say no when the Scottish Greens come knocking with ever more outrageous demands in return for their support.
I’m afraid everything he has ever done over three decades in politics suggests John Swinney lacks the backbone necessary to do so.