Why Andy Burnham could be the Prime Minister who kills off Scottish independence – John McLellan
A left-wing crowd-pleaser, the current mayor of Greater Manchester would make a formidable opponent for the SNP if he manages to become Prime Minister
It may be some time before the public shares the excitement of the little knot of media folks camped outside Bute House on Wednesday to catch the chosen ones trooping in to receive the First Minister’s blessing and their marching orders as government ministers.
Now they must go forth and spread the gospel of St John Swinney; they work not for themselves but in the service of the people o’ Scotland. You and I that is, or so the theory goes. The problem, of course, is that while they claim to work for us all, only a minority put them back in power, and 47 per cent of us were either too scunnered, busy or idle to cast any preference. That means the 27 per cent of people who voted SNP on the regional list a fortnight ago actually represents just 14 per cent of the total electorate.
And as for a majority of pro-independence MSPs representing a mandate for another referendum, with the Greens taking 14 per cent of the list votes, that’s only around a fifth of all voters endorsing a separatist party. Mandate-schmandate.
All the polling in the world which shows a pro-independence majority counts for nothing if its supporters can’t be bothered to vote, and a significant amount of the winning margin in 2014 can be attributed to the comparatively low-turn-outs in Glasgow and Dundee where independence support was at its strongest, and high returns in strongly pro-Union constituencies like Edinburgh South.
SNP’s lack of depth
But like that other black and yellow creature, the SNP can’t change its spots and, before the election, Mr Swinney promised there would be a draft Referendum Bill in the first 100 days of this parliament. “The parliament chosen by the people of Scotland, will have the chance to represent the democratic will of the people of Scotland,” he said. That the democratic will appears to be either voting for a unionist party or finding something better to do doesn’t seem to matter.
Team Swinney’s first challenge is dealing with an independence question they have no way of posing, and seeing the new Cabinet’s happy smiling faces lining up on the steps of Bute House, it was remarkable how little has changed, both in approach and personnel.
The decision to slim down the Cabinet might be designed to send a signal of parsimony, but instead it suggested a lack of depth and of trust in last term’s second tier of junior ministers, with only new Public Sector Reform Secretary Ivan McKee stepping up.
The result is the top jobs taken by the same people, reshuffled from one unimpressive track record for a go elsewhere. Most notable is Jenny Gilruth, the ex-modern studies teacher who appeared lost as Education Secretary, promoted to Deputy First Minster with responsibility for finance, in which role she could yet make her predecessor Shona Robison look like JK Galbraith. Neil Gray gets shot of health for a stab at justice, while Angela Constance goes in the opposite direction.
If there is potential for tension, it’s between new Economy Secretary and ex-Westminster group leader Stephen Flynn, who has spoken up for North Sea oil and gas, and fellow North East MSP Gillian Martin who remains in charge of climate action, which presumably includes renewable energy for which her evangelism has on occasion spilled over into aggressive zealotry. But energy has been handed to new junior minister Stephen Gethins. What could possibly go wrong?
READ MORE: John Swinney's familiar Cabinet puts constitution on the backfoot as briefs get fresh eyes
SNP’s expensive promises
And despite knowing they faced a £5 billion black hole if they were back in power, rather than producing a plan to close the gap, the SNP manifesto contained promises costing an additional estimated £1.4bn a year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Finding efficiencies is Mr McKee’s job, a miserable task which the unions are already getting set to oppose, so Ms Gilruth’s job will be to fill the vast majority of the financial chasm from higher taxation. Economic growth? Forget it.
Hard times are ahead and, with an uninspiring crew at the helm, wiser heads might be thinking this is not the time to be agitating for constitutional upheaval. And anyone who thinks stunts like trying to force supermarkets to sell white pan bread, powdered coffee, four-packs of frozen pizzas, and whatever else, at a loss are going to move the dial is deluded.
So if this is a bad time for a referendum, why not have one? The best reason for not calling the nationalist bluff is, clearly, that if the SNP leadership is distinctly lacking in lustre, Sir Keir Starmer still manages to make Mr Swinney look like a cross between JFK and Tony Blair.
Style over substance
But that could be about to change. What if Andy Burnham wins the Makerfield by-election next month? What if there is a leadership challenge and the King of the North becomes Prime Minister, his kohl-eyed charisma replacing the wooden, nasal pleading of the current indecisive incumbent.
What if he quickly revealed his true colours and pushed forward with a pro-EU agenda? And what if the man who extolled the virtues of devolution and claimed the credit for Manchester’s economic resurgence, or what passes for it, said yes, Scotland could choose its future.
So what if Mr Burnham’s success is largely of style over substance? A fight where the opposition figurehead is a left-wing crowd-pleaser, even an English one, is something the SNP has not faced since Tony Blair gifted it the Scottish Parliament. By limiting a vote to a short, sharp campaign – after all, the SNP has spent 14 years making the arguments − Burnham could be the man who really does kill off separatism for a generation.
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