This union is broken

The referendum campaign has energised and enthused Scottish politics and highlighted the traditional unionist parties’ inability to grasp the scale of the post-devolution changes taking place in Scotland. Whatever the outcome, we must rebuild our politics and tackle our constitutional weaknesses in Scotland and the UK. The resurgent political interest of the past two years has to be maintained. People are interested in politics but are turned off by political parties.

The UK is at a strategic tipping point which demands a new approach; without change, the Union will decline. The four nations will become increasingly restless and a new round of constitutional and political demands will be to the fore. So when will the unionist parties – and Westminster – concede that the Union, in its current form, isn’t working and lacks credibility. It has to be reinvented to avoid serious consequences, Scotland’s exit being one of them!

This is all being shaped by no confidence and trust in politics, politicians, parties and their institutions. A perfect storm of issues and influences have influenced this referendum. The SNP has become the major force in Scottish politics since 2007 but even that success would not have propelled them to their current level of polling in the referendum without something spectacular taking place: the long-term decline of the Union, a constitutional and political crisis facing Westminster, a perfect storm of difficult issues, and the near collapse of the unionist parties in Scotland have largely created the conditions in which the Yes vote has gained momentum.

This may not guarantee victory but it will lay down a marker for Westminster and the Union that unless they totally transform their thinking and approach, they will cause the break-up of Britain, not Scotland or England or Wales or Northern Ireland. To use the James Carville phrase, it’s the Union, stupid, that is creating the conditions in which, consciously and unconsciously, the people of Scotland are thinking the unthinkable. 

To redress this, we need to change the way we do politics and bring our political parties into the 21st century. Public disillusionment has intensified, discontent deepened, disconnection grown and more and more people have given up on voting as turnout declines, party membership collapses, and trust remains at historically low levels. Our politics is broken. Only the SNP have bucked the international trends and stayed in office for seven years, retaining high levels of popular support and forcing a vote on the future of the Union. Meanwhile, the unionist parties, in particular Labour, have failed to influence the new political landscape.

But the decline of our politics just didn’t happen over the last seven years; rather, the last 50 years, where the proportion of people in the UK voting for the two major parties started to decline dramatically. They started to distrust parties’ ability to tackle problems and there has been a failure to attract younger people. In effect, people are less clear what political parties stand for. Politics itself looks out of touch and appears uninspiring, technocratic, obsessed with the economy and increasingly unrepresentative of a population where political loyalties are breaking down and the internet age is atomising society. In response, the parties have been disappointing, casual, inept and lacking any sense of urgency.

To achieve change, we need to change the mindset. This preoccupation with manifestos should end; the minds of the public are not structured like a manifesto. Today’s manifestos don’t fit a modern electorate. No party has a monopoly on wisdom on every subject or issue. This will require a realignment of our parties and our thinking towards the European models where coalitions, realignments and alliances are commonplace. Proportional representation should be introduced for Westminster elections, parties should come together around a broader policy platform, and the public offered a spectrum of ideas and policies around different political views or philosophies, not just manifesto pledges but something to show what a party or party grouping stands for.

Fundamentally, there should be more political tolerance and inclusivity. Progressive politicians and parties need to attract young people whose ideals and interests are being expressed in a variety of non-party-political ways. Politics is too defensive, narrow, intolerant, too controlled, exclusive and archaic, procedurally. Consequently, it has too many cheerleaders, often self-serving, with only a tenuous grip on the purpose of politics in a modern Scotland or UK. The political process and its structures are letting us all down including those who serve as elected officials as they are trapped by a system which can be self-serving, is hopelessly out of date and is narrow in its selection of candidates for elected office and often limited in the range of people who become involved.

So the old traditional party system is stifling MPs, MEPs and MSPs, and the public deserves better. But it is only the political parties that can renew themselves.

The plight of Labour in Scotland and the referendum outcome may be the catalyst for change. A Yes vote will shock Labour and it will have to adapt to the challenge of being a new state and working to become a government; social democracy, the social investment state and social partnership will have to be embraced. A No vote could, if recent history is repeated, mean no real change. The party in Scotland could remain a mere offshoot of UK Labour. For Scots, this is all about declining levels of trust.