John Swinney's decision to snub Reform UK is undemocratic

Even Nicola Sturgeon, the chief architect of the division that characterised the last session of the Scottish Parliament, recognised its toxicity, although she admittedly showed less regard for her own part in sowing the seeds of strife than she did for promoting herself as an enabler of consensus.

But for John Swinney to so explicitly rule out working with Reform, in this seventh session of the parliament when almost 400,000 Scots voted for that party, beggars belief especially when in the same breath he argues for the integrity of democracy to deliver him a referendum, or when his justification for working more closely with Sinn Fein is that we should all learn to “move on”.

Move on, indeed. But don’t be fooled by the first minister’s expressed distaste for working with Reform. John Swinney wants Nigel Farage to be the next prime minister, or at least he wants the fear to build that he could be. The prospect of the Reform leader in No 10 will turbo-charge the SNP’s argument to the Scottish people that we want nothing to do with a far-right Brexit Britain. And naturally, independence offers the escape route.

But then what of the 400,000 Scots who voted for Reform last month? What of the nationalists who want independence but disagree with the SNP’s rally cry that a vote for independence is a vote to return to the EU? Does Swinney simply ignore such a large demographic as Sturgeon did post-2014 when 40 per cent of her own supporters voted for Leave?

And if the idea that Scots would vote for a party that Swinney castigates as being far-right causes him to reach for the smelling salts then the swooning first minister is in need of a reality check. A cursory look at a variety of polls reveals a clear cohort of the ‘double-out voter’ — those who voted Yes in 2014 and Leave in 2016. They are real, they are Scottish, and they once had a home in the SNP.

As independence has been increasingly framed as a route back into the EU, Eurosceptic nationalists have been quietly orphaned. And Reform, portrayed as the disruptors, rebellious, anti-EU, and unbridled of any responsibility, as yet, for policy failures in government, offers an alternative expression of that same anti-establishment proclivity that so fuelled the nationalist case.

The first minister may wish to promulgate the view that Reform voters are simply disaffected Tories, racists, or worse, but Reform took more votes from former SNP supporters than it did from Labour. And if the first minister thinks he can proffer those voters an olive branch, to tempt them back to his cause by ostracising them, then surely, in the same way that Hillary Clinton had to rethink her “basket of deplorables” condemnation, his self-declared powers of healing may need a fresh airing.

Reform, with its 17 democratically elected MSPs, is now the second party in Holyrood, an accolade it shares with Labour. It has a validity that goes far beyond the first minister’s stamp of approval. Its MSPs are in Holyrood to hold this Scottish Government to account even if the government itself refuses to acknowledge their legitimacy. It’s totally undemocratic to lock Reform out and is in danger of simply feeding into a notoriety which suits them.
Two weeks in, and by any measure, my hope that this session of parliament would be any less divisive than the last feels Pollyanna-esque. We are in for a rocky ride. 

But there is something much more serious to be considered than the ill-judged triumphalism of a first minister who pats himself on the back for winning an election at which his vote share was slashed and his record in government ignored. 

There is also a fundamental issue about the purpose of our legislature which transcends picking over the ruins of a decimated Labour Party which was defeated by its own over-reaching ambition into believing that it was seriously vying for government when instead, it should have set out a clear strategy to move from third to second place; had a manifesto offering that proposed something more than just ‘change’; and should have campaigned hard on the list. 

And there is something that goes beyond the esoteric machinations of where parties get to sit in the chamber to placate their bruised mandates or who gets to ask the first questions of the FM at FMQs, and that is on a question of political brevity.

The most serious threat to the Scottish Parliament is seriousness itself. And one can only feel sorry for Green MSP Q Manivannan, who has become a lightning rod for outrage over the election of a foreign national with a questionable right to stay in Scotland for the duration of this parliamentary session when the only people to blame for the predicament the newly elected member is in are hapless colleagues who voted for a law that most of them appear not to have read.

Former minister Paul McLennan admitted as much on national television when he presumably meant to come out fighting in defence of Manivannan and to silence critics in other parties when he said the bill had been passed unanimously but when asked by the presenter if he had understood the reasons behind it, said “no”. 

Not since SNP MSP Willie Coffey read his pre-prepared summing-up statement, when asked at the last minute to open a debate instead of closing, have we seen such idiocy on display. Politicians repeatedly chase the headline parts of a bill but, as was the case with the GRR, rarely scrutinise the consequences or interrogate the facts. One of the witnesses to give evidence to the committee looking at the Scottish Elections (Representation and Reform) Bill said at the time that it was “a solution looking for a problem”. 

And sadly, it has found it.

There seems to be an acceptance that our parliament is poor at legislation. The last session saw two bills that passed through Holyrood stymied by Westminster because they were not within Holyrood’s competence. Now we see a law that was passed unanimously and yet its consequences cause such surprise and have led to such vitriol being heaped on a Scottish Green MSP who, as far as we can ascertain, has done nothing wrong. 

The self-declared “courteous” John Swinney may not wish to work with Reform, but evidence suggests our legislators require fewer dividing lines and more pooling of intellectual resources.