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The press is saying that the honeymoon period for the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) is over in Scotland and that now the challenge for the Scottish Government will really begin. With the down turn of the world economy, the failure of the Bank of Scotland and the prop up of other Scottish banks by the UK Government, the Unionists would like the electorate to think the SNP is taking the country down the wrong road towards independence.
However, at their Annual Conference last week (16th to 19th October) there was no sign of any doubt from SNP delegates that they should modify their Scottish independence call. Rather, confidence and self belief in an independent future is still brimming, according to the League's General Secretary (GS), in much the same way as it has since the SNP were elected into Government last May. Below the GS sets out his comments on why the SNP still have everything to play for:
"I was fortunate enough to be invited along as an Observer to the SNP annual Conference last week, which I am told is proving more and more difficult to attend, even by Party Members. Gone are the days when you could turn up at the door on the day, show your membership card and pay an entrance fee. The SNP of today is the Party of Government in Scotland and to all appearances, very much in control.
Membership of the SNP has been rising at an incredible rate over the last few years and daily attendance at Conference ran to 1500 people. The vast majority of the delegates I spoke to were more than happy about the current state of the Party and quite frankly, who can blame them?
The SNP has worked extremely hard over the last year and a half in showing the Scottish people that they are prepared and able to deliver policies that are socially beneficial to the ordinary person on the street, like free medical prescriptions, a freeze on the rise of Council tax (for the second year running), abolition of student university fees and free meals to children in their first three years of school life, to name but a few. They have also shown that they are looking at the bigger picture too, with high targets set for reducing Scotland's climate damaging gases and investing heavily in alternative forms of energy. The press and their political opponents have found it extremely hard to find fault in the way the SNP have conducted itself in Government, especially in their first 12 months of power, and voters have responded too, as was seen by the sensational Glasgow East by-election victory for the SNP in July 2008.
Now however, the SNP Government, if the press is to be believed, is in danger of becoming a little unstuck as a consequence of the global recession. The failure of the Bank of Scotland (Scotland's oldest bank) and the injection of billions of pounds, by the UK Government, into two other Scottish-linked banks (Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBO) to keep them afloat, has led some critics to say that an independent Scotland could not have coped alone with such a financial crisis. (Also it is well known that in times of recession in Britain, the electorate tend to vote for the Unionist parties.) The SNP contend these arguments with the claim that in an independent Scotland, like in Norway, there would have been oil reserve funds put away to cope with such financial difficulties. (Admittedly, Norway still had to borrow money to protect their financial system, but that was only because their oil fund is protected by law to secure peoples' pensions.) The SNP also say that the global recession is partly the UK Government's fault anyway, in its poor handling of the economy, which has now affected Scotland and other areas of the world with rising unemployment and home repossession. The SNP say that an independent Scotland would have been more protected against some of the financial difficulties that the Scottish economy now finds it has to cope with.
It has been said that the people of Scotland did not vote for the SNP in 2007 because they wanted independence, but rather they believed the SNP could deliver a better form of devolution and get more out of the Parliament for them than the Labour Party. Whatever the reasons were for the Scottish electorate to vote for a SNP Government, the SNP's future political goal is independence and they make no secret of this fact. At Conference, if the word independence was mentioned once, it was mentioned a thousand times and even if the mood among delegates was not as jubilant as in 2007, it was nevertheless very positive and self assured.
So far the SNP has delivered for the Scottish people and on the whole Scots seem pretty happy with their current Government. The SNP Glasgow East by election success this year, where the SNP picked up thousands of Labour Party votes, showed just how happy the electorate is with the way things are going. Also at the Conference, the SNP signed up their 15,000th member, which represented a 50% rise of membership in just under 4 years. All the signs at the Conference were that the SNP could weather this financial storm and still come out on top, despite the perceived difficulties of being in a union with the UK.
One League Alba branch member I spoke to though, who has let his Party membership lapse, told me that the SNP is now full of career politicians with little interest in Scottish language or culture. SNP elected members did appear a little aloof and distant at Conference, with First Minister Alex Salmond looking very much unapproachable, being surrounded by a troop of body guards dressed in black and silver, but even this I felt could be forgiven, if not expected.
Since taking Government, it is clear that the SNP has been preparing itself for independence. Subtle changes like the more frequent use of the term Scottish Government, as opposed to Scottish Executive and Cabinet Secretary (as in Secretary of State), as opposed to Scottish Minister, all show that the SNP has a clear aim of where it wants to go. I have seen heads of state before accompanied by small armies of body guards, who only flit between buildings via chauffeur driven limousines. Salmond looked very much a head of state in waiting, but at least he was prepared to walk up and down the street shaking hands with the general public.
Admittedly other nationalist parties in Government in the EU are also striving for independence, including Plaid in Cymru/Wales and Sinn Fein in Eire/Ireland. Some of these nationalist parties of Government“ especially those in the state of Spain - have far more devolved power than the Scottish Government does, but in reality, for reasons that are too complex to go into here, the SNP are probably closer to obtaining their goal than anyone else. The Glenrothes by-election on November 6th however will be a sure test of whether the SNP are right to feel so self assured about their future direction. If the Glenrothes parliamentary ward, a traditional Labour seat and next door to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's own Parliamentary seat of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, is won by the SNP next month as the bookies envisage, it will show that Mr Brown and his Party will have underestimated the Scottish electorate once again and will indeed have their work cut out during the next General Election.
A SNP win at Glenrothes will also be a sure sign that the Scottish electorate have not been taken in by Brown's argument that Scotland is too small to control its own affairs and that Salmond's 'arc of prosperity', which includes the small prosperous nations of Iceland, Ireland and Norway, is unjustified given the 'recession' that these states are experiencing. But Brown seems to be overlooking the fact that the UK is in recession too and arguably in a worse situation than any small state in Western Europe. Ireland may be struggling financially at the moment after its period of rapid economic growth, but so are other much bigger world states, including the USA with the largest economy in the world. None of these small states would give up their independence to be joined to a bigger state entity.
The SNP know that an independent Scotland, in the European Union, would thrive, just like all the other small independent states in Western Europe. In his speech to Conference, Salmond argued that the current economic crisis actually made the case for an independent Scotland:
"What do Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland have in common? They are among the few countries in Europe still forecast to escape recession. As for the UK, the country which had 'eliminated boom and bust'? It is expected to tumble into the economic mire."
Salmond's message was forceful and did not pull any punches:
"I will not have this country's potential traduced by unionist self-interest, people who would sell their country short."
"Their position is that the nation which invented the modern world is incapable of governing itself successfully. It is a ludicrously demeaning proposition, out of date and out of time."
The SNP has a clear vision of what it wants, but this does not mean that its leaders are blinded to everything else. They know they can get a better deal for their country and that being stuck in the straight jacket of a politically stifling and economically crippling union that is the UK, is not an attractive option and to be honest, who can blame them?
As Salmond said at the close of his speech, Scotland is "a nation whose destiny is independence" and the SNP is doing everything in its power, with commitment and verve, to ensure that this destiny is fulfilled."
www.snp.org
(Conference report compiled for Celtic News by Rhisiart Tal-e-bot, General Secretary)
J B Moffatt
Director of Information
Celtic League
23/10/08
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