“Compare and contrast the changing fortunes of any two political parties in Scotland since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999”
The creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 saw huge changes happen in Scotland, specifically in regard to Scotland being more democratic, more powerful and having better legislation and politics in general. The Scottish National Party has undoubtedly seen a plethora of change since devolution occurred. They have been more successful in elections due to fairer and improved representation, their drive to ensure independence is successful in Scotland and their compassion for Scottish people and their sense of a national identity. Prior to the creation of the parliament and the 1990s in general, the SNP had little support or respect from voters. There are a few reasons for this, including the 1979 failed devolution referendum, which was a significant factor in why SNP struggled to gain support. As well as this, individuals felt that because the SNP had failed to prosper in the 1979 general election – the importance of self-governance in Scotland had been overlooked on the political agenda (Lynch, 2013). Similarly, the Labour party have seen a change in their success since the introduction of the Scottish Parliament and devolved powers in Scotland. However, their change in success has not been positive like the SNP. The party have seen a prominent decline in votes and support since the 1999 Scottish Parliamentary elections which can be argued as being down to a variety of reasons. A few of these are the fairer representation of smaller parties thanks to proportional voting systems, labours involvement in the Iraq war, a rise in nationalism and the growing independence campaign. Through relevant examples and analysis, it can be seen that devolution has greatly benefitted the SNP and has unfortunately affected the Labour party in the opposite way.
P1 – talk about creation of Scottish parliament. What the parties were like prior to it
SNP GAINING SUPPORT
– SNP gone from 6 to 56 MPs, from 20% to 50% of the vote
Before devolution was introduced, the SNP struggled to receive fair representation due to the voting system “First Past the Post” which was used in Westminster. Through the use of this single-member plurality voting system, small parties such as the SNP were discriminated against through geography and social aspects. For example, due to the way the First Past the Post voting system is carried out, larger parties – such as the Labour Party – predominate the system and do not allow smaller parties to have any power or receive any representation. The introduction of the Additional Member System used in the Scottish Parliament has allowed for a much larger diversity of views and opinions to be conveyed than other voting systems. The way that the AMS works is that each voter receives two votes on election day. The first vote is used to elect a member from their constituency under a FPTP system (i.e. in the constituency, the candidate with the most votes takes the seat). The second vote is used for a party. Once the votes are counted the second votes come into play. Parties receive additional members to help top up their seat allocations in the assembly or parliament to match the voting percentages which they received. This works to even out the votes to seats calculation and make the election fairer (Thomas, 2016). Under the AMS, smaller parties such as the SNP – have managed to acquire representation. Without the AMS, smaller parties like the SNP would gain very little power and have possibly no say in what happens. Furthermore, the diversity of opinions within the parliament would remain rather small and possibly one sided (Hassan, 2009). The change in support and the benefits of using this system for the SNP is also shown in the difference in votes from the 1999 Scottish Parliamentary elections. The percentage of the constituency votes for SNP in 1999 was 28.7% and the number of seats were 7. In comparison, the support for the SNP was greater in the 2007 election, where the percentage of votes were 32.9% and the seats won were 21 (McCall, 2016). Through the significant difference in the number of seats won, it highlights how the SNP has benefitted and gained more support through the introduction of this new voting system post devolution.
In contrast to this, the labour party have suffered the opposite effect and have faced a decline in votes through the introduction of the Additional Member System. This is also evident through the statistics of the 1999 and 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections. In the 1999 election Labour received 38.8% of the vote and 53 seats which dropped to 32.2% of the vote and 37 seats in 2007 (Hassan, 2009). This consequential decrease shows that the Additional Member System has not benefitted the labour party as it has caused them to lose support due to greater representation of the SNP and smaller parties.
A prominent critique of the Labour Party is that many Scottish people feel as though labour do not have the interest of Scottish individuals at heart and their actions and ideas were reflecting that of the Conservative party. In the 1990s, there was a “transformation” within the labour party, going from old Labour into New Labour. It has been noted that the new Labour party have embraced’ a free-market philosophy and did not fix the “Thatcherite ways” which had been put into place during Margaret Thatcher’s time in power. This resulted in great disappointment among the party’s Scottish voters as this was one of the promises made to people by the Labour party (Brown, 1999). Through various surveys which were taken after the 1999 Holyrood election, it was evident that under 50% of the individuals who took the surveys believed that New Labour cared about their interests. Between 1997 and 2001, similar surveys highlighted the increasing agreement with the view that the party looked after the concerns of business and only the affluent individuals within society (MacAskill, 2013).
Furthermore, in 2006 a YouGov poll, it was found that 56% of Scots agreed that Labour had “been in power too long in Scotland” and that it was “time for a change”. The basis of the SNP’s 2007 Holyrood election campaign was formed from the results of this poll and in order to get their message across, Alex Salmond stated that the Labour party would be incapable of functioning in power of the Scottish Parliament “without remote control from their London masters”. This meant that if Labour were voted into power, everything would still have to be run by those at Westminster and they would have great influence in decision making in Scotland. Salmond was trying to convince voters that this wouldn’t be the case if people voted for the SNP and that whilst labour was in power, Scotland would be overlooked, and the interest of Scottish individuals would fail to be on par with that of English people. This made the SNP more attractive to Scottish voters as they believe that the SNP would prioritise Scotland and its needs and wants over anywhere else. This lead to great success in the parliamentary elections of 2007, with the SNP winning 32.9% of the vote and 47 seats, which was a drastic change compared to the 2003 election where they received only 27 seats and 23.7% of the vote (Wintour, 2007).
P4- Labour involvement in Iraq war
Labours involvement in the Iraq war was also a factor in labours diminishing support. Despite many protests, then Prime Minister and leader of the labour party Tony Blair, decided to support American President George W. Bush in the military invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Richards, 2016). His main reason for joining this war was “to prove that a Labour Prime Minister could support and work with a US Republican President” as he made aware to reporters. He also told them that this was one of his most important second-term objectives (Richards, 2016).
– Hundreds of thousands of people – estimated by organisers to number almost two million – march through London in opposition to military action in Iraq. There are also gatherings in Glasgow and Belfast, part of a worldwide weekend of protest.
P5 – a feeling of being Scottish
Since 1999, the Scottish labour party has remained closely integrated within the British party and have been openly supportive of the “UK strategy” and the feeling of a British identity. This has created problems for the party within Scotland as the prevailing identity in Scotland is that of a Scottish national identity. The support from the Scottish party has reiterated British labour’s insistence that Scotland and the rest of the UK are stronger together. Through broadcasts, campaigns and interviews, Scottish Labour leader Jack McConnell has repeated the words of the UK Labour ministers when discussing “the strength of our partnership within the UK, based on shared values and shared experiences.” Many Scottish people do not agree with this statement and do not think it reflects what they believe in as patriotic Scots, and therefore have ceased their support for the Labour party. The idea of a rising “Scottish not British” identity is evident through the Scottish Social Attitudes survey which has been conducted annually since 1999. In the 1999 survey, 43% of people considered themselves Scottish not British, which then rose to 58% in 2007 – highlighting how this identity is increasingly popular (Hassan, 2009).
Whilst the Labour party are hurt by this increasing identity, it has greatly benefitted the SNP. One of the SNP’s main goals for Scotland is for it to be an independent country which is evident through their speeches, interviews and ideologies. Due to the increasing patriotism within Scotland, the SNP have gained a lot of support compared to pre-devolution as people believe that they share the identity of being purely Scottish and have the power to make independence become a reality. The return of Alex Salmond being the leader of the SNP in 2004 was a key element in “changing the fortunes” of the SNP in regard to independence. This was because Salmond had decided to motivate his party and voters to begin their journey towards Scottish independence and he did this through being a charismatic leader and his expertise in appealing to voters across the political spectrum (Torrance, 2015). As well as this, he took on a mixture of right wing and left-wing policies which people respected and liked about him.