Could Rishi Sunak be the antidote to Scottish independence? – John McLellan

Despite SNP faction fighting, support for Scottish independence is now consistently above 50 per cent but Rishi Sunak’s combination of substance and style is boosting unionist morale, writes John McLellan.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been winning praise for his efforts to tackle the coronavirus economic crisis (Picture: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA Wire)

For a party which prides itself on iron discipline, we can only imagine the reaction of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to The Scotsman article by East Lothian SNP MP Kenny MacAaskill in which he proposed another independence-supporting party on the regional list in next May’s Scottish elections. It’s unlikely she logged into the Dark Web to search for Haddington-based assassins, but in parliamentary language she’ll no doubt have been “disappointed”.

Once Scotland’s Justice Secretary under Alex Salmond, Mr MacAskill is now one of the former First Minister’s most prominent supporters, claiming after his old boss’s acquittal of attempted rape and sexual assault charges that “dark forces” had been involved in the trial, and earlier in the week endorsed a social media message which described Ms Sturgeon as a “narcissistic sociopath”.

Making allegations about the Salmond investigation and associating himself with insults about the First Minister is one thing, but for a member of a party seeking an absolute majority to drive forward its primary objective to actively promote a rival group? Would Mr Salmond lead such a party? Would Wings Over Scotland write its manifesto? How would it be funded? It would surely divert resources from the SNP and no wonder Deputy First Minister John Swinney challenged the logic.

That’s as far as criticism will go for now in case tougher action turns internal tensions into resignations, like Glasgow SNP councillor Elspeth Kerr, who quit the party because of what she claimed was a bullying dictatorship under council leader Susan Aitken. Unhappiness with local leadership led two Edinburgh SNP councillors to quit and more may follow if a viable independence-supporting group which isn’t the Greens emerges.

Mr MacAskill was emboldened by last weekend’s Panelbase poll predicting the SNP will win 70 of the 73 first-past-the-post seats next year, calculating there is room for a second nationalist party on the regional list without ending the chances of an overall SNP majority, but increasing the total of pro-independence MSPs. This doesn’t take into account the effect of a new party challenging or contradicting SNP messages in an election likely to be a proxy for a referendum.

Who knows what undecided voters would make of a bitter and public factional split, with arguments about how a new state would operate, but another Panelbase poll estimated that 40 per cent of SNP supporters backed Mr Salmond and that a quarter of all Scottish voters were likely to give their list vote to a new party led by him, including 31 per cent of those who voted Labour last year. Whether Mr Salmond establishes a rival independence party remains to be seen, but Mr MacAskill’s article is the clearest indication yet of serious consideration within Mr Salmond’s circle. Scottish nationalists or Salmond nationalists, with independence now polling consistently above 50 per cent when don’t-knows are excluded, the alarm bells for unionists should not be just ringing but falling off the walls. But with attention firmly on Covid-19, and Brexit back in the headlines thanks to the leak of the concerns raised by International Trade Secretary Liz Truss, there is little space to tackle the implications of independence head on.

Unionist morale needs a boost and it came with the £30bn spending package revealed by Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Wednesday, not so much a bazooka but an artillery regiment and followed the £1.57bn pumped into UK arts compared to the Scottish Government’s £10m. As much as the vast numbers, it was the manner of the announcements which made all the difference and not for the first time, social media was awash with praise for the performance of a future Prime Minister.

By comparison to his often wooden predecessor Sajid Javid, Mr Sunak exudes an easy charm and poise and instead of the enthusiastic, fist-pumping bluster of his boss, which delivered Brexit and a General Election landslide, there is precision and control. Some initiatives, like the £10 meal-deals, have been dismissed as gimmicks and the value of the £1,000 furlough incentive questioned, but they have also demonstrated he is his own man who understands effective communication.

Having earlier put out a tactical estimate that the UK Government needed to spend £80bn, the Scottish Government’s reaction wasn’t even grudging. Finance Secretary Kate Forbes’ claim she was only receiving £21m when the package was worth £800m to Scotland was predictably churlish, especially with the Chancellor’s confirmation that her budget had been boosted by £4.6bn.

Ms Forbes was immediately under pressure to match Mr Sunak’s removal of Stamp Duty on house sales below £500,000, but raising the threshold of the equivalent Scottish land and buildings tax to £250,000 initially without a start date threatened to stall the Scottish housing market recovery instead of giving it a shot in the arm. Many people, me included, sat up at the announcement of £5,000 grants for home insulation, but again that relies on Ms Forbes following suit. No wonder most of Mr Sunak’s plan bypassed the SNP.

Labour struggled as much as the SNP to pick holes in Mr Sunak’s programme, but even so Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds’ immediate Commons response was coherent and well-prepared. And as with the high-point of Labour’s late-90s hey-day there was a Scot in charge; she may represent an Oxford seat, but like Michael Gove her roots are firmly in Aberdeen and although ten years apart they both attended Robert Gordon’s College. It will take a lot more than a Scottish accent to reverse Scottish Labour’s pitiful fortunes under the invisible Richard Leonard, but in the wider context of Scottish attitudes to UK politicians, Sunak vs Dodds is a very different proposition to Philip Hammond vs John McDonnell.

There will be more to come and the UK Government appears to be rolling out a recovery programme to maximise awareness, rather than one big splurge in which important initiatives get buried. A university package, vital to the Scottish economy, is yet to come. But unionists like me can compare the polls with the scale of the economic power the UK Government is bringing to the Scottish recovery, the dreadful education record and pre-Covid economic stagnation and shake our heads, but the inescapable conclusion is that presentation is still trouncing substance.

But with the possibility of two nationalist heavyweights slugging it out, the First Minister already talking about life after politics, and Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer changing the face of UK politics, next May is a long way away.

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