Labour and Conservatives need to tell us why their policies would not be continuity Sturgeon - Brian Monteith

We are now at the point where we are well beyond peak SNP. The question is not if Humza Yousaf will lead his continuity Sturgeon brand to ignominious retreat, but how many seats he will lose in the elections for Westminster (2024) – and Holyrood (2026) if he remains leader.

Such has been the continued expansion of the SNP government’s portfolio of failures I have no doubt the total number of MPs from pro-UK parties will return to being the majority, we may even see Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour having the greatest number. I think it reasonable to anticipate that once simply articulating a blind anti-Tory prejudice is no longer relevant the SNP collapse will only accelerate through to the next Holyrood elections.

Triples all round I can imagine many in Scotland (and beyond) saying. But wait. That is simply not good enough. Only relieving the SNP from claiming to be Scotland’s largest party changes very little if the political outcomes remain the same.

While the SNP’s focus on trying to manufacture further societal division to generate support for a mandate to demand another independence referendum – what will really change in Westminster or Holyrood?

The hard reality is that beyond the bluster there is not a scintilla of difference between the Labour and Conservative parties in Westminster – and one has to ask, what is the difference between Labour and the SNP in Holyrood?

No doubt many readers might imagine there are significant differences (and there should be) but I wager with confidence a majority could easily find greater similarities. More importantly, I think a large minority are scunnered by all parties, seeing them as fifty shades of similar deceitful claims and petty partisan blaming.

At Westminster, the Conservatives have increased spending on the NHS in real terms year-on year, and by a large amount since 2019, even discounting Covid spending. That infamous red bus has actually been paid for, and then some. Spending is not a problem for today’s Conservative politicians and that, regrettably, is one of their major problems.

The second is their willingness to not just raise taxes but to invent all sorts of hidden ways of introducing new taxes or aping taxes Labour has been suggesting. Taxes on savings (that are in effect taxes on inflation that the Treasury and Bank of England created on their watch). Windfall taxes that have killed oil and gas investment, higher corporation tax (up 30 per cent) that is punishing success and redirecting investment overseas. The Tourist Tax on reclaiming VAT that discourages overseas visitors buying home-produced luxury goods in the UK and visiting our country.

Sure, Labour has ideas for even more taxes but it should be noted shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves lately withdrew some to avoid looking scarier than the Conservatives – who now have a history of doing Labour’s bidding after winning elections.

And will there really be any difference over immigration outcomes if Labour returns to power? Would Starmer be different from Sunak – or simply more honest in admitting to a blatant open-door policy?

Likewise in Scotland, when we have been looking for effective opposition to the SNP, Conservatives, with only one or two exceptions, have turned being pusillanimous into an art form. Being bolshie at FMQ’s is not enough to make up for the general accommodation of the SNP’s more radical policies or failing to offer a reasoned alternative to the SNP’s daily incompetence.

Splitting over the Gender Reform Act by not running an effective whip against it; championing Net Zero policies and implicitly supporting Sunak adopting Labour’s windfall tax idea – while claiming to support the oil and gas industry; and helping pass the Minimum Unit Price of alcohol legislation that is now the latest SNP calamity deserving to be put down – all add up to the sense there is no sensible alternative waiting in the wings.

Readers may recall that minimum alcohol pricing – a Sturgeon legacy – was only passed because the Conservatives obtained a sunset clause that would mean the law must be reviewed after five years in operation. Now that time is up and there is enough evidence to show it has not worked the way its advocates promised. Instead it has added costs of £270 million for all moderate consumers while even pushing some young people to opt for drugs that are cheaper and more easily obtainable.

Even the original Sheffield University modellers have admitted “the introduction of MUP in Scotland did not lead to a decline in the proportion of adult drinkers consuming alcohol at harmful levels.” Yet Scotland’s public health prohibition lobby – funded by the general taxpayers they seek to punish – cling on to the idea that simply increasing alcohol’s minimum price will make all the difference – when the evidence shows price is not the telling factor in causing hardened alcoholics to cut back.

This presents an opportunity for Scottish Labour, who only opposed the minimum pricing legislation on a technicality. Having previously been a cheerleader for even the worst of the SNP’s self-indulgent student politics by backing the named person’s Act and backing the Gender Reform Act, Labour can argue minimum pricing should be withdrawn, not least because the new UK approach to taxing alcohol will from August this year make stronger alcoholic drinks subject to higher excise duties.

Scottish Labour has to show it is different from the SNP to make its claim to being the real opposition a credible claim. Not being nationalist is not enough.

It is also a test for Holyrood. When there are so many things wrong with the Scottish government what’s the point of changing the administration if the only difference is they don’t waste time shadow boxing about independence? What difference will Scottish Conservatives or Labour make – it has to be more than not being continuity Sturgeon.

Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European Parliaments and editor of ThinkScotland.org