Michael Kelly: SNP will pay heavy price for churches’ loss of faith

THOSE vehemently opposed to independence will view with glee the crumbling of Alex Salmond’s carefully constructed consensus for constitutional change. The SNP’s tactics for its years of minority government were to do nothing, but to do it very well. In this way, the party avoided falling out with any of the main interest groups and, indeed, attracted many unlikely supporters, such as business leaders, to its cause.

All policies were subordinate to securing the break-up of the United Kingdom. That single goal is often disguised from voters, who are fed whatever line brings them on board. These cunning tactics led to the SNP’s sensational victory at the polls last year. But how rapidly things have changed. A majority in Holyrood forces the Nationalists to do things. And so far, from the point of view of maintaining cohesion of disparate interest groups to produce a majority in the independence referendum, they are doing them very badly.

For years, decades even, the SNP has wooed the clergy and the laity of the Catholic Church, to the extent that the good voters of Glasgow and Lanarkshire were prepared for the first time to abandon their traditional Labour allegiance. That was only last May. Now Alex Salmond gets booed at Celtic Park and attacked by episcopal decree. Years of goodwill have been wiped out because west of Scotland Catholics are back to their default position that they do not trust the status they would be given in a separate Scotland. The visible reason for this distrust is the proposed anti-sectarian legislation, which many with Irish roots see as an attack on their heritage and culture. Maybe it was Roseanna Cunningham’s promise to criminalise the making of the sign of the cross aggressively. Maybe it was the compassionate Kenny MacAskill praising fans’ behaviour as the Rangers’ choir sang the Billy Boys in the background. But that support ain’t coming back.

The Church’s suspicion is more rationally founded in the refusal of the Scottish Government to reveal the data that it holds on sectarian offences. When one considers the results of the pilot study that was undertaken, the reason for this reluctance is not surprising. An analysis of 18 months’ worth of these statistics showed that 64 per cent of sectarian offences were against Catholics and only 36 per cent against others. On the face of it, that implied Catholics were twice as likely to suffer sectarian attacks. However, as the Catholic Church pointed out, Catholics form only 16 per cent of the population so they were in fact five times more likely to suffer attack. There is not, as the Catholic Church might express it, a “parity of animosity” or, as Hugh Henry MSP has put it, a “moral equivalence”.

It follows that any anti-sectarian campaign must focus on stopping attacks on Catholics, just as anti-domestic abuse campaigns focus on attacks by men, even although some small minority of women are responsible for this kind of violence. It seems the one thing the SNP government is more afraid of than being seen as anti-Catholic is being seen as pro-Catholic. So, instead of an evidence-based campaign against the root causes of this stain on Scotland’s character, we clamp down on singing at football matches.

Much more serious, doctrinally, is the attack, as the Catholic and other churches see it, on the institution of marriage. The Church gave the SNP the benefit of the doubt over previous “liberalising” law-making – such as civil partnership and gay adoption – on the grounds that these had already been legislated for elsewhere. But the proposal to change the definition of marriage was SNP-initiated. It was in the party’s 2010 manifesto and Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that the SNP wants to see this happen. So, given the SNP’s majority, it will. But this overthrowing of 1,000 years of core Christian values that have been at the heart of Scottish culture and society will exact its electoral cost.

But possibly the most grievous attack on the SNP came from the Church of Scotland, because, as usual with this pragmatic body, it concentrated on the practical, day-to-day injustice with which many Scots struggle which could hardly be more anti-Christian – poverty. In a coruscating attack on the recent SNP Budget, the Kirk condemns the government for “abandoning the poor” It claims the government failed to deliver any measures to tackle soaring levels of inequality and accused the SNP setting a Budget at the expense of pensioners and children becoming ever deeper mired in poverty.

This criticism shows how out of touch the SNP has become with what Scots have come to regard as the characteristic of Scottish social values – equality. It was the mistake Margaret Thatcher made in her “Sermon on the Mound” speech to the General Assembly all those years ago. Now the Kirk has dumped Salmond in the same materialistic box.

And on the other hand, the businessmen who supported his re-election are complaining his Budget is anti-business. Never mind not being able to please some of the people. Right now, he’s not pleasing any.

The issues over which the SNP has fallen out with the Catholic Church demonstrate what many suspected – that Salmond and the SNP have never really understood the west of Scotland. When it comes to fishermen wanting to hoover up the sustainable stock from the North Sea, or farmers wanting subsidies to produce more crops at prices no-one will pay, he’s untouchable. Back in the day, the SNP used to be a great little Poujadist party. But going nationwide demands different skills and beliefs from the SNP. Salmond is out of touch with the conurbations of the west. He even deprived Glasgow of its airport link.

That’s bad enough. But falling out with the Kirk over social justice suggests his sure touch has deserted him more fundamentally. It comes down to trying to keep everyone happy. Now the conflicts have begun to appear and, as the informal coalition breaks up, it only remains to be seen by how much he will lose his independence referendum. One thing is for sure, he won’t be winning Glasgow or the Lanarkshire councils next May. Too many voters will be aggressively making the sign of the “X”.