After populists killed off hope in Scotland, here's why things are finally looking up

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn’s admission of a “harsh truth” – that his party has failed to deliver sufficient “hope and optimism” for the people of Scotland – is a sign that the nationalists’ recent general election trouncing is having the desired effect of focusing the minds of politicians on what really matters.

In complaining bitterly that Westminster was to blame for all Scotland’s ills and attempting to sell independence as the only panacea, the SNP has effectively strung along an entire nation for years on the idea that its problems were incapable of being resolved in a meaningful way.

One cause of depression can be the sufferer’s belief that they lack the means to escape a difficult situation. The same will surely apply to a country convinced that it similarly lacks agency. So the year in, year out messaging from our elected leaders that, barring independence, their hands are tied and little can be done will hardly have helped lift the public mood, amid the hard realities of the 2008 financial crash, austerity, Brexit, the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. No wonder then that faith in democracy is in decline.

Keir Starmer's message that things will get worse before they get better isn't particularly inspirational but there are signs of hope (Picture: Benjamin Cremel/WPA pool/Getty Images) | Getty Images

‘Cracks in our society’

The message that – to paraphrase both Keir Starmer and the D:Ream song beloved by Labour – things can only get worse before they get better is not exactly inspirational. However, this is the price of populist nationalism, both Scottish and Brexiteer, and it will take time for practical, pragmatic politics to begin to have an effect.

In a speech today, the Prime Minister will suggest the recent far-right riots showed "the cracks in our society after 14 years of populism and failure", and compare his job to the task undertaken by the local people who cleared up their communities in the aftermath of the violence.

In troubled times, what hope there is comes from signs that Labour is at least trying to fix the country’s problems and that some politicians in other parties realise they cannot simply rely on empty populist rhetoric. But the nation’s troubles are unlikely to end until it rids itself entirely of its dangerous addiction to this bogus cure-all.