Politics in Scotland ‘is glib and immature’, says former Scottish Labour leader

Johann Lamont said the country is paying a heavy price

Johann Lamont. Picture: Jane Barlow

Politics in Scotland has become glib, immature and "deeply unserious", a former leader of Scottish Labour has said.

Johann Lamont said the country is "paying a heavy price" for the failings.

She also condemned the “self-righteousness” in Holyrood, insisting: “I have never met a zealot like the zealots that sit in the Scottish Parliament now.”

It came as former SNP minister Alex Neil said the founding principles of the Scottish Parliament had been "completely eroded".

The pair were speaking at an event at the University of Edinburgh titled “Reform at Holyrood”, which discussed whether the Scottish Parliament had lived up to expectations.

Both Ms Lamont, who led Scottish Labour from 2011 to 2014, and Mr Neil, who served as a Cabinet minister under Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, were critical of the list system used in Holyrood elections. This allows parties to list their candidates in order of preference in the regional ballot.

Ms Lamont said: “The complete break in connection between being an elected member and the needs of your constituents is reinforced by the fact the people you have to keep in with is the folk in your party. And the idea that I was going to, for example, have to bite my tongue on some of the issues I've been arguing for all my political life, I just couldn’t bear it.”

She described it as a “closed circle”. Elsewhere, she said the third sector only says what ministers want to hear because it is largely funded by the Scottish Government.

Ms Lamont said: “We’ve got a huge closing down of politics.”

Mr Neil said the “pernicious” list system should be replaced with a single transferable vote (STV) system, “which is a far better system of proportional representation”.

He said: “We need to go back to the founding principles of the parliament, because these have been completely eroded. The four key founding principles were openness, transparency, accountability and sharing power.”

Meanwhile, Ms Lamont also condemned “a bit of a culture of zealotry”. She said: “I come from a family who, some of them are very religious. People can be very disparaging about the Free Church, or people who are Free Church-adjacent. I have never met a zealot like the zealots that sit in the Scottish Parliament now.

"The scale of self-righteousness that means you never have to ask yourself a question, you don’t meet with people that disagree with you, you never countenance the possibility that you might actually be wrong.”

She later said: "My starting point is I think we've ended up with a politics that's both glib and immature. It's not serious. Deeply unserious. I mean, I don't mind things I disagree with. I do mind things I'm insulted by."

The former Scottish Labour leader added: "If you want a metaphor of the problem, it's that somebody allowed a First Minister to launch a ship [the Glen Sannox] with painted-on windows that's still not made it into service. How could that possibly have got past first base?"

Referring to governance in Scotland, she said: "I think there's a cosiness, and a glibness and a laziness that we're paying a heavy price for."