Jeremy's Den: The Scottish Play

It's shite being Scottish
We're the lowest of the low, the scum of the fucking Earth
The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization
Some people hate the English, I don't, they're just wankers
We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers
Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by
We're ruled by effete arseholes, it's a shite state of affairs to be in
And all the fresh air in the world won't make a fucking difference
(Ewan McGregor as Mark "Rent Boy" Renton, Trainspotting, 1996)

For some time now, Nicola Sturgeon has accustomed us to what the French call douche écossaise (which technically is what English speakers would call 'contrast bath therapy'): alternating episodes of finely calculated boldness and extreme legalistic caution. But boldness seemed to have become more frequent in recent times. Which is why I had high hopes for her Dynamic Earth Announcement on Brexit Day and I suppose I should only blame myself for setting the bar too high. But on the other hand I can't help reaching the conclusion that it was a massively missed opportunity as there were a couple of ways to poke the English bulldog and challenge them to call our bluff. With Nicola speaking on a symbolic day and the Referendums Act 2020 having received Royal Assent just two days before, it was not extravagant to expect a game-changing proposal. And then there was none and many felt let down by her failure to endorse an alternate strategy to the SNP's Plan A. In a way we are lucky that Boris Johnson did not accept Plan A (granting a Section 30 Order) because, if he had, there would probably have been enough strings attached to fit the Edinburgh University Symphony for a whole season, and the terms would have made the 1979 Devolution Referendum look like a shining example of true democracy. Then the predictable failure of Plan A should have been an incentive to move on and boldly go where no FM had gone before. As King Solomon and Pete Seeger said, to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose....

As I see it Brexit Day was definitely the time to raise the bar and explicitly support Joanna Cherry's Plan B: pass a motion in Scottish Parliament to hold a consultative referendum and wait for the English Government to challenge it in court. But then who would seriously expect Nicola to endorse Joanna's proposals? The various incarnations of the Scotland Act never explicitly ruled out a non-binding referendum being held without a Section 30 Order so it is definitely worth trying, and I venture we have even odds of it being validated by the Court of Session. And anyway not trying because you fear it might fail is not a valid option when there are strong hints it might succeed if you tried. Even Chris McEleny now backs down on his earlier self-billed Plan B, which in my opinion was never a plan at all as it would have been dangerously close to UDI, and grudgingly endorses the 'Cherry Option' as the real Plan B. Interestingly YouGov's last Scottish poll (which does not include voting intentions) shows that 49% of respondents support the 'Cherry Option' while 51% want a Section 30 Order. Their most significant finding is that 40% of Labour voters, 20% of LibDem voters and even 5% of Conservative voters support the 'Cherry Option'. Also 55% of respondents think IndyRef2 should happen within five years, including 12% of Conservatives, 48% of Labour and 35% of LibDems. Food for thought for the Unionist party leaders. But support for holding the referendum does not (yet?) translate into the same level of support for Independence, as the most recent polls show a statistical tie between Yes and No.

The summary above is the weighted average of the last four polls, all conducted after the general election and the last one after Brexit Day. Admittedly YouGov's poll does not use the standard 2014 question but it is close enough, in my view, to be considered valid and included in the sample. At least it is not as massively and deliberately misleading as previous Scotland In Union 'polls' were. No surprise in these results as Independence is still a work in progress, we all know that without needing a poll to hammer it home, unlike Gordon Brown who reads Scotland's state of mind from YouGov surveys. Now more than ever, every contribution is welcome and I fully support the view that AUOB's marches for Indy are a key component of our March To Indy and do gain us votes, notwithstanding some sour souls wanting us to believe otherwise. Of course you might want to forget about Kenny MacAskill's arrogant dismissal of the marches and hope that he shuts the fuck up but it is not to be. Expect to hear more from Maverick Kenny in all Scottish fish-wrappers as time goes by because, ye ken, nothing screams 'great clickbait' louder than some juicy Sturgeon-bashing delivered in a condescending tone. Ironically massive coverage of Covid-19 has saved us from lots of bullshit about IndyRef2 during Alex Salmond's trial, but it does not invalidate the new media rule that says 'every Salmond is deemed guilty until proven innocent' and the English common wisdom that any SNP member doing a bad thing is conclusive evidence that Independence is bad. Worst part here being of course that some within the SNP and the broader Yes movement have ulterior motives that will make that sort of cooshite sound credible.

General election prospects look good right now for the SNP though we haven't had any dedicated Scottish poll since the election. But subsamples of UK-wide polls, as always to be handled with the utmost Curticean caveats, have the SNP on 45%-50% of voting intentions, as good or better than the December election. The question now is what will happen to the other parties' votes. I think the major flaw in my esteemed colleague James Kelly's and others' approach is the implicit core belief that the Unionist vote is genetically engineered to coalesce around the Scottish Conservatives. I believed that for a while too and there is a paper trail in my blog to prove it. But the results of the December election and the Scottish subsamples of the 2020 polls prove this wrong, at least at this moment. Boris Johnson will definitely not be happy with Jackson Carlaw. Poor things.

Just look at the numbers. From the 2017 election to the current polls, the left-wing bloc (Greens, SNP and Labour) is stable on 64-65% while the right-wing bloc bags 34-35%. The election results and current polling show movement within each camp and hardly any crossover from one camp to the other. The Conservatives lost ground to the LibDems at the 2019 general election, most probably as the Brexit Effect, and have not fully recovered since. Labour fared poorly at the general election and now do even worse in polls because a significant number of pro-Indy Labour voters have switched to the SNP. Current Scottish Parliament polling goes pretty much in the same direction. We have had two Holyrood polls this year: one from Survation for Progress Scotland, conducted 20-22 January, and one from Panelbase for Scot Goes Pop, conducted 28-31 January. Both also polled a future Independence Referendum (see above). So here are the voting intentions and my seat projections for both polls and their weighted average, and how the average projection compares with the 2016 results by region (click on the images for larger and clearer versions):

Interestingly the Panelbase poll is as close as we can possibly get to 'Both Votes SNP' with only a 3% gap between the two votes, and it does not hurt the Greens as the combined vote for pro-Indy parties is significantly up on the 2016 results. Another result worth highlighting is that there is no 'Unionist Coalescence' around the Tories here either. The best case for the Conservatives in Scotland is in fact their Holyrood vote aligning with their Westminster vote, something we have already seen earlier for other parties, and it can't be labelled an outstanding success whichever spin you put on it. But even that would be a startling achievement for Conservatives in Scotland, seeing how most of their lot couldn't find their own arse even with a hunting dog and a Ouija board. Then of course the most important point here is that both polls predict an outright majority for the SNP and a strengthened pro-Independence majority. The pro-Indy majority would even be stronger than after the historic 2011 election which defeated the in-built purpose of AMS for the first and so far only time. This clearly hints at the best strategy for the SNP: gain and keep pro-Indy Labour voters and go strongly after the Conservatives especially in their weakest seats. The last three Labour-held seats are definitely predicted to fall and the Tory-held Ayr and Edinburgh Central (more on this one later) are the next most likely gains, with Oliver Mundell's Dumfriesshire seat also quite close to the immediate danger zone. Then the SNP should have a selective strategy for the regional votes. Actively pursuing Both Votes SNP might be futile and even counter-productive in some cases but it's definitely worth trying in some regions (more on this later). Let's hope Sturgeon Central will weigh all the options and not flunk it. Anyway here is the breakdown of seats by region as projected from the weighted average of our two polls, with some interesting upsets on the list seats thanks to the unfathomably odd workings of AMS:

The next Holyrood campaign will have some predictable moments. Even the atheists within the SNP will pray that nobody brings up the Gender Recognition Act during the campaign but of course everybody will and expect the media to make good clickbait out of it. Labour will campaign against holding Indyref2. Labour will campaign for holding IndyRef2. Jackson Carlaw will do his best to convince us the Conservatives are not a single-issue party so he will have two. First will be 'No To IndyRef2'. This one has been asked and answered already but it does not hurt to try again, or does it? Trying thrice and expecting a different result would be a sign of madness, trying twice will be just a sign of daftness. Then of course he will make all sorts of points about the alleged managerial incompetence of the Scottish Government. Which is a bit rich coming from a lad who supports an English Government ready to waste billions on HS-To-Nowhere and the Portpatrick-Larne-Euphemism, and who contemplates scrapping NHS England's targets because they're chronically unable to meet them. Does Union Jackson really think we all just fell off a turnip cart? Surely he must if he believes Scotland will elect a First Minister whose last two forays into the private sector ended in administration. Then of course that whole line of attack might totally fall flat on its face when people consider the way the Scottish Government handled the Covid-19 emergency, and even Jackson might find it awkward to stick to these talking points after he expressed his trust in ScotGov's ability to handle the crisis. Bugger. But the best part is bound to be Jo Swinson's newfound love for hustings on the 7B to Kelty. Will she play it as 'FM Jo', seeing how successful her 'PM Jo' persona was? Will she have her Nicolson Moment telling amazed voters 'I am the only one who can beat the SNP here in East Dunbartonshire'? Sorry John, couldn't resist; Again. Then of course the main campaign guideline should be the SNP living up to the polls and making this election yet another resounding success. Yes We Can.

Of course I have a few things to say about the SNP's new self-inflicted mess: the Edinburgh Central selection fight between Angus Robertson and Joanna Cherry. Long ago when Angus and Joanna both started sending smoke signals that they contemplated standing in Central, I suggested a possible way out of the shambles, with one of them standing in Central and the other in the neighbouring Southern where incumbent Daniel Johnson is squarely in the danger zone thanks to Labour's dismal performance in the latest Holyrood polls. I did not say it explicitly but the idea was Joanna For Central and Angus For Southern. But it won't happen as both are stuck on Central Or Bust, and the Joannistas have effectively blocked an alternate solution anyway with Catriona MacDonald now seeking selection in Southern. The sad side of the whole bùrach is that it was never about who could best represent their constituents but always about the SNP's ongoing internecine feud, 'that or a fight among themselves' as the late DCI Jim Taggart once said: Eckites vs Nicolistas and now the 'woke lobby vs TERFs' inflammatory arguments have quite expectedly barged in to spice up the broth. Turf war turned into TERF war if you allow me my Lousy Joke Of The Week here, and everybody will get hurt.

In the grander scheme of things what is happening here is in fact pretty transparent: Joanna launches Stage One of her leadership challenge to Nicola and for this she needs to sit in Holyrood; then the SNP's establishment launch their preemptive counter-strike with Angus hastily announcing his candidacy. And it's already getting nasty. And it's gonna hurt. Since this is now primary season in the USA, I suggest the SNP's spads sit back and consider what happened in past American primaries. The divisive Democratic primary between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy in 1980 paved the way for Ronald Reagan's election. Later a bitter Republican primary between George Bush I and Pat Buchanan in 1992 drove millions of Republican voters to switch their allegiance to Ross Perot and got Bill Clinton elected on just 43% of the popular vote. The latter might well provide the blueprint for the forthcoming election in Central, just factor in the Green Punks again fielding a vanity candidate there and snatching enough disgruntled SNP voters, and whichever goat with a blue rosette (insert Miles Briggs here) bags the seat. When it happens, remember you read it here first before equally cursing both Joanna and Angus.

Against this background, I think the SNP's internal politics have reached a new level of absurdity. The outcome of the next Holyrood election, and possibly the very future of the party, might very well depend on how we feel about gender self-identification. Forget independence, Brexit, immigration, NHS, taxes and all that stuff. It's Woke vs TERF that defines us now, let that sink in. Of course peak absurdity was reached on Saturday with that totally moronic idea that sitting MPs should be banned from standing for a Holyrood seat. There's nothing even remotely principled about this, on top of the zillion reasons why only someone with an IQ below room temperature could have come up with such nonsense. It's 100% personal, a one-shot gun aimed squarely at Joanna Cherry. Besides it's not like there is no precedent, both Alex Salmond and John Swinney stood for a Holyrood seat and won while being MPs, Big Eck even did it twice. And both spent years double-jobbing while Joanna has already pledged she would resign her Westminster seat if elected to Holyrood.

As I write this we still don't know for sure if it was ever for real as it was in fact never tabled at the SNP's NEC, or if it was just a trial balloon from An Anonymous Source At Bute House, re-imagined by an over-zealous journalist at The National harbouring massive ulterior motives of her own. Either way it's appalling to see how many people were ready to endorse it without thinking it through, simply because they have been brainwashed into believing Joanna Cherry is Evil Incarnate. And they don't even realize that there are now three to six Unionist seats that rate as eminently gainable, and de facto nine SNP open seats (seven 'officials' plus Derek MacKay and Mark MacDonald), so ample room for everyone including all other sitting MSPs, all newcomers willing to stand, and the possibly two or three MPs contemplating a Holyrood candidacy. Sad times indeed for a once truly open-minded and enlightened party. And I won't even start questioning Nicola Sturgeon's own ulterior motives as I would then have to ask who has become Nicola's Dominic Cummings.

Finally we have the new breed of elephants in the room, or dead cats on the table depending on your perspective: the pro-independence New Party(ies) competing with the SNP and Greens for the regional lists vote. John Hutchison from Fort William recently wrote to the National asking for someone to do the math and I'm happy to oblige. George Kerevan in his Notional column has steadily advocated the creation of such a party. So I must first address a major flaw in George's approach: that the New Party could snatch up to 150k 'wasted' list votes from the SNP without damaging the SNP's or the Greens' prospects for list seats. This is clearly first-class delusion and is definitely not how AMS actually works, and George obviously knows it but won't admit it as it would wreck his whole point that the New Party would bag pro-Indy seats on top of those already bagged by the SNP and the Greens. It's fairly easy to simulate such a scenario, all it takes is to replay the 2016 election with the New Party on 6.5% and the SNP on 35.2% of the list vote in any simulation engine, with the constituency votes and all other parties' list votes unchanged, and see what happens. Which would be SNP 61 seats, New Party 8 seats, Greens 3 seats, Conservatives 28 seats, Labour 24 seats, LibDems 5 seats. So the pro-Independence majority would be stronger by three seats but the New Party would have snatched three from the Greens, two from the SNP and only three from the Conservatives. George should have thought this through and done the math himself before writing that line. It can be easily done with Election Polling, you just have to use the 'Brexit Party' slot to simulate the New Party.

Of course I tried more elaborate options based on the 2016 results and how the New Party could have impacted them. First assumption is that the New Party would not actually have come out of the blue but that an embryonic New Party already existed with some minor lists representing 'alternative pro-Independence' views (Solidarity, RISE, Scottish Libertarians) despite their ideological differences on other issues. Here we have an hypothetical baseline of 26,930 votes or 1.18% of votes cast. Then I simulated nine options numbered from 3a to 6c meaning the New Party would progress from the baseline to 3%, 4%, 5% and finally 6% with the added votes coming from different sources including both other parties and abstentionists. So here are my scenarios with a breakdown of the hypothetical New Party votes by origin and then the resulting number of votes by party with the increased turnout shown by the labels on top. Of course only the changes in the list vote are shown here as it is understood the New Party would not stand in the constituencies, and all figures are in kvotes.

Then here is how these numbers of votes translate into shares of the popular vote for a more direct comparison with the 2016 results. In these scenarios the New Party's votes would not be evenly spread across all regions as their theoretical baseline is not. They would have a peak in Glasgow and lows in the North East and South, while Central and West would be the closest to their national average. Remember that the most successful 'alternative pro-Indy' list ever at the national level, the Scottish Socialist Party, were basically a Two Hit Wonder. They bagged 2% of the national vote and one seat in 1999 thanks to a 7.2% peak vote share in Glasgow, then 6.7% of the national vote and six seats in 2003, and then lost almost all the votes and all the seats in 2007 and were never seen again in Holyrood. Uncoincidentally my simulations for the hypothetical New Party are not very far from what the real-world SSP achieved at their peaks.

Final step is of course my seat projections for the various options and how they translate in number of seats for the Pro-Indy Bloc vs the Unionist Bloc. The results show that the supporters of a New Party in 2021 should be more careful what they wish for. The twisted AMS we have in Scotland works in wildly mysterious ways and getting votes does not mean you will get seats. And it may even be counter-productive if some of your votes are snatched from other parties with whom you supposedly share a common vision. Then you might object that the results would be different if the New Party relied more heavily on abstentionists finding their way back to the polling places, and less on other parties' voters making different choices. But remember George Kerevan's alternate scenario did not even include abstentionists but just the SNP's 'wasted votes' and it did not turn out to be better than my own approach. And even if the New Party drew all their votes from abstentionists, it would still reduce the other parties' share of the votes, which is in the end the deciding factor in the allocation of list seats, rather than the number of votes. QED.

The conclusion is quite clear: if the New Party is anywhere between 3% and 5%, which seems like a reasonably credible scenario, they actually weaken the pro-Indy camp. And even in the not-so-likely case where they reach 6%, most of the New Party's seats would be taken away from the SNP and the Greens and not from the Unionist parties. Whichever way you crunch the numbers, it delivers similar results. Food for thought. Especially as an 'alternative pro-Independence' option already exists: SNP in the constituencies and Greens on the regional lists. My own position here has evolved since 2016 as I am no longer convinced 'Both Votes SNP' is the right strategy. Rather it has to be a case-by-case approach similar to tactical voting. It is reasonable to assume the SNP will hold all their constituency seats and possibly gain some (see current polling above) so the choice becomes between 'Both Votes SNP' in regions where the SNP can bag list seats (that would be South, Highland and Islands and possibly North East) and a split SNP-Greens vote in other regions where the infamous AMS means the SNP has fuck all chances at bagging a list seat while the Greens can (Glasgow, West, Central and Lothian). And the next Holyrood polls will tell us more about the most efficient way to maximize the number of pro-Indy MSPs without resorting to extreme counter-productive options.

I also replayed the simulations on the weighted average of the last two Holyrood polls I mentioned earlier, which are more favourable for the Yes camp than the 2016 election, just to check if starting from a higher baseline would alter the results. Spoiler alert: it doesn't. But let's go through all stages anyway. The underlying hypotheticals have to be somewhat different as we have no real data here and current polling shows that the voting intentions for 'alternative pro-Indy' lists are basically 0%. So my 3a to 6c scenarios now factor in the New Party snatching virtual votes from the left-wing parties in different combinations. So here we go with Stage 1 and Stage 2, the breakdown of the hypothetical New Party vote by origin and the resulting list vote shares for all parties:

On these numbers the pro-Independence parties would still bag a stronger majority than in 2016 as the polls are really favourable. But it still could be reduced if the New Party stays in the low-to-mid range of hypotheticals on 3-5%. And again their best simulated result would see them taking away more seats from the other pro-Indy parties than from the Unionist parties. Stage 3 and Stage 4 below, the projected breakdown of seats by party and for Indy vs Union blocs in my nine hypothetical options:

In case you missed it, the most significant result here is that the New Party's first and constant impact would be to deprive the SNP of a majority, though they would be just one seat short. This is most probably what the New Party supporters actually wish for as weakening the SNP is not even an ulterior motive here but a fairly transparently obvious one. Then I expect even the most rabid Independence purists can understand that weakening the SNP, no matter how bad we feel about their shortcomings, would be handing out oven-ready ammunition to the Unionists in Westminster to deny Scotland our right to self-determination for all of eternity. So be careful what you wish for even if my Evil Twin whispers to my ear that the SNP already do a pretty good job at undermining themselves anyway.

Of course all this does not directly cover the hypothetical so-called 'Wings Party', which might be a credible alternate option if Stu Campbell had anything serious in mind beyond his fifteen minutes of the news cycle, and had not already alienated part of the Yes camp through his arrogance and questionable stance on some issues other than independence. I think the Wings Party would totally fail to attract voters from the radical left parties and would have to rely on a smaller voter base consisting mainly of discontent 'soft SNP' or 'soft Green' voters and possibly a few from Labour. So his possible performance would be somewhere in the low-to-middle range of my simulations on some 3-4%. Exactly where the 'alternative pro-Indy' strategy backfires and ends up hurting the Yes camp. Of course you may think I'm a wee smitch biased here and that the Wings Party would fare better, but I honestly fail to see how unless enough voters prove to be as thick as your granny's soup and fall for the cunning tricks of a lad whose first priority will always be to demean the SNP. Then strangest things have been known to happen, haven't they? Now it's up to the SNP to make their case, though I'll be more than happy to lend a hand occasionally. One key point is that Scotland definitely needs one big pro-Independence party, no matter how the smaller pro-Indy parties fare, because safety is in numbers, it's as simple as that.

There are very few cases in history, if any, where splinter groups actually helped The Cause. Here some would probably argue that we had such a case in Scotland: Margo MacDonald's independent candidacies in Lothian from 2003 to 2011. Then I would counter-argue that she was standing quite clearly against the SNP. No matter how much respect we have for her and her integrity, outwith the conspiracy theories, she was definitely not trying to help. Not the Scottish Government, that is. Margo's electoral history also gives some clues about the sort of voters' coalition an alternate pro-Indy New Party would need. She initially got significant support from discontent SNP fundamentalists and some from the radical left but failed to attract Greenish voters as the Greens did significantly better in Lothian than nationwide at every Holyrood election. Then she lost SNPish voters both in 2007 and 2011, probably because they felt strengthening the SNP government was more important than making a point about the path to independence, and she came dangerously close to the de facto threshold for a list seat. And the lack of a proper 'alternative pro-Indy' candidate in Lothian after her death clearly helped the Greens more than any other list as the radical left(s) qualified for endangered species status. The history of Margo's political adventure also shows that the 'alternative pro-Indy left' needs an iconic and preferably charismatic figure on the leaflets, and I doubt Colette Walker could ever be 2021's Margo MacDonald.

That's it for now. The game has just begun and the juicy bits are yet to come, so stay tuned.

Taggart: International? Scotland is not good enough for Edinburgh?
In Glasgow we don't put things on periscopes
Livingstone: Aye.... people would knock them off
(Mark McManus and Neil Duncan in Taggart, episode Death Call, 1986)

Jeremy's Den

20/03/2020

The Scottish Play - Act I Of MMXX

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