Independence is no longer the SNP’s chief concern

Humza Yousaf’s government will be defined by two legacies, Nicola Sturgeon’s and his own as health secretary. The Sturgeon legacy can only be understood by looking at the distance between the previous first minister’s rhetoric and her record. Sturgeon was always heavy on mission statements but light on delivery. During the leadership election, Yousaf initially embraced his designation as the ‘continuity candidate’ then pivoted to reject the label. That ambivalence reflects not only the shifting tactics of a troubled campaign but the political realities that the victor would inherit. 

Sturgeon was a very popular figure, both within her party and the general public, amassing approval ratings and political capital that exceeded even that of Tony Blair in his heyday. Being seen as her natural successor undoubtedly helped drag Yousaf over the finish line. But Sturgeon failed to deliver the transformative outcomes she promised.

Take education. She aimed to close the attainment gap between pupils from the richest and poorest areas ‘not by a bit but to close that attainment gap completely’. In a landmark speech in Wester Hailes in 2015, she stated: ‘Let me be clear: I want to be judged on this.’ Addressing the Scottish parliament the following year, after winning the 2016 election, she described closing the gap as the ‘defining mission’ of her government. Audit Scotland, the body responsible for scrutinising how public money is spent, concluded that progress had been ‘limited’ and the gulf between educational outcomes for wealthy and deprived children ‘remains wide’. 

This is a familiar story of the Sturgeon era. It can be filed alongside ferrygate, the Scottish government’s attempt to procure two vessels to replace the ageing fleet that serves the islands. Commissioned early in Sturgeon’s tenure, the two boats were due for delivery in 2018 at a total cost of £97 million. Cue a tragicomic epic of missed deadlines, a fake launch complete with painted on windows, disappearing ministerial documents, and the eventual nationalisation of the shipyard, complete with a £60,000-a-month ‘turnaround director’ and bonuses for the bosses. The project’s price tag now stands at £300 million and the ferries still haven’t been delivered. 

Sturgeon also leaves behind the worst drugs death rate in Europe, a climate change strategy that has missed seven of its 11 statutory emissions targets, and a broken pledge to upgrade Scotland’s most dangerous road. Her Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill, pushed through Holyrood in a series of late-night sittings, is unpopular with the voters and has divided the SNP. Yousaf threatens to deepen these divisions by mounting a legal challenge against the UK government’s decision to block the Bill. Sturgeon has also bequeathed him a party membership down by one-third in the past year and a failed strategy for securing a second referendum on independence, which was shot down by the Supreme Court. 

But just as Yousaf inherits a legacy, he leaves one for Michael Matheson, his successor as health secretary. The Yousaf legacy was built on that of prior occupants of the office, not least that of the longest-serving SNP health minister, Nicola Sturgeon. However, in 18 months he failed to turn things around and even saw outcomes worsen, while his NHS recovery strategy was poorly received. Among the major problems bedevilling the Scottish health service:

• The Scottish government’s target requires 95 per cent of patients to be seen at accident and emergency within four hours. The current rate is 70 per cent. Aside from four months during the pandemic, when A&E attendance plummeted, this target was last met in August 2017.
• The 62-day cancer standard, introduced by Sturgeon a decade ago, says that 95 per cent of patients should begin treatment within 62 days of urgent referral. The current rate is 72 per cent. The target has never been met.
• Some 90 per cent of children and adolescents referred to mental health services should begin treatment within 18 weeks. The current rate is 70 per cent. The target has never been met. 
• Patients are supposed to wait no longer than six weeks for eight key diagnostic procedures, covering endoscopy and radiology tests. That target is not being met for any of the eight tests and wasn’t before the pandemic either.  
• As health secretary, Sturgeon banned single-crewing of ambulances save for ‘exceptional circumstances’. In the past five years, 15,600 paramedic shifts have been single-crewed.

The Sturgeon legacy and the Yousaf legacy are the products of generational inequalities, systemic failings, powerful interest groups, policy inertia and political cowardice. But they also reflect an approach to government that is supportive of social democratic outcomes but not prepared to expend political capital to achieve them, reserving that for marginal measures rooted in culture, values and identity. Social democracy and social liberalism can go hand-in-hand, as the Labour party has demonstrated since at least the 1960s, but the prevailing philosophy of today’s SNP is something different. 

Progressive managerialism, a leftism of the margins, is a bulwark against social and economic change because it organises itself around the regulation of culture, attitudes and language rather than a materialist analysis of class and power. That shouldn’t matter too much to a non-socialist party like the SNP, except progressive managerialism has arguably relegated independence to a second-order concern for the party’s hierarchy. For the last decade, supporting independence was high-status politics. The Scottish establishment still holds that position but it has found a higher-status politics that now takes precedence.  

Scotland will remain trapped by the Sturgeon and Yousaf legacies, unable to reverse their failings or materially improve outcomes, for as long as the political outlook that created them retains control of the Scottish government.