How chaos theory helps explain the Scottish election and our increasingly divided country
People who didn’t vote in the Scottish Parliament election may discover that apathy has consequences
Students of chaos theory propose that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in the Amazon might set off a tornado in Texas. The tiniest action, they suggest, could spark a chain of events ending in catastrophe. The result of this year’s Scottish Parliamentary election suggests a variation: might the shrug of a voter’s shoulders in Stockbridge set off an earthquake at Holyrood?
The SNP may have won a remarkable fifth consecutive term in power but First Minister John Swinney does not head back to Bute House upon a wave of public enthusiasm. After a drab and grinding campaign, Swinney returns to power by grudging consent rather than overwhelming approval.
Given how far the SNP had to fall, the party was able to lose ten or more per cent of the vote in constituencies across the country without suffering much damage. Throughout the election campaign, pollsters continually reported a lack of enthusiasm among voters. The “scunner factor” was very real, indeed.
Motivated political insurgents
But where supporters of what we might consider the four traditional parties – the SNP, Labour, the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats – have been less than enthused by this year’s cavalcade of democracy, those who favour the insurgent Scottish Greens or Reform UK appear to have been more highly motivated.
Victory for the Scottish Greens’ Lorna Slater over the SNP’s Angus Robertson in Edinburgh Central surely supports this idea. While Robertson, a former leader of his party at Westminster and Cabinet Secretary at Holyrood, failed to energise the SNP vote, Slater, whose inability to implement a deposit return scheme while serving as a minister during the power-sharing years marked her out as unusually incompetent, was able to galvanise support around issues such as trans rights and Gaza.
Similarly, a drop in enthusiasm for the SNP in Glasgow Southside – previously held by former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon – saw Green candidate Holly Bruce defeat the SNP’s Kaukab Stewart.
A new SNP-Green alliance?
Although we are yet to see any detailed analysis of voting patterns in this election, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that the Greens’ focus on Gaza paid off. Both Edinburgh Central’s large student population and Glasgow Southside’s extensive Muslim community may have carried the party across the line in those constituencies.
With John Swinney returning as First Minister without the majority he predicted he would achieve, he will require the support of other parties to get things done at Holyrood. Inevitably, he’ll turn to the Scottish Greens, under the leadership of Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay.
There is no possibility of a repeat of the Bute House Agreement which saw Greens serve in the Scottish Government. Instead, Swinney will agree certain concessions in return for the party’s support in key votes.
And while the Greens try to pull Swinney further to the radical left, Reform UK will bring a new brand of angry right-wing populism to the Scottish Parliament.
A great many voters struggled to engage with this year’s Holyrood election. The consequence of that apathy stands to be a parliament – and a country – more bitterly divided than ever.
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