What Scotland needs if it is to escape endless post-Brexit crises
Scotland is at a political crossroads and the decisions made over the next few months will dictate our future for decades, says Christine Jardine
It's parliamentary recess and time for everyone at Westminster to take a deep breath and focus. We’ve had the “looking over the precipice” moment for the government, as Ed Miliband termed it. Now it's time to just calm down and get back to work.
What the country needs, after almost a decade of post-Brexit referendum crises, is stability. No more of the internal political psychodrama which characterised the Tory years and was beginning to bog down this Labour government.
Focus on the real issues for the public: the cost of living, housing shortages, energy prices, the NHS and education. Most of all we need growth in the economy. And what we need in Scotland to make the most of that growth, when it does come, is change.
SNP out of steam
A different government with a new approach. Some fresh ideas. Even the best political parties and movements run out of steam and the SNP undoubtedly has. We need a new dynamism in Scotland and, while Westminster focusses on finding stability, we need to look for that new direction.
Last week we did, momentarily, get dragged into the Labour soap opera when Anas Sarwar stood up and expressed his disappointment, to put it mildly, in his UK leader.
When his Westminster colleagues rolled in behind Keir Starmer, you could almost hear the “oh dears” and enthusiastic hand-rubbing as newsdesks up and down the country prepared themselves for the next episode. But perhaps that was to miss the point.
As the SNP government was preparing to reveal what many of us hope will be their last Scottish Budget, the wider body politic was gearing up for the election. There is no doubt that Anas Sarwar was reflecting a general disappointment in Scotland with the Starmer operation.
To express it as he did distanced Scottish Labour from their UK counterpart in much the same way as Douglas Ross did for the Scottish Tories at the last election, when they were lumbered with an unpopular Boris Johnson in Downing Street.
A political crossroads
Meanwhile away from the dramas, the Scottish Liberal Democrats were focussing on those issues that the public actually cares about with significant gains in that, hopefully, final SNP Budget.
Lib Dems negotiated £300 million in funding for priorities including business rates relief, social care and colleges. That will include £178m to support businesses through rates relief, £70m for colleges and £20m for social care.
But progressive though it is, that one Budget will not overcome the damage of the past 19 years. Nor does it diminish my party’s commitment to removing the SNP from Bute House.
We are at a crossroads in our politics. The decisions we make collectively as a society over the next few months will dictate our future for decades.
This week Westminster takes a break. Time to examine what's gone wrong and look at how to fix it. Some room for Starmer’s Downing Street colleagues to reflect on how they restore their Scottish leader’s and voters' faith in their approach.
And a moment for the rest of us to ponder how we ensure a different, more effective, and more successful direction within Scotland.
Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West
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