Jimmy Reid Foundation: SNP has betrayed Scottish working class youth

It’s a brutal accusation, and one that, if true, could be politically lethal in the run-up to a General Election. As part of a wide-ranging discussion with Dave Watson, the director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation (JRF), Scotland’s leading left-wing think tank, The Herald on Sunday has been given exclusive access to its latest investigation into the state of the nation’s colleges.

Dave Watson, director of the Jimmy Reid foundation. Photograph by Colin Mearns

Here’s how Watson summed up the findings: “The report concludes that Scotland does not value the college sector. This needs significant change. Colleges matter in Scotland’s economy because they generate a significant proportion of the nation’s wealth … The core problem is underfunding. College funding per student is only two-thirds of that allocated to schools and universities.”

And here’s the kicker: “We suspect that’s largely because policymakers went to universities, and their children go straight from school to universities. Colleges have a high proportion of young adults from working-class backgrounds and communities left behind in other policy areas.”

No government wants the whiff of class war and snobbery hanging over it approaching polling day. However, Watson did stress that “neglect” of the college sector isn’t just down to the SNP government, but goes back to previous administrations as well.

Scottish Government funding for colleges has fallen 8.5% in “real terms” between 2021/22 and 2023/24. This year, the JRF study adds, the budget will fall by £32.7 million – nearly 5%.

Average expenditure per student sees colleges come bottom. Pre-school receives £9,273; primary £,5916; secondary £7,657; university £7,558; and colleges £5,054.

College cuts deny students “the springboard they need to get to university” – key to increasingly social mobility and tackling poverty.

The indictment of the SNP government when it comes to colleges and the future of working-class youth is only the tip of the iceberg for Watson. He’s deeply concerned about the state of left-wing politics in Scotland, and the decline of “class” as an issue when it comes to policymakers. Nor is the Labour Party cutting it, he believes.

First, a little about him and his organisation. The JRF was founded to further the legacy of Jimmy Reid, Scotland’s celebrated trade union leader, who rose to international fame during the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in during the 1970s. Reid was a member of the Communist Party, then moved to Labour, and finally joined the SNP. However, the think tank isn’t affiliated to any party and is neutral on issues like independence.

Watson is a key figure in Scottish public life. A lifelong trade unionist, he was head of policy at Unison. Watson was seconded to the Scottish Government as an expert adviser to the Christie Commission on Public Sector Reform. He is a trained lawyer and published historian. Watson is a past-chair of the Scottish Labour Party, and drafted the Scottish Labour Party’s manifestos in 2019 and 2021– although in his JRF role he insists he’s strictly non-partisan.

Fascism

His big worry is the “growth of the far right”. We’ve just seen extremist parties surge in European elections. France could soon have a far-right president.

The problem, says Watson, is this: “Western economies are struggling, people are struggling. Ordinary working-class people aren’t seeing solutions offered by those on the left. We’re not offering alternative ideas to populism. People are pissed off. You can see how that drove the rise of fascism in the 1920s. Conventional politics and conventional economics aren’t delivering.”

Populists like Nigel Farage and the far right “don’t have the answers but they offer something different. That’s a problem for the left, particularly in the caution you see in the ‘soft’ left. You see that in the UK with Keir Starmer. Labour’s big lead is arguably more about the Tories being so awful than Labour offering much of an alternative”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Stephen Flynn of the SNP taking part in the ITV Election Debate hosted by ITV news presenter Julie Etchingham

Watson adds: “The concern is that if the offer is just ‘we’re not the Tories’, and Labour offer just a more managerially-competent version of capitalism, that won’t tackle the concerns of ordinary people.”

He says there’s a “risk voters may turn to something else in four years’ time if the cautious UK Labour approach doesn’t deliver. People might say, ‘well the Tories were rubbish, Labour is rubbish, what else is out there?’. That’s where there’s space for the populists, the Farage-type approach, the Trumpist approach”.

Scottish Labour is “broadly in the same position” as UK Labour. “There’s caution about radical ideas, and wanting to play safe all the time. That’s a concern. It won’t address the issues Scotland faces.”

First Minister John Swinney, says Watson, is “very cautious economically, you probably couldn’t put a cigarette paper between him and Starmer”. Kate Forbes is “right of centre” on economic and social policy. “None of these approaches will address the core problems Scotland faces.”

There was a moment of hope for the left in 2014. “There were a lot of good, interesting ideas generated for the left, and the Yes movement captured a lot of that, it got people engaged in leftwing ideas.”

The unionist camp, however, “was very negative, it didn’t offer a great deal of hope, it wasn’t going to inspire anyone. I despaired about the thinking among Labour parliamentarians, it got very stale”.

However, after 2014, “we didn’t get any follow-on in terms of those left-wing ideas”. Nicola Sturgeon was “centrist economically”. However, Humza Yousaf was “more left-wing”.

The “domination of the constitution” as a political issue in Scotland meant the left “divided” as people defined themselves “for or against independence. That has constrained the left”. The constitution caused a “blank in left-wing thinking”.

It’s the job of the JRF to fill in that blank, Watson believes, which is why it works with academics, researchers and writers who have “both views on the constitution, or are like me and just regard the constitution as another policy option which doesn’t drive our politics”.

In fact, Scotland has a dearth of think tanks compared to other nations, and those we do have are “badly funded”. When it comes to the multiple crises Scotland faces, “ideas matter”.

War

So what are the ideas – the values – of Jimmy Reid that the foundation promotes? Given Reid’s political journey from the far left to the centre, the JRF is non-partisan. Reid, who died in 2010, left the Communist Party due to Soviet attacks on Hungary and Czechoslovakia, then left New Labour over Iraq.

Reid was a champion of “peace and human rights”, though not a pacifist. He supported the Falklands War, which toppled Argentina’s military dictatorship.

Watson broadly shares Reid’s positions. He also opposed the Iraq War, but supported military intervention against Serbia during the Kosovo War. “I’ve no time for people on the left who oppose supporting Ukraine,” he adds.

However, he’s happy to allow those of a different view their say. The Scottish Left Review, which is published by the JRF, has run articles both for and against support for Ukraine.

Education for the working class is a key JRF principle – which explains its work on Scottish colleges. Reid was self-educated and cherished the knowledge gained from Govan library which allowed him to joust with right-wingers who thought themselves a cut above a working-class Glaswegian. He once demolished the actor and comedian Kenneth Williams – who was avowedly right wing – in a TV interview on the Parkinson show.

Jimmy Reid

“He’d be horrified about what’s happened to libraries,” Watson adds. Reid’s affinity for libraries made him a lifelong lover of the arts – vital for the working class to thrive.

Community is another central JRF tenet. “He believed that democracy wasn’t just about winning votes but building stronger communities.” Ordinary people need to feel empowered.

Yet 25 years on from the creation of the Scottish Parliament, “one of the failures of devolution” has been the centralisation of power in Holyrood.

At the heart of Reid’s philosophy lies the notion that the working class “must fight back and not just accept things”. Watson turns again to Scotland’s colleges, which have seen extensive industrial action from lecturers as they believe “it’s absolutely shocking that we’re running down education, particularly for working-class kids in a way that we’re not doing for universities and middle-class students”.

That’s an example of “fighting back”.

SNP

REID’S move to the SNP “gave some credibility” to the party “certainly among trade unionists”. However, Watson recalls attending an SNP conference with Reid in Perth which he said reminded him of “New Labour in the 90s”. Reid was “very scathing of middle-class leftists who have no real understanding” of the issues the working class face. The “shift towards inequality” under Thatcherism incensed him.

Although Reid didn’t “rant and rave” like some union leaders such as “Arthur Scargill”, that “didn’t mean he wasn’t angry inside”.

He would have been furious, says Watson, about reports today of parents going hungry to feed their children amid the cost of living crisis.

When it comes to the issue of union leaders, Mick Lynch is closest in Watson’s estimation to a modern-day Reid: articulate, intelligent, combative and charismatic. Reid wasn’t a fan of Scargill.

Mick Lynch

Watson turns to the need for wealth taxes. He notes that Sweden is now the most unequal country in wealth terms in Europe – despite praise lavished on Nordic nations, particularly from the

Yes movement, on the issue of social equality.

Today, Reid would be advising the working class to “get organised. He was strong on mission and vision. He’d say to those on the left of the SNP and Labour ‘what’s your plan to get a better Scotland? The Scotland you claim to want?”.

Watson says he has “plenty of friends in the SNP who’d be to the left of me”. When it came to the constitution, although he joined the SNP, Reid “wasn’t a nationalist. His view was that independence was the best tactical move to get the policies and politics he wanted. Whether he’d still be a member today, who knows”?

Watson adds: “If he sat down with those on the left in Labour and the SNP, he’d say ‘you agree we need a more equal society and a wellbeing economy and all these things, but is arguing about the constitution the only plan you’ve got?’.”

Labour

ALTHOUGH polling looks “very good for Labour” in Scotland, “support for independence hasn’t moved one iota”. That’s a problem for Anas Sarwar. Scottish Labour “can’t ignore the constitution.” While left-wing Yes voters “may well lend their vote at the General Election”, but that may not be the case at the next Scottish election.

That means Labour must communicate with left-wing Yessers, “and the answer isn’t uber-unionism. The answer is to demonstrate you can make devolution work, and that means more powers for Holyrood”. The JRF campaigns for employment law, in particular, to be devolved.

That wouldn’t win over hardline nationalists, but it might be enough to convince “softer independence voters that Labour is different and won’t return to its 1990s corporate style. There’s always a risk when Labour is doing well in the polls in Scotland, and the SNP is in trouble, for Labour to think there’s no need to worry about the constitution any more, that it’s a terrible distraction.

“I understand that it is a distraction, but you can’t ignore that people care about it, and so you’ve got to explain your approach to the constitution”. However, Watson notes that in terms of priorities, independence is now much lower than the economy or NHS for Yes voters.

Labour can’t rely on “pinching working-class votes back from the Tories. It isn’t enough to win an election at Holyrood”.

While there are plenty of SNP voters who will lend their vote to Labour to get the Tories out at Westminster, Holyrood is different. The SNP’s core vote, Watson says, gives them about 25% and “they’ll probably never drop below that”. Labour has to go after “softer” Yes voters for Holyrood.

So, while change at Westminster is crucial, given the “wicked series of Tory governments, which could get worse if they won again”, change alone “isn’t enough. There must be much more devolution”.

Labour needs to offer Yes voters a way to fulfil their ambitions democratically – “an agreed mechanism which allows the Scottish people the right to say ‘the time is right to have a referendum’.”

Perhaps that would be when support for independence reaches 60% in polls for a sustained period.

Independence marchers

However, to avoid the risk of another referendum, Labour needs to “make sure the union works better”, and that means meaningful change “like abolishing the House of Lords”.

Power also needs “devolved to communities. The centralisation we’ve had in the last 10 years has been horrendous”. Creating one national police force was “entirely the wrong approach”.

Scotland is a “quango state. It drives you round the bend. Everything is run from Edinburgh, it’s desperately bad. We need to rebuild public services from the bottom up and get a whole generation engaged in politics with a small ‘p’ in their communities.” To be a councillor, you need money or lots of spare time. “No working person can spend time being a councillor,” Watson adds, given the recompense and the level of responsibility and work required.

He supports the creation of town-style councils where local people can afford the time to run smaller services like local care homes, and have a say over local roads and local policing. “That would rebuild our polity in Scotland. We’ve the biggest councils in Europe. It’s ridiculous.” Smaller councils mean greater “accountability”.

Careerists

WHILE Watson believes most politicians “want to do the right thing”, he thinks democracy is damaged by “politics becoming a career”. Life experience is lost if candidates go straight from university to working as parliamentary assistants and then running for office. Again, that’s not a path many working-class people can easily follow.

Nor has Holyrood lived up to the promise of devolution – that it would do politics differently, less tribal, to Westminster. Watson says that in the early days of the “rainbow parliament”, coalitions made for “interesting ideas”. The SNP winning its first majority “changed the dial and we switched to a more Westminster mode”. As a result, the “collegiate” approach “broke down” and we got “aggressive party politics”.

That highlighted Holyrood’s inherent failings such as the committee system, which has long been criticised for the poor level of questioning and scrutiny compared to Westminster. Watson also feels the level of debate in Holyrood is substandard compared to Westminster.

“Very often MSPs get up and sadly read a speech that’s been written for them.” In Westminster, there’s much more back and forth – actual debate and exchange. However, Holyrood is more “open” when it comes to the public than Westminster, and engages more with civil society groups like trade unions.

Culture

THE “main criticism”, however, is “the culture that’s developed of having consultations, working groups and commissioning lots of reports. I’ve helped write a few and served on government working groups, so I’ve got the T-shirt. Turning that into action has been something the parliament and government aren’t good at”.

Watson referenced the government’s National Performance Framework. “It got launched and everyone thought this is great.” Five years on, Watson realised the data was “three years out of date”. Watson “discovered there’s half a junior civil servant working on it. He said he was rushed off his feet and trying to keep multiple things going”, adding: “It illustrates that initiatives are launched with a flurry of press releases and a visit by a minister and then nothing much happens, it drifts off and they move on to the next thing.”

One of the “big ideas” of the 2011 Christie Commission on public services – where Watson was an expert adviser – was “preventative spending”: the idea, for example, that if you spend money tackling child poverty, you save on the NHS, prisons, care and addiction in the long term. “We’ve still not got preventative spending. Child poverty costs 40% of public expenditure. If we spent a bit of money sorting out poverty we’d save billions in the future.”

“Culture wars” have “bogged down” legislation. Watson refers to the recent furore over hate crime legislation. It became law in 2021 but it wasn’t until this year that all hell broke loose.

“This went through parliament years ago,” says Watson, “why are they arguing about it now? I sometimes wonder how we get into situations where there’s a clear majority for a relatively uncontentious piece of legislation which deals with issues other European countries have on their statute books, and suddenly when it comes to be implemented there’s a great stooshie, often from the same people who voted it through in the first place. What’s that about? If there are things that need sorted, do it at the time, don’t kick it up in some ‘woke’ battle three years down the line.”

Although, partly, Watson says, the problem is also that Holyrood has no second chamber to really scrutinise legislation.

Identity politics “doesn’t help”, he adds. However, he’s not ‘anti-woke’. Putting plaques on statues of historical figures linked to slavery is “perfectly reasonable”. In his youth, he’d have “been there pulling down the Bristol slaver’s statue as well”. He’s glad the young are “bewildered” by the hostility to what’s termed “woke” causes.

“People are arguing when they should be asking themselves whether if they got their way would it make any difference to the lives of ordinary people – if you’re a politician, that’s what you’re supposed to be about.”

As an historian, he despairs of unionists who can’t tolerate criticism of the British empire, or nationalists who get upset if they’re reminded of Scotland’s role in empire. “Would their time not be better spent talking about poverty and inequality?”

However, identity politics has “distracted from class politics”, he believes. Yet is there even a working class any more? “I think there is. It’s changed and it looks different. In the past, it would be predominantly blue collar and industrial.”

Today, for Watson, a call-centre worker is part of the modern working class. They might have a degree, he says, “but in terms of the control over their lives, wages and conditions, and the attitudes of their managers, they’re as working class as a 1950s industrial worker.

“That’s why we need politics which looks after their interests, which is where Labour should be, and many on the left of the SNP too.”

10 DEMANDS FROM JIMMY REID FOUNDATION FOR THIS ELECTION

• Progressive taxation

• Fair pay

• Investment in public services

• Just transition to net zero

• Investment in the NHS

• More devolution

• Closing the education gap

• Fair funding for colleges

• Investment in housing

• Land reform