Sturgeon successor could sink SNP if they dump progressive politics

SNP former minister Ash Regan came out all tweets blazing this week, implicitly taking a pop at the First Minister’s efforts to achieve net zero by 2045, five years ahead of the rest of the UK.

“I will not support an accelerated net zero path which sees us turn off the North Sea taps, throw tens of thousands of oil workers out of jobs, hollow out north-east and Highlands & Islands communities while still using and importing hydrocarbons. I will stand up for our oil workers and their communities,” she opined.

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It should be said that this is not a fair representation of Scottish Government policy. Regan’s former fellow ministers don’t want to “turn off the North Sea taps” but favour a presumption against exploration for new fields (though Westminster actually controls oil and gas licensing).

Environment minister Michael Matheson says exploration could still take place at times but “it places the onus on the oil and gas sector to demonstrate need and justification”. The Scottish Government is also heavily focused on ensuring that there are jobs after oil for workers in the north-east.

But then Regan’s statement wasn’t intended as a thoughtful exposition of policy. It was all about positioning, as was her next tweet pledging in effect to spend billions on road-building. The message seems to be this: local concerns before global responsibilities; Scotland’s oil before Scotland’s leadership role on net zero.

Well, there is certainly vacant territory there for a nationalist in search of a few votes, but a few may be all she’ll get. If taking a strong stance on climate change and planning for a post-oil economy were such terrible policy positions, then it’s hard to understand how Nicola Sturgeon has kept winning so many elections, including all Aberdeen’s Holyrood and Westminster constituency seats.

Could it be that Scotland’s longest-serving First Minister knows a thing or two about positioning herself?

SNP voters, especially younger ones, care deeply about climate change. They expect their party to stop thinking they can have their cake and eat it, by supporting ongoing North Sea oil and gas extraction while claiming to be a world leader on tackling climate change.

There is of course a certain vintage of nationalist who remains convinced that continuing to exploit Scotland’s oil unabated is the key to winning independence and creating a Caledonian Utopia, but that’s yesterday’s argument. In the face of a blistering climate emergency, it has less and less traction.

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SNP leadership candidates understandably want to be distinctive, but vying to be the next First Minister while adopting policy positions that are more reminiscent of the Tories than the SNP is a risky proposition.

You would expect there to be a debate about policy during a leadership election. And yes, it’s fair to say not everything in the Scottish Government’s shop front appeals to passers-by – the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Act over which Regan resigned, does not command widespread public support.

But Sturgeon’s would-be successors need to take care. Nicola Sturgeon was very good indeed at developing policy positions that commanded electoral support. Even now, the Scottish Government remains popular. A change of leader need not substantially damage the SNP, but it will do if it confuses voters about what the party stands for.

This is one reason there has been such nervousness about Kate Forbes’ social conservatism.

Over the last eight years, Nicola Sturgeon’s personal convictions have powerfully shaped her party, her government, and by extension, Scotland itself.

Sturgeon is a liberal and a left-winger, who believes in well-funded public services and minority rights. She is forward-looking. From the Scottish Child Payment to world-beating climate change legislation to tackling the attainment gap to her Promise to looked-after children to gender self-ID (for all that it was mishandled), she has relentlessly pursued the dream of a progressive, liberal Nordic state, which was and remains a central pillar of the independence pitch.

The nervousness over Kate Forbes's social conservative beliefs are in part due to her contrast with Nicola Sturgeon's personal convictions that have shaped party and country (Image: PA)

And it has worked. She has won multiple elections, occupying this territory. Scottish voters have felt so much more attuned to the SNP, with its ambition for a more egalitarian Scotland, than they have to Conservative Prime Ministers at Westminster who have looked to the past.

This is not to say that Nicola Sturgeon’s period in office has been in any sense exemplary. Her shortcomings had started to show through powerfully. In particular, there has been a repeated failure to deliver on big ideas.

The named persons scheme, aimed at safeguarding children, had to be withdrawn because it would have breached privacy rights; the National Care Service may go the same way, at least in the short term, because of fears about its costs; the attainment gap persists; the GRR bill is in stasis, because the UK Government claims it breaches the Equalities Act; and the numbers of homeless are at their highest level since records began.

At the same time, targets are routinely missed, on NHS waiting lists and on carbon emissions.

But do we therefore abandon the ambitions and the targets and the noble aims? Do we stop aiming high? On climate change, do we criticise those demanding net zero targets because it’s easier as a politician to talk about existing jobs based on a dying industry than to have to deliver new ones that will be sustainable in future?

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The last few years of SNP government is defined by ambition for Scotland – not just to be independent but to be fairer and better.

Sturgeon failed in many respects but was repeatedly forgiven her failures by voters because they liked her vision and appreciated what she was trying to turn Scotland into. Many erstwhile Labour voters and unionists drifted into the nationalist camp on her watch.

Some SNP figures seem to understand the importance of that vision and want to build on her legacy, but some would prefer a return to old, less progressive positions.

That would be taking quite a risk with their party’s future.