We’re in a polycrisis but it may not damage the SNP

That 2007 election saw an SNP lead over Scottish Labour of 0.8 points, sandwiched between two Westminster elections in which Scottish Labour won by more than 20 points.

The 2014 independence referendum broke this pattern. Apart from the 2017 Westminster election, the SNP has led Scottish Labour by 25 points – give or take – in every nationwide vote.

But Scottish Labour’s recent revival in the polls, pulling level with the SNP at Westminster in the latest Panelbase poll, has prompted much speculation that left-leaning Scots could return to that older pattern of voting Labour at Westminster to prevent Tory governments, and the SNP at Holyrood to stand up for Scottish interests or pursue independence.

Indeed, several columnists sympathetic to Labour have gone beyond speculating that such a shift may occur, to proactively arguing for it – putting it to SNP and independence supporters that they ought to “lend” their vote to Labour.

That this argument is being made at all is telling. Scots have two governments engulfed in crises at multiple levels, from petty scandal to economic turmoil and climate breakdown. These crises have proven sufficient to crash one of those government’s poll ratings and generate enormous momentum toward a change in government at the next election.

But the same cannot be said of the government at Holyrood. Superficially, one might point out that the scandals affecting the SNP and the Conservatives are not remotely of the same scale or quality.

It’s difficult to know where to start with the Conservative government at Westminster. Partygate, the misleading of Parliament, and the seemingly never-ending saga that is Boris Johnson’s political career? Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s economy-crashing fiscal fiasco? The tens of billions in public money lost to fraud during the pandemic, under a Chancellor who now sits in Number 10, much of it allegedly to Tory peers and supporters?

Quantitatively and qualitatively, the Conservatives are on another level from the SNP.

But the fundamentals, as pollsters call them, for the two parties are broadly the same. Sluggish, if any, economic growth. High inflation and, by recent standards, high interest rates – translating to ballooning household bills that millions are struggling to keep up with. Crippled healthcare systems struggling to cope with the deteriorating physical and mental health of the nation. Sclerotic public services, from infrastructure maintenance to transport, incapable of supporting the basic functioning of society.

Given these conditions, one would expect that Scottish voters would be clamouring for change at Holyrood as well as Westminster. Far from having to convince them to vote Scottish Labour to get rid of the Tories but, don’t worry, you can still vote SNP at Holyrood if you really want independence, they ought to be seeking to turf both governments out.

Yet here we are. And I think it speaks to a fundamental strength in the SNP’s political position that was complained about by opposition politicians for years but seems to get less attention these days – that while they may be Scotland’s party of government, they continue also to be its party of opposition.

Humza Yousaf will need, at some point, to address the miasma that permeates his party and to successfully navigate politically challenging issues around ferry procurement, highly protected marine areas, the deposit return scheme, and more.

And whatever bridge that Police Scotland’s investigation into the party’s finances is bringing the SNP towards will have to be crossed, too.

But the next Westminster election will be a change election at Westminster, not Holyrood, and the SNP will be free to challenge the Tory government at Westminster and the UK state as a whole. Despite being in government, they will not necessarily find themselves on the wrong end of a change election.

Because the SNP have their own change agenda. It might be ill-defined, poorly argued, and even reflexive rather than strategic at this point, but it exists. And while the SNP’s opponents will argue that independence would merely compound all the crises facing us, just under half of the population support it – a fact that has been completely unaffected by the SNP’s own troubles.

In an election that will ultimately be about what kind of change voters want, the SNP’s proposition would be the biggest, “change-iest” proposition in town. It wouldn’t necessarily be delivered by them “winning” this election, but the same can be said for every election since 2016 in which the SNP placed independence at the centre of its manifesto.

As of now, Labour’s alternative is poorly defined and perpetually shifting. They run the risk of making this election about a radical break from the Brexit era, but having too little between themselves and the Conservatives to convince Scots that they really are offering that radical break.

The Financial Times’ Word of the Year last year was polycrisis – a set of overlapping, interacting, dynamic crises. Such a set of crises can be difficult to tackle because pulling one lever to tackle one crisis could inadvertently make another crisis worse.

As a result, the world becomes inherently unstable and the effects of our actions unpredictable.

The same goes for the Scottish political world in this moment. The electorate are shifting, but where to is unknowable. Leaning into and reinforcing the electorate’s sense that change is needed in this era of polycrisis might help Labour win in England, while failing to outflank and possibly even laying the groundwork to bolster the SNP in Scotland.

Labour need a clearer, bolder change agenda to meet the moment. If they fail to produce one, they could find themselves pulling the “change election” lever only to find that it opens a trap door north of the border.