Scotland faces the prospect of ungovernable political chaos

The hip word for it is ‘manifesting’: the notion that if you dream it, it will happen. Just concentrate on getting that flat belly you want, and come next summer you’ll be the hottest bod on the beach.

Manifesting has a dark side too, obviously. If you think about something awful enough, it too can come to pass. Keep believing you’re going to fail that job interview, and you probably will.

Humans are strange creatures, particularly those who inhabit the political world.

Right now, there’s an awful lot of ‘manifesting’ going on around the prospect of a snap Scottish election. The cause is the upcoming Scottish budget. If the SNP can’t get it through Holyrood, then we may well be on the road to an early election.

There’s every chance that if the SNP was forced to call a snap election it would lose. The party’s grief is of its own making. By booting the Greens out of government, they’ve handed a weapon of destruction to Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater.

The Greens, understandably, are not best pleased with the latest programme for government offered up by John Swinney. They’re angry with a whole raft of policies which they say have been “undone, slashed, watered down or shelved” – like commitments on conversion therapy, peak rail fares, nature restoration, rent controls, and free buses for asylum seekers. It’s a “betrayal” in Green eyes.

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The SNP, when they had the Greens in tow, enjoyed a guaranteed majority. Humza Yousaf in an act of spectacular self-immolating stupidity cast them aside. Now Swinney has to face the music when it comes to his budget.

Yesterday, my Herald colleague Andrew Learmonth did the maths on whether or not the budget could pass. Swinney needs 65 votes. He’s got 62. So, without the Greens, he’s done, even with the support of Alba’s one defector Ash Regan, and the currently suspended John Mason.

Labour, LibDems and the Tories would gladly see Swinney’s budget fail. They won’t offer support. Why would they?

All this would mean Swinney facing a vote of no confidence in the government. If he lost that vote, Swinney would have to resign. If MSPs couldn’t agree a replacement in 28 days, then we’re in extraordinary election territory.

In the event of Swinney resigning, which party do you think is going to come to the rescue of the SNP and help them stay in power? Labour knows that the quicker an election happens the more chance Anas Sarwar has of getting into power before the shine really comes off Keir Starmer’s cut-happy government.

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The Tories would happily dance on the SNP’s grave. The LibDems won’t help if the other two unionist parties won’t. And the Greens are clearly patiently waiting for a tasty dish called ‘Revenge’ which it seems will be served at the perfect temperature: ice cold.

So, there’s a good bet to be placed on the budget failing and a snap election being called. John Swinney was even manifesting that notion himself. Regarding the budget not getting enough votes, he said: “There could be an election, but I don’t think members of the public particularly want politicians to have elections when they don’t want to have them.”

Perhaps he’s right, but democracy, and the Scotland Act, might well demand differently. However, if the next Holyrood election stayed true to the latest polls, Scotland could find itself in a state of ungovernable chaos, like Italy in the 1970s when Prime Ministers in Rome seemed to come and go every year.

So here’s what latest polls say: the SNP would take the most seats at Holyrood but be unable to form a government, and Anas Sarwar would likely become First Minister.

There would be 41 seats for the SNP, 40 for Labour, 18 for the Tories, 10 for the Greens, eight for the LibDems, eight for Reform (yes, try chewing over that for a while too) and four for Alba. Even if the Greens and Alba rallied around the SNP, they would be unnumbered by the unionist parties.

Do you see the problem? If the current SNP administration which has 62 seats (or 63 if you try to forget John Mason’s suspension) can’t rely on enough votes to get its spending plans through Holyrood, how the hell could Anas Sarwar’s Labour Party govern, let alone pass a budget?

Under devolution, Holyrood was meant to do politics differently to Westminster – be more collegiate. Years of constitutional strife has shot that to pieces. Politics has become a zero-sum game in Scotland. There will be no hands across the aisle, and as always it would be the Scottish people who come off worst.

Would Holyrood end up like Stormont once was in Belfast? Effectively paralysed by the inability of parties to form stable government? And if paralysis continued, what would it mean for the people of Scotland in terms of our day to day lives and the running of the country? Might Westminster have to step in and govern, trashing the protocols of devolution simply to keep the Scottish state ticking over?

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Now, clearly, all this is just war-gaming – but the war needs to be gamed, as the possibility of an election is becoming ever more likely.

Put frankly, we are where we are – in this rotten situation – because of years of SNP misrule. The party hasn’t just governed terribly, it’s alienated its allies and infuriated its enemies. The SNP has nowhere left to go. It’s a zombie government living on borrowed time, and if it falls nationalists have nobody to blame but themselves.

Evidently, few voters want an election right now. However, perhaps the only hope we have to stave off another traipse to the polling booth is to try a little manifesting ourselves. Maybe if we just focus on the idea that our political class show some sense and maturity that will come to pass. But, as they say: good luck with that.

Neil Mackay is The Herald’s Writer-at-Large. He’s a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs and foreign and domestic politics.