Better For Who?

“If politicians don’t care about the electorate and lie to them, they can’t expect the electorate to care back and vote them in. An election must be more than a search for honesty in a snake pit.” – Stewart Stafford

(This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.)

This month marked eight years since the Scottish Independence Referendum and it’s fair to say that they have not been a quiet eight years. Brexit, pandemic, economic turmoil and the grinding poverty caused by over a decade of Austerity are taking their toll on the wellbeing of the country. It’s certainly not the promised “sunlit uplands” or even the pre-2014 “status quo” that many thought they were voting for. As we move into a fresh independence campaign, it’s worth looking back at some of the things we were promised in 2014 by the pro-Union campaign and how those promises have panned out since.

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Here Comes The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss

“A president cannot defend a nation if he is not held accountable to its laws.” – DaShanne Stokes

(This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.)

Look. I’m not in any way going to defend Boris Johnson. The disastrous policies – from his disorganised Brexit to his Rwanda human trafficking scheme – are causing real harm, his Covid policies have killed over 200,000 people while enriching his cronies and his constant power grabbing have pulled power into the UK Executive (read: the PM) and have disrupted our ability to vote freely, destabilised the autonomy of the devolved Parliaments, the primacy of the UK Parliament and he has torn up the last tattered shreds of what passes for the UK Constitution. He should not go down in the annals of history as one of the UK’s “great” politicians.

And yet…who comes next is looking very likely to be even worse.

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Finally, the Campaign Continues

“The proverb warns that, ‘You should not bite the hand that feeds you.’ But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.” – Thomas Stephen Szasz

(This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.)

And so, after many years of false starts and being told to “hold, hold” it looks like we’re finally off and back into a new independence campaign, a little shy of a decade after the previous one kicked off.

On Tuesday Nicola Sturgeon announced an update to her plan to deliver an independence referendum in the first half of this Parliamentary term. “Plan A” had always been to seek a sanctioned referendum by way of a formal Section 30 order to the UK Government resulting in something akin to the 2012 Edinburgh Agreement. But with Boris Johnson now and Theresa May before him being consistent in denying such a request, pressure had been mounting to deliver some kind of “Plan B”.

This week, we saw what that would look like. Should a Section 30 order not be forthcoming then the Scottish Government shall bring forward a Referendum Bill anyway and ask the Parliament to approve it. Given the pro-indy majority between the SNP and the Scottish Greens, it would be a miracle and a scandal if it doesn’t pass though – assuming no other party comes out at least as pro-referendum – all eyes will be on those pro-referendum (and the handful of quietly pro-independence MSPs within the Unionist parties) to see if they argue for a free vote or break with any party whip to vote the Bill. Will there be a repeat of Wendy Alexander’s 2008 “Bring it on” moment from any of the parties? I doubt it. Indeed, the biggest challenge to the referendum process – particularly an unsanctioned referendum – is the other side not playing at all.

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How Scotland Votes: A Guide to the 2022 Scottish Local Authority Elections

Disclosure and Disclaimer: Although I am politically active, this guide is intended to be objective and politically neutral. This is a guide on how to vote, not a blog trying to convince you to vote for or against any particular person or party.

Introduction

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(2017 local authority election results map. Source: Wikipedia)

On May 5th, Scotland will once again go to the polls to elect councillors to our Local Authorities. This election will take place simultaneously with local authority elections in England and Wales along with elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Scotland is presently organised into 32 local authorities commonly called councils split into smaller sub-units known as wards. These councils are elected every five year under the proportional representation voting system known as Single Transferrable Vote, or STV. The last election was in 2017.

As with elections everywhere, there will be people looking at this election as their first opportunity to vote and if you are one of them, this guide is aimed mainly at you. You can read previous similar guides to other elections in Scotland since I started this blog behind the links covering the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary Elections, the 2017 UK General Elections, the 2017 Scottish Local Authority Elections, the 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections, the 2019 UK General Elections, and the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary Elections.

This will be the second election in Scotland employing our expanded electoral franchise. There are no longer any citizenship tests involved in eligibility to vote. With very few exceptions, all that is required is that you are (or will be on May 5th) aged 16+, have permanent leave to reside in Scotland and are not currently serving a prison sentence of more than 12 months. The relatively short time since the expansion of the franchise means that it will not just be 16 year olds who can vote for the first time. It’s very possible that you are now able to vote where you were not able to in the last local election in 2017. Whoever ever you are, whomever you plan to vote for, it is important that you take this chance to exercise your democratic right and power. If you want to, but you’re not sure how – this guide is for you.

Step One:- Registering to vote

You cannot vote in this election unless you are registered to vote. It is also important to note that there is a deadline for registrations. You cannot just turn up at the Polling Place and register “on the day” as is possible in some places like the USA.

The deadline for this election is 11:59pm on the 18th of April which means that as of the posting of this article, you have only a few days left to do this.

You can register to vote HERE.

In order to be eligible to register you must meet several criteria. As noted above, the primary ones are that you are or will be aged 16 or more on May 6th 2021 and that you are a permanent resident of the UK living in Scotland. The full list of criteria for voting eligibility can be found here.

Once you have registered to vote you will remain registered until certain of your circumstances change (such as your address) so if you have already registered for a previous election then you should be registered for this one too assuming you are eligible.

Step Two:- Deciding how to vote

Not who to vote for – we’ll get to that – this is on deciding how you will actually cast your vote. The majority of voters do so in person at their designated polling place but some will want to do so by post or via a proxy (where you nominate someone to go to the polling place for you). If you wish to apply for a postal vote you can do so here but be aware that the application must by at your local electoral office no later than April 19th. Information on proxy voting can be found here.

There are advantages and disadvantages to all of these methods. Accessibility being the main advantage for postal and proxy voting – you may have many reasons why there may be a barrier to you going to your polling place on the day from personal reasons through bad weather or concerns about Covid (polling places are likely to have mitigation measures in place against this as guided by the Government). On the other hand, voting in person on the day has a sense of solidarity to it that is hard to match and as postal votes are often cast days or weeks ahead of the vote there is a chance that something could happen during the political campaign that means your decision when casting the postal vote is different compared to how you would vote on May 5th.

However, there is no “right” way from these options. That you cast your vote is far more important than how you do it.

If you do choose to vote in person you will receive (or may already have received) a card similar to the one below

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On the rear of this card there will be detailed instructions on how to vote, how to apply for postal or proxy votes (including how to do so in an emergency) as well as contact details for further information if you need it.

You do not need to bring this card with you when you vote but it can help to speed up the process, particularly at busy times. The agents at the polling place will be able to help direct you to the right station to cast your vote.

Step Three:- Deciding who to vote for.

As I said at the start of this article, this blog is not here to try to persuade you to vote for any particular person or party but you will have to make that choice as you come to cast your vote. The election campaign is in full swing and you are likely to have already been bombarded with leaflets, news articles and party manifestos. There are a lot of factors involved in this election and a good number of candidates and parties to choose from. No guide can be completely exhaustive but in a separate blog post I’ll try to link to as many of the party manifestos as I can though we also have to be aware that there may be local issues of significant importance to your community that don’t factor into those national campaigns and there may be minor parties or independent candidates in your area who have their own priorities or goals.

One useful resource is this one by Who Can I Vote For. If you enter your postcode, it will tell you your ward and local authority as well as which candidates you will have the opportunity to vote for.

Step Four:- Casting your vote

STV is not the easiest voting system to understand – harder even than the AMS system used in the Scottish elections. In principle, it’s simple to work out how to cast your vote but it’s a lot harder to work out how your vote translates into the final results. We’ll focus on the easy bit first.

When you cast your vote – either in person or by post – you’ll be presented with a ballot paper that looks a little like the one below.

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The candidates will be listed in alphabetical order by surname with their home address* and their party affiliation, if any, underneath. Also present may be a party logo or a slogan representing a core issue of the candidate/party.

One point to consider is that you are not strictly voting for a political party in this election (despite how most of the parties present things in their campaigns). Instead, you are voting for people. These people may or may not be members of parties (and their entry will indicate this) and they may be more or less likely to follow that party’s line rather than their own (or vice versa). There may also be more than one candidate on your ballot paper who belong to the same political party. This information may factor into your choice of vote.

To actually vote is slightly different from most of the other elections in Scotland. Unlike, say, the UK General Election you do not simply mark one box on the ballot paper with an X. Instead you RANK the candidates in order of preference using a discrete number for each – 1,2,3, etc.

You may not give two or more candidates “equal” rank. You do not need to rank every candidate. Once you get to the point where you have no preference amongst the remaining candidates, you may leave their boxes blank. This is sometimes known as “vote till ye boak”. Do not make any other marks on the ballot paper as this may result in your vote being invalidated and rejected. (This said, there is a fine tradition of expressing a protest against all candidates or against the election as a whole by deliberately spoiling one’s ballot – this is a much stronger form of protest than not voting at all)

Once completed your ballot paper may look something like this:

ballot filled

Note: Preferences listed here are for illustration only and do not represent an endorsement, recommendation or author’s personal preference.

Once you’ve dropped your completed ballot into the box or sent it away via your postal ballot, that’s it. Simple. The seats are then allocated out such that the candidates elected are the ones deemed highest ranked by the largest number of people.

* In previous LA elections (such as the one from which the example ballot paper came from), all candidates had to provide their current address on the ballot paper – effectively making where they lived a matter for the public domain. From 2022 onwards, their full address will only be printed if they live outwith the constituency in which they are standing.

The Hard Bit: Counting the Votes

Here comes the tricky part. Counting the votes and translating them to seats. This is a far more mathematical exercise than the FPTP system used in the UK elections (which is trivial in that the person with the most votes wins the seats, the party with the most seats (generally) wins the government) and more complicated even the d’Hondt system used in Scotland and the EU elections (which can be tabulated with a pen and paper if you have to). If you’re reading this on the front page of the blog and want to delve into this maths, then click below to unfold. If not, I hope this has been useful and good luck to your chosen candidate(s) in May. If you’re feeling particularly brave or interested, please click the Continue Reading button below. Even if you do, feel free to skip to the final section where I talk about some voting strategies.

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Why I’m Voting Against The SNP/Green Deal

‘We must take advantage of the “tide of fortune”’.
‘I know about tides, sir. They leave little fish gaspin’.’ – Terry Pratchett


Edit 28/08/21 – The Scottish Green members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the deal and it was subsequently also voted through overwhelmingly by Council. The SNP members similarly voted overwhelmingly in favour in their consultative ballot. The deal shall now go ahead as written.


Tomorrow is going to be one of those turning point days in Scottish politics. The SNP and Greens have agreed to a cooperation deal that would see the closest relationship between the two parties in Holyrood, the closest that Greens anywhere in the UK have got to being in Government and the closest arrangement between any two parties in Scottish politics since the Labour/Lib Dem coalitions that ran the country between 1999 and 2007.

Tomorrow, the Green membership will decide whether or not to endorse that deal in a binding vote at an EGM.

In this blog, I’m going to lay out why I plan to vote against that endorsement.

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Scottish Elections 2021:- The Results

“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” – Abraham Lincoln

A strange election in strange times has, after more than the usual delay, returned a result that seems almost strangely familiar. Prior to the 2016 election, the “received wisdom” was that the majority SNP government was going to come back to power with that majority and thus usher in five years of “boring government” under a “one party state”. Instead, we got a minority government and everything that followed from that. This time round, the challenge to “restore” that majority government was rejected and we again find ourselves with a Parliament that looks really quite similar to the one in 2016. Many of the names have changed, many of the seats have not. The SNP have fallen one seat short of a majority, the Tories remain the “2nd party” by equalling their previous tally, the Greens have increased their ranks and Labour and the Lib Dems have reduced. Despite enthusiastic campaigning by their activist, no new parties have entered Parliament and none have left either (though the Lib Dems have dropped below the “major party” threshold which may have significant implications for them). From a pure democratic stance, at 63% the turnout was the highest of the devolution era – despite or in spite of fears that the pandemic would suppress it. More voters is always a good thing. As is diversity in the Parliament with record numbers of women, people of colour and other underrepresented groups in the House.

A full breakdown of the results in each constituency and region can be found here.

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(Source here)

There will be discussion over the coming days about the makeup of Government and whether the SNP continue to run as a minority or whether they form a formal coalition – most likely with the Greens. For my part, with a track record of two minority governments I think that a coalition is unlikely and my preference would be against one anyway for reasons I’ll detail below but primarily because of my feeling laid out on Thursday that a Government that can rely on whipped loyalty will make less good decisions than one that has to justify itself to Parliament.

The call for a second independence referendum must now intensify. There is a Parliamentary majority capable of passing a referendum bill and instructing the Government to proceed with its manifesto promise. Indeed, between the SNP and the Greens there is now as many pro-independence MSPs in Parliament now as there were in 2011 when the first indyref was initiated. Mandates are sure to be traded – some more, some less valid – and we’re still lacking an effective pressure campaign to keep the tactical and strategic advantage on our side, but I think it is likely now that the only person who can actively prevent an independence referendum within the next Scottish Parliament is now Nicola Sturgeon. The campaign is there for her to take and run with.

For more detailed analysis of each of the parties and the overall political landscape, keep reading below the fold.

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To Those We Are About To Elect

“Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.” – Seth Berkley

This has been an unusual election, put upon us by unusual times. The pressures of the global Covid pandemic here in Scotland have greatly limited electoral campaigning (though I do believe there’s a bright future ahead for digital and semi-digital hustings and other meetings) and the count itself has been extended to allow for the safety of the staff involved. The grand tradition of watching over-tired politicians and pundits trying to say nothing for as long as possible between 10pm and the first results coming in was pretty much absent in Scotland this year. Normally, around this time, I’d be reporting on the results and my analysis of them but as things stand we’re not expecting the first Constituency results in Scotland until this evening and as the Regional results can only be tallied once all of the Constituency results are in, we’re not expecting the final results until Saturday night or maybe even Sunday morning.

Instead of that analysis (which shall come when we have the results) I want to write an open letter to all of the politicians who will take up seats in the upcoming Parliament.

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How Scotland Votes: A Guide to the 2021 Scottish Election

Disclosure and Disclaimer: Although I am politically active and an active member of the Scottish Green Party, this post is intended to be objective and politically neutral. This is a guide on how to vote, not a blog trying to convince you to vote for or against any particular person or party.

Introduction

On May 6th, Scotland will once again go to the polls to elect a new Parliament. This will be the sixth election since the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and the second election since I started writing this blog and these “How to Vote” guides. You can read my previous guides to elections in the UK behind these links which cover the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary Elections, the 2017 UK General Elections, the 2017 Scottish Local Authority Elections, the 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections, and the 2019 UK General Elections.

This will also be the second Scottish Parliamentary election that will include voters who were born after the re-establishment of Parliament and possibly the first to include election candidates who were born after the start of the devolution era.

It is also the first Scottish Election to involve voters from Scotland’s newly expanded electoral franchise. Whilst 16 year olds were enabled to vote in elections follow the 2014 independence referendum, the Scottish Electoral Franchise Act returned voting rights to EU/EEA citizens who had them stripped from them as part of Brexit but also extended voting rights to non-EU citizens. Anyone in Scotland who is aged 16 or over on May 6th and has right to permanently reside in Scotland. Limited voting rights have also been extended to prisoners who can vote if they are serving a sentence of less than one year (though the recent presumption against prison sentences of less than one year means that this affects very few prisoners – perhaps only around 500 individuals). As a result, Scotland has the second most expansive electoral franchise in the UK (Wales also allows all permanent residents aged 16+ to vote but has extended prisoner voting to those serving less than four years) and, prisoner voting aside, one of the most expansive franchises of all European democracies.

The result of this is that this election will include the voice of tens of thousands of people who have, until now, been unable to vote in the country they pay their taxes and many call “home”. As noted in my disclaimer at the top of this article, I am a politically active person but this blog isn’t about any of that. I want to walk first-time voters through the voting system for this election. Whomever you actually vote for, this is how to do it.

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Scottish Elections 2021:- The Manifestos

Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. When there is debate, there are solutions. When there is no sharing of power, no rule of law, no accountability, there is abuse, corruption, subjugation and indignation. –  Atifete Jahjaga

The Scottish Election season is underway and parties are now laying out their positions and are courting your votes. As I have with every other election since I started this blog, I’ll continue keeping a place here for party neutral information, including a post aimed at first time voters on how to vote in the elections and how that vote is translated into seats. I have written a guide on how to vote in the upcoming election and how your vote is translated into MSPs’ seats. You can read that guide here.

In this post I intend to gather as many of the political party manifestos as I can as they are published. I can’t cover independent candidates fairly (by definition, an independent can stand in only one region at best) and whilst I would like to be as inclusive as possible I may miss a few of the smaller parties or they may not be publishing a full manifesto (particularly if they are a single issue party). If I do miss a party manifesto, please let me know and I’ll add it.

All of the manifestos below are presented for your information and the presence or absence of any of them should not be taken as an endorsement or otherwise of any of the parties or of any of the policies that they may be promoting.

Incumbent Parties

(The following parties were represented by at least one MSP during the 2016-2021 Parliament. All of these parties are standing candidates in every electoral region but many not be fielding a candidate in every constituency.)

Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Scottish Green Party

Scottish Labour Party

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Scottish Liberal Democrats

Scottish National Party

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Insurgent Parties

(The following parties were not represented in the 2016-2021 Parliament. Insurgent parties may not be standing in all constituencies or electoral regions.)

Alba Party

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All For Unity

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Communist Party of Britain

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Independence for Scotland Party *

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Reform UK

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Restore Scotland Party

Scottish Family Party

(Note: Newsletter sign-up required)

Scottish Libertarian Party

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Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

UK Independence Party

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Check back frequently as more manifestos are published.

*Note:- On March 29th the Independence for Scotland Party stood down all of their candidates in the wake of the launch of the Alba Party. Nonetheless, they have published their manifesto hence its inclusion here.

[Update: 01/04/21 – Added SFP and STUSC. Clarified inclusion criteria. Re-grouped the parties into two categories to represent incumbents in the previous Parliament and other parties.]

[Update 07/04/21 – Added All For Unity]

[Update 14/04/21 – Added Scottish Green Party]

[Update 15/04/21 – Added Scottish National Party]

[Update 16/04/21 – Added Scottish Liberal Democrats]

[Update 17/04/21 – Added several insurgent party manifestos. Updated main body text with some clarifications and links to previous “How to Vote” guides.]

[Update 21/04/21 – Added Alba Party and link to latest “How to Vote” guide.]

[Update 22/04/21 – Added Scottish Labour Party]

[Update 23/04/24 – Added Restore Scotland Party]

TCG Logo 2019

The Road To Independence Part Two – Johnson’s Journey to Yes

“The wizards, once they understood the urgency of a problem and then had lunch, and argued about the pudding, could actually work quite fast. Their method of finding a solution, as far as the Patrician could see, was by way of creative hubbub.  If the question was, ‘What is the best spell for turning a book of poetry into a frog?’, then the one thing they would not do was look in any book with a title like Major Amphibian Spells in a Literary Environment: A Comparison.” – Terry Pratchett, The Last Hero

Introduction

In Part One of this series, I laid out the reasonable options that Scotland could pursue in order to demonstrate the democratic will for independence. There have been some murmurings of a potential “Plan B” to supersede the “Plan A” of a sanctioned referendum by Section 30 order so as to circumvent the current barrier of Boris Johnson simply saying “No” everything time we ask for one.

In that article, I referenced Pete Wishart who has expressed his objection to any “Plans B” and has since written his own blog post outlining some of the same challenges as I have identified – albeit without also challenging the limitations of the “Plan A” approach. I strongly encourage folk to read his article in conjunction with my own efforts and to start discussions in earnest about which option you prefer AND how you’d like to see the challenges addressed.

To greatly summarise my own Part One, I found that all of the reasonable options bar the “Plan A” of a sanctioned referendum cannot be blocked simply by dictat from Westminster BUT in addition to individual challenges unique to each of those Plans, they all suffered the common problem of not having an automatic mechanism of bringing the UK Government to the table to accept the results and begin to negotiate independence. On the other hand, “Plan A” – which DOES have that mechanism via something like the Edinburgh Agreement – suffers from the problem that Westminster can ensure that the vote itself doesn’t take place. The effect is the same in all cases. Until Scotland can put pressure on the UK Government to accept the Plan and the results, we are not going to become an independent country.

In this article, I’m going to draw again from Common Weal’s strategy paper Within Our Grasp to look at various ways that Scotland could ramp up the pressure on the UK Government until they agree to recognise our independence.

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