There is a tendency in opposition to decry all government ideas, call them unworkable or unrealistic. Afterall, oppositions are there to oppose. However, history shows that the most successful political parties steal and refine, from governments, think-tanks, charities, trade bodies, you name it. This can be to improve a policy or, as has happened more recently, take an issue and strip it for parts to create the appearance of having taken action.
During the last election campaign, we saw the SNP claim credit for numerous Scottish Labour policies such as free bus passes and, perhaps most gallingly, Monica Lennon’s Period Poverty Act. We are seeing it again as the SNP seek to implement their own plans for a National Care Service and I suspect we are going to see it once more as they take pieces from Pauline McNeill’s Fair Rents Bill and include them in a forthcoming Housing Bill.
Whilst this is infuriating, “we thought of that first” is not a particularly effective message. Voters only care who has delivered, or at least is seen to have delivered. The SNP has been ruthless and shameless at this and it should make us examine our own approach to policy theft.
Anas Sarwar has set what I believe is the correct path of constructive opposition to improve the lives of people in Scotland. That has been, is and, I hope, always will be the purpose of the Scottish Labour Party. We must scrutinise proposed legislation, seek to improve it and highlight the ways in which the SNP are back-sliding or not delivering, even if this approach means they will take credit for our amendments or our ideas. The anger at having our ideas stolen, watered-down and then poorly implemented should give us all the energy we need to know that we must get Scottish Labour back in to power and soon.
To do that, we must beat the SNP at their own game. We must steal back. Take policies the SNP ignore or do not want to act on but would improve people’s lives and make them our own. The SNP are particularly vulnerable to this because their unifying mission, a political strength to be sure, is also a strategic weakness. At the final decision point, they are more likely to shy away from any policy which diminishes the chances of independence.
For example, the SNP’s Social Justice and Fairness Commission, whose report was published last week, is framed as “building consensus towards a better Scotland with independence”. The strategic weakness exposed in the last two words.
The report itself contains a lot of policy ideas Scottish Labour might choose to develop ourselves. In fact, a couple of them are similar to policies in our own 2021 manifesto. That is where our opportunity lies.
While the SNP are trying in vain to build a consensus for independence, we can, and in some cases already are, build a consensus for; a Housing Land Corporation; for modernising housing stock; for better rewards for those working in social care; for effective anti-racist and pro-equality education and; targeted face additional barriers and challenges in finding and maintaining work.
To build that kind of consensus, we can reach across political parties and across political divides. It doesn’t happen overnight but we mustn’t be afraid to steal good ideas from wherever we find them.
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