From Brexit to coronavirus: Scotland’s changing political landscape - BBC Newsnight

700 years ago the scottish nation as we know it came into being right here in the declaration of our growth of 1320 scots promised that they would forever reject english domination it was the start of a very old and often tense relationship a story of different national wills wills which are once more diverging casting the relationship the events of recent years are seemingly endless chaos born in westminster even the events of recent days have continued to add to the sense for many scots that the union and all that goes with it is something that cuts against the scottish grain in recent months something striking has happened to public opinion in scotland there now appears to be a sustained majority for independence seven consecutive polls have now put yes ahead on an average support of around 53 almost inverting the 2014 referendum result a combination of brexit happening in fact rather than in theory boris johnson's abysmal popularity ratings in scotland and general approval of how nicolas sturgeon has performed during covid seems to have given yes a significant edge to the uk wide laboratory capacity there is something going on in and around the coronavirus pandemic where nicolas sturgeon the scottish government are seen as being very competent um uh in contrast to boris johnson the uk government which is not you talk about competence in terms of over covid say i mean in terms of outcomes not entirely clear the scottish government has done any better than what's happening in westminster in the matter of public opinion about this what really matters is public opinion and the public is right in their assumption they they believe that the scottish government is doing a good job in difficult circumstances even if the outcomes are basically the same well i'm not sure the care homes on excess deaths you know it's not it's especially different on the decision not going to lock down earlier this is all basically the same as boris johnson well i don't think the public sees it that way here i think people look at nicolas sturgeon and say she's doing it well boris johnson isn't the snp's ratings after 13 years in government remain nearly hegemonic the poll suggests that they look set for another thumping victory in next year's hollywood elections and should it come they will claim a mandate to hold another independence referendum meanwhile unionist parties are doing even worse than before labour who used themselves to be the hegemon of scottish politics remain adrift kiestarma visited scotland for the first time as leader today and whilst his polling isn't bad that of the party's scottish leader richard leonard is poor and he struggled to make any impact he's resisting an internal attempt to force him to resign why hasn't labor made a comeback why is labour still performing so poorly even several years after you've been leader people talk about you being non-existent well the labour party is in third place i inherited the labour party in third place and uh still in third place well and and we are striving to make progress and uh there were opinion polls at the end of last week which actually showed us overtaking the conservatives so still so we are so weird so we are on a trajectory we are on a trajectory which is forward slow trajectory well you know you need going to need to speed up before next may well yes and that's what i intend to do and and look i don't underestimate the scale of the political challenge i was elected by the whole of the membership of the scottish labor party it's it's that group of people who gave me a mandate they are who i am accountable to and uh they strongly support my leadership of the scottish labour party does kirsten support your leadership in scotland yeah i worked very well with kyocera yes he said that to you he wants you to stay on i worked very well with kirsten but labour have been murrabun for half a decade or longer north of the border it was the tories who were supposed to be the scots unionist champions revivified under their former leader ruth davidson but the scottish tories have been unable to escape the thrall of what's happening in london a sense for some that westminster has discredited itself and its custodians with it even this week the suggestion of breaking international law as part of the uk internal market bill might hardly have been better designed to repel some of the voters who saved the union six years ago back in 2014 there were two groups which broadly speaking saved the union the old and the middle class they did so broadly speaking for quite similar reasons one was their entrenched unionism a unionism which still shouldn't be underestimated but also because there was a sense at the time that leaving the union independence would be risky volatile uncertain but now there is a sense a sense which some believe is driving support for independence that these people now think that the risky thing the uncertain thing the volatile thing is the union itself the tories do have a new leader in mp douglas ross but you can hear the frustration not far from the surface you accept that the way that westminster has been perceived shall we say over the last five or six years under a conservative party stewardship has not exactly done much for the union's reputation i would accept criticism and you know i've resigned from government i had issues with the way this government handled certain aspects and i it's due down from government so i can't stand here and defend everything the uk government have done over the last number of months and years the scottish government and the snp have been very good at turning the argument back into the constitution and on to their pet topic such as that rather than that's your failure as well isn't it i mean the fact that despite all of that despite all of the things that you outline you can't land the glove on them yeah yeah absolutely you know all opposition parties have to take responsibility you can of course look at it another way despite the prime minister's unpopularity a brexit scotland didn't want another national government it hasn't voted for unionism is still quite strong it's something that unionists could build on but then no one on the unionist side seems to quite know how it can be done or who can do it best the spirit of our growth seems with us again

Channel: BBC Newsnight

Views: 53,003

Keywords: bbc, newsnight, news, interview, Indyref, Scotland, Nicola sturgeon, Scottish independence, coronavirus, covid19, covid, Westminster, SNP, Scottish nationalist party, scotland lockdown, phase three, Scottish labour, virus, pandemic, brexit, daily briefing, Scottish parliament, state of the union, bbc news, bbc scotland, indyref, indyref2, indyref3, European Union, Holyrood, union, uk, break up of the union, scottish independence, scotland, Douglas ross

Id: E2nVJKrp-hk

Length: 6min 17sec (377 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 17 2020