Don't Do It, Jock

4 August 2004



SNP Financial Trouble Raises Call for Public Funding of Scottish Political Parties

The Scottish National Party is in debt to the tune of £900,000. To American political hacks, that isn't even a good TV buy, but in the thriftier world of Scottish politics, it's a huge amount. While the other British parties in Scotland can call on their English branches for funds as the need arises, the Nats are on their own. With elections of one sort or another coming every year, demands on the party purse are rising. One solution some SNP leaders have suggested is public funding of political parties. While it might level the playing field, the law of unintended consequences suggests this is the wrong solution.

The SNP's difficulty ironically stems from its own success. Founded in 1934 to undo the Act of Union of 1707 (which accounts for all those Scotsmen running the British Empire all those years), the SNP finally pressured the London government into re-establishing a Scottish Parliament as part of the constitutional changes of Labour under Tony Blair (born in Edinburgh, educated at Fettes of that City). The party is still pressing for independence. However, it is also a pro-EU and pro-Europe party, so "independence" doesn't quite mean free from overseas rule. It is hard to get people to the barricades for independence within the Common Agricultural Policy -- Patrick Henry didn't say, "Give me liberty and harmonization subsidies, or give me death."

This means that the SNP has to fight its political battles on more familiar ground like taxes, education and healthcare -- responsibility national security still resides in London. And while the party does distinguish itself from Labour on several points, it is just another left-of-centre party when all is said and done. Large donors, Sir Sean Connery aside, get more bang for their quids by giving to Labour.

Ian Blackford, former treasurer of the SNP, told the BBC, "What we have to do is move to a situation where there is state funding of political parties and then we can have a level playing field. Quite frankly what we need to see is a cap put on donations so we can see transparency and so we can see that democracy works for the benefit of everyone." With all due respect, based on American experience of public funding and caps, that is the last thing Scotland, or any other nation, needs.

Details can be argued till Ragnarok, but the fact remains that the American system of public funding has caused an explosion of money into politics. Capping donations doesn't provide transparency -- transparency does. The solution in Scotland, as in America, is to put the deposits of every political party's bank accounts on the Internet. It will always be possible to buy influence, but if it happens in broad daylight, it is far less likely to happen -- when it does, it is more likely to coincide with the public good. And if the SNP's policies and effectiveness can't raise enough money to put down deposits for its candidates (£5,000 in the latest Euro-elections, which is refunded if the candidate wins a small number of votes), then perhaps, it should join the Whigs as a party of the past.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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