SNP and Reform feed off each other – but Labour is still hungry

Scottish Sun

3 days ago

Nats activists never tire of referring to Labour & Tories as two cheeks of the same a*** - the same charge can now be levelled at SNP and Nigel Farage's Reform
CHRIS MUSSON SNP and Reform feed off each other – but Labour is still hungry
SNP activists never tire of referring to Labour and the Tories as two cheeks of the same a***.
Well, the same charge can now be levelled at the Nats and Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
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Reform came a close third to the SNP and winners Labour
Neither will want to hear this, but their equally destructive stances on funding Scotland's public services reveal yet another similarity between the two parties, vying for power at Holyrood next year with Labour.
Both claim to be the outsiders standing up to the Westminster establishment, though for the SNP this is also not-so-subtle code for England.
The stock-in-trade for both is to blame others for all ills. Both engineered referendums to leave major economic unions, and both lean heavily on populist rhetoric.
And as we discovered in the run-up to last week's crunch by-election, they both want to cut Scotland's funding off at the knees.
They want to do so to further their own narrow, political aims. For the SNP, that's independence. For Reform, electoral domination down south.
As underlined by the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election — where Reform came a close third to the SNP and winners Labour — support for Farage is surging amid falls in backing for traditional parties.
Scottish Labour have been buoyed by that Hamilton result. and remain hungry for power. But they still face a huge battle.
Because the more Reform's support grows, the more likely it becomes the SNP can win the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections with a far lower vote share than they got in 2021.
And the two parties don't just share ideas — they are feeding off each other.
There may be a point in the coming years — with Farage in No10 and the SNP in power at Holyrood — that these competing forms of nationalism create a perfect storm.
Moment John Swinney is heckled by Reform UK campaigners as FM breezes past warring activists heads of Hamilton by-election
Both parties have set out how they want the Scottish Government to have more independence in terms of funding, a move that would go a long way to ending the current 'pooling and sharing' of resources which Scotland voted to keep in 2014.
The common theme is the scrapping of the Barnett Formula — the funding mechanism which drives Scotland's significantly higher share of public spending than the UK average.
Last year, this meant thousands of pounds per person extra to spend on Scots services like the NHS and schools.
Scotland spent £22.7billion more than the £88.5bn it raised in taxes in 2023/24. Including oil revenues, we brought in just £60 per head more in tax than the UK average. But we spent £2,417 per head more.
Not a bad deal, you may think — unless you look for the worst in everything, as the SNP do. But Holyrood Finance Secretary Shona Robison wants to scrap this 'Union dividend'.
She has resurrected an SNP aim to ditch the pooling and sharing — which means that extra spending is covered — and turn that £22.7bn overspend into Scotland's problem.
Robison says that short of independence, 'moving to full fiscal autonomy for the Scottish Government would create a fairer system that would protect public services and allow investment in our economy'.
Ms Robison knows full well that the opposite is true. Full fiscal autonomy may mean keeping all taxes raised in Scotland — income tax, VAT, corporation tax, oil revenues and so on.
HOLYROOD sits just three days a week, when it's not enjoying long holidays.
When it does, MSPs spend an inordinate amount of time debating meaningless motions.
Last week, the Scottish Government staged a debate and vote congratulating itself for making 'significant progress' towards becoming one of 'Europe's fastest-growing start-up economies'.
Some brass neck, given how anti-business and anti-growth the SNP have been.
And the previous week, it had emerged that because Scotland's economy has lagged behind the UK average, we are losing hundreds of millions of pounds a year in funds for public services.
That's the reality. So how about knuckling down to sorting that out, rather than grandstanding about this imaginary world?
But it also means we have to pay for everything. And we simply can't afford it.
It means the end of the Barnett Formula, and the Scottish Government having to find ten per cent of its GDP to fill that £22.7bn gap.
Borrowing at these levels, even if it were possible, would provoke a response from the markets making Liz Truss's mini-budget disaster seem small fry.
If you think the NHS and schools and roads are bad now, just wait for the super-charged austerity under full fiscal autonomy.
It would be economic suicide, and Robison is not thick. Which leads me to think this is a kamikaze policy.
Scots public services are the target, leading to the inevitable conclusion from SNP chiefs that things are so terrible the only way out of the wreck is independence.
And what about Farage?
Last week this newspaper tried to get some Scots policies out of him. Reform UK are quite light on those — meaning they really haven't got any.
He did confirm he no longer wanted to axe MSPs — good news for the ones who could be elected for Reform in 2026.
But one thing he did speak on during his Scots trip was scrapping the Barnett Formula.
In his own words, he said it 'seems to me to be somewhat out of date', adding: 'What I'd like to see is a Scottish Government that's able to raise a bit more of its own revenue, and a Scottish economy that has genuine growth.'
Like the SNP's funding policy, the consequences would be the opposite of what Farage says. It would strangle spending and growth.
With a reduced settlement for public services here — while people in England get the same, or closer, to the current Scots levels — it would mean savage cuts, tax rises, or both.
This would also suit the SNP's independence argument.
Does Farage care much about that? I'm not sure he actually does.
Scotland has never been his priority. Domination in England is. There would be a bit more money for England, styled as one in the eye for 'subsidy junkie' Scots, playing well to potential Reform voters down south.
At the heart of it, like the SNP's stance, it's about making Scotland poorer, not wealthier.
As the SNP's Trade Union Group put it last week: 'This is code for a bonfire of public services. And the effective end to devolution.'
Correct. But they may want to look in the mirror, as SNP chiefs are proposing the same.