A new mega-poll predicts that the SNP will win another majority at the May election. Andy Maciver argues that this would be bad for devolution, and that we are compelled to rethink the voting system to make Holyrood do better.

I am not instinctively antipathetic towards the SNP. It’s time in government, in my view, has been mixed, and it would not be a challenge to dedicate this entire column to its mistakes, not least on the economy and in our schools. However I could also make a case that there are signs of green shoots under the leadership of John Swinney and the strategic positioning of a number of key lieutenants, not least the brilliant Ivan McKee, who is quietly ensuring that the engine which sits under Scotland’s bonnet works more efficiently than it used to.

Nor am I instinctively against the concept of independence. I would not vote for it today, but I can see a route in the longer term to a well run, wealthy, healthy independent Scotland of which I’d be happy to be a part.

But I did wince, I must say, when the first Holyrood Multi-Regression Poll (MRP) was published earlier this week, predicting another SNP majority. An MRP methodology is thought to be more accurate than a conventional poll due to its ability to combine both national sentiment and local circumstances. This week’s poll predicted that the SNP would win 67 seats - all in constituencies.

Now, I have some trouble believing that this poll will become reality. However, let’s for a second presume that it will, for I fear this outcome in a number of ways. Firstly, it would indicate that the threshold for the holding of another independence referendum, created by Mr Swinney, has been passed. Inevitably, that would change entirely the priorities of the government after May 7th. Instead of grafting to fix the foundational problems of devolved Scotland, the First Minister would be compelled to dive head-first into a constitutional wrangle with an exceptionally unpopular Labour government at Westminster. It would occupy the intellectual capacity of the government.

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It is far from clear, to me, that when Mr Swinney created this hurdle he thought he had the remotest chance of leaping it. The SNP is down by at least 10 per cent in all polling, and like the rest of us may not have had the prescience at that time to know that Reform would steal the lunch of the unionist parties who currently hold the constituencies which the MRP predicts the SNP will now win.

If he had predicted, for instance, that the Tories would be defenestrated in Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire or in Aberdeenshire West, or that Labour would lose Edinburgh Southern (all seats won with 50-odd per cent of the vote), despite the SNP vote share also going down across the board, then he would have been in a minority of one.

If, in heart and head, Mr Swinney did not expect to clear his own hurdle, his sentiment may also have been informed by the decreasing salience of independence amongst the population. More in Common, the pollster, showed last year that although independence support still hovers at around 50 per cent, the proportion of SNP voters who consider independence to be a top-three issue has plummeted from around one-half to around one-quarter in the space of only a couple of years. In other words, if you ask them they’ll say yes, but they are not particularly bothered.

My second concern about an SNP majority is the verdict that it would deliver about our voting system. We tell ourselves that we have a system of proportional representation, but in reality we haven’t had for at least 15 years. When the SNP has been over or close to the majority mark, as they have throughout that time, we have PR in name only. Yes, there has been a requirement to work with opponents to pass Budgets, but whether it is the Greens or the Lib Dems, negotiations have been only as tough as the number of votes required, which has never been more than a handful.

I would put a few quid on the fact that, deep-down, a large number of pro-SNP and pro-independence types will concur that our system is in ill-health. Of course, it benefits them, but they know the risks too.

For the sake of devolution, we all need to think again. We have 129 MSPs, with 73 from constituencies and 56 from the regional party list. John Maynark Keynes said “when the facts change I change my mind, sir”. Well, the facts have changed. We have two nationalist parties, one of which deliberately (and quite correctly) ignores constituencies in order to focus on its strength - the regions. That leaves the SNP fishing from one pool and four unionist parties fishing from the other. What do we expect to happen?

We may need to sit down like grown ups, now. For a start, 129 MSPs was a number devised to cope with the workload of the Parliament in 1999. Two Scotland Acts later, with significant tax and welfare powers, and with many MSPs on two committees scrutinising multiple pieces of legislation, 129 is no longer enough.

So we could kill two birds with one stone. If we want to keep the Additional Member System (AMS), by simply adding two more List MSPs in each of the eight regions, we can almost perfectly split the Parliament in two between constituency and list MSPs, redressing the balance and probably eliminating the possibility of a majority in future.

If this seems fanciful, observe Wales, which in May will elect an increased number of MSs using a completely new voting system. Change requires only good will and determination.

None of this is designed to hamstring the SNP. This is not their fault - they are simply exploiting what in effect has become an electoral loophole. But it is incumbent on all of us to close it.

AMS is not Holyrood’s only problem. There is a case for a second chamber to scrutinise legislation more effectively. There is a case for open primary voting so that the public can rank List candidates, probably avoiding the sort of mess that the Labour party got itself into last weekend, when it effectively fired some of its best MSPs. 

Holyrood is not inevitable. It must perform significantly better, and its biggest supporters are the people who have the most vested interest in ensuring that it does. 

Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters, and co-host of the Holyrood Sources podcast

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