As the SNP promises a National Performing Company for Traditional Music, arts writer Derek McArthur wonders if it will just be yet another meaningless exercise in branding and tourism.

As critical as I am of how the Scottish Government operates the cultural sphere, the SNP are getting quite a bit right with their election promises.

Yesterday, the party revealed plans for a minimum basic income for artists if it returned to power in Holyrood. Based on the success of a similar scheme in Ireland, the SNP is promising creatives and industry workers £15,000 a year to continue with their work.

It is a genuinely tangible move that can shake up a constantly at-risk and underfunded sector, where a whole class of innovative and imaginative people are subjected to a gruelling and unnecessary hustle just to create.

When I pushed for the idea previously in this column, the reaction from the old guard was predictable: why should a hardworking taxpayer help pay the bills of an artist?

A monthly basic income for artists working in Scotland? What a marvellous idea

But it only confirmed to me the sneaking suspicion that the artist and their art is seen as materially non-contributory to society, as if a creative mind is somehow less worth to the well-being and diversity of public life than a logical or analytical one. It is high time that perception changes. There is far too much downplaying of an artist’s role in society, and it unwittingly puts a stranglehold on us all. Ever seen a piece of art and derisively thought, “I could do that”? Well, you probably couldn’t.

Luckily, and thankfully, the potential ruling party after the election is rejecting that old way of thinking and taking what could be done with the cultural sphere more seriously. Yesterday saw the promise that Scotland’s traditional music scene is to be set in stone with a National Performing Company for Traditional Music, putting it on the same footing as other government-supported arts like theatre, opera and dance.

SNP reveals plans for new national arts company to showcase traditional music

But there is a caveat, a worry, and that is the tendency for the SNP to use arts and culture as promotions for tourism and national identity, rather than addressing the roots of why these things are so badly needed in the first place.

A national company for traditional music is at risk of falling under the spell of the Brand Scotland ethos, where the goal is for Scotland to be internationally recognised as a desirable place. This, for all intents and purposes, is image-making rather than led by action, and arts and culture is a space that badly needs action as opposed to the endless words and posturing it has seen for so long.

The millions promised on the project may be eye-watering to some, especially during what feels like a forever cost-of-living crisis, but the SNP are not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Tourism brings in billions to the country annually, and it is only set to increase every year, with traditional music being a large aspect of the tourist experience. The party know that propping up traditional music will pay out dividends on the tourism side, so the expected number of several million pales when the outcome of billions in tourism comes into consideration.

But tying our arts and culture so vehemently to tourism is destructive and unhelpful to promoting and strengthening the authenticity and ingenuity of our cultural sphere. Who cares what the rest of the world thinks when the arts in Scotland remain so insecure and unconfident in itself?

People do not follow their artistic passions to monkey dance for wealthy Americans. It may kill two birds with one stone for the SNP, but it directs artists into doing what’s best for potential visitors. The domestic vision of what Scottish artists have earnestly got to express gets pushed further and further away in this direction. In Scotland, building a large film and television complex like Wardpark Studios in Cumbernauld, only to rent it out to American production companies with the capacity to spend, is considered a success. It’s not.

How the Scottish Government made a deal with Hollywood and lost

The choice of traditional music also gives away that this move is one concerned with national identity, of which the SNP has politically laid claim to. Why not invest in Scotland’s general musical landscape, which is vast and interesting, but with few options in reaching the ears of those that it should? The composers, musicians, songwriters, bands and producers of Scotland are forgotten simply for not operating in a sound that can be politically advantageous to the potential ruling party.

If traditional music is used as a prop for tourism and a mere lever for national identity, then the substance will vanish. The Scottish Government must fund creativity for its own sake and not for what it can symbolise and then sell internationally. Otherwise, the same insecurity and instrumentalisation will persist regardless of how successful a national company for traditional music will likely be. Scotland’s rich cultural soul should never be reduced to a neat exportable image for a political party to reap the benefits of. Try as they might, though.

Derek McArthur is an arts writer specialising in cinema and culture. He writes a weekly arts column for The Herald.

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