As Scotland’s short campaign descends into negativity, misinformation and inter‑party mud‑slinging, Roz Foyer argues that voters deserve a positive, pro‑worker agenda.

We are 10 days on from the launch of the Scottish Parliament short campaign. Judging by what we have seen and heard so far it is going to be a long and painful month until the election. Internal party issues have grabbed the headlines, candidates are dropping like flies and “your scandal is worse than ours” is the dominant narrative.    

According to Labour ‘a vote for Reform lets the SNP cling to power’, as if this should be the defining reason for opposing the right wing party. According to the SNP, a vote for Labour would usher in a Labour/Reform electoral pact. Yes, they really do all seem to think the electorate are that daft. 

I don’t want to seem too old fashioned or naive. It’s not as if the elections of yesteryear obeyed the Queensberry rules.  Internal party issues are certainly nothing new and it may just be that the media and social media spotlight is now brighter.  That notwithstanding the election campaign already feels grubby, personalised, negative and policy light.  Internationally this is a time of crisis and crimes of war.

Domestically the ongoing cost-of-living crisis looks set to get worse. This is a moment of intense insecurity for people in our communities.  We are hitting peak political disaffection. The last thing people need for the next month is what we have seen over the past ten days. Negative politics plays into the hands of Reform. 

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Last week the STUC convened Scotland’s trades councils. Trades Councils are local formations of trade union members active in their communities. To say that they are scunnered by the current offerings of the political parties would be an understatement. The subject matter at our event ranged from the creation of new volunteer support hubs in our towns, the fight for decent jobs in those downtrodden town centres and the development of local energy projects which genuinely benefit communities.

It is an agenda and a vision which sits within and alongside that of the Scotland Demands Better campaign.  An alliance of community campaigns which held its election hustings last week. Forced by the framing of the event to at least engage in the presentation of ideas, we at least heard some positive, if somewhat glossy offerings from the main political parties. 

The hustings provided a glimpse in microcosm of what a better election campaign might look like. Forced to actually address the representatives of the communities and campaigns who seek to make life more tolerable for ordinary people, most of the political parties tried to step up. Only Reform UK collapsed into misinformation and policy offerings dripping with contempt for our people.

It’s news to me but, according to the Reform candidate, it costs £70 for a return train journey from Robroyston to Edinburgh. If you are going to spread disinformation, you are best not trying to do it in front of the very trade unions and other partners who succeeded in convincing the government to scrap peak fares. 

Other Reform policy offerings included ending net-zero initiatives, cutting taxes for the wealthy and removing the free bus pass initiative for young people. 

Being on the side of the wealthy, the climate deniers and those who attack our young people is a bold strategy. In social media soundbites, their misinformation has caught some folk’s attention.  When exposed to scrutiny from those whose bread and butter is supporting and empowering communities, it falls flat very quickly. 

If you are claiming and pitching yourself as saviours of the working class it’s not a sustainable tactic, to talk down the achievements of working people.  

The minimum wage, fought for and delivered by working people through trade unions, is “too high” according to their leader Nigel Farage. Richard Tice, Reform Deputy Leader then reinforced the view saying that “we have to take a look” at it.  

The Employment Rights Act, which has seen one of the biggest upgrades in workers’ rights for a generation, is also fair game for the chop according to Reform, with Tice labelling it “dreadful”. 

If there is one thing I am looking forward to over the next 30 days, it will be seeing Reform trying to explain why it is so “dreadful” to want to eliminate exploitative zero-hours contracts, ban ‘fire and rehire’, enhance unfair dismissal claims, and give day one access to sick pay.

When polled, 77% of voters in Farage’s Clacton constituency backed banning zero‑hours contracts, with 86% wanting a higher minimum wage. Similarly, amongst Tice’s voters, 80% want a ban on zero‑hours contracts, 86% oppose fire and rehire, and 83% want the minimum wage uplifted. I suspect voters in Glasgow and Inverclyde feel much the same.

The hoped for ‘Get out of Jail free card’ for a party bankrolled by elites, led by multimillionaires and forced by their paymasters to unveil a raft of policies directly aimed at making the lives of working class people worse, is of course migration.  

Reform Scotland’s leader and former Baron, Malcolm Offord and Tory defector, Thomas Kerr, menacingly gloated and stoated around the east end of Glasgow last week, making yet more misinformed claims about migration. 

I’ve yet to see migrants sailing up the Clyde in a dinghy. The last arrival of such boats in Glasgow was nearly two centuries ago bearing our ancestors, those escaping the Great Hunger.  

In any case those arriving on small boats elsewhere are not the adversaries of the working class. It’s those arriving by private jet. Or the jet owners who don’t even set foot in this country but yet own much of our infrastructure. The hedge funds that own our airports, the pension funds that own our ports, the overseas financial interests that own our gas networks, offshore wind, train carriages, electrical transmitters and care homes.

Scotland can do so much better than dividing working class communities along race, gender and toxic culture wars. The antidote is for those political parties who aspire to govern progressively to present a positive, popular policy alternative. Back our calls for wealth taxes, scrap the illogical council tax, introduce a proportionate property tax, and promise cheaper, nationalised public transport reinforced by a coherent industrial strategy safeguarding and creating quality Scottish jobs.

These are the measures that will bring prosperity to working class communities. They’re popular. They’re prudent. They’re supported by the working class across the whole of Scotland and that’s exactly why, I expect, Reform won’t be the slightest bit interested in them. 

Roz Foyer is general secretary of the STUC

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