Proportional representation has raised the country's equivalent of the Canadian Greens into parliamentary powerbrokers
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Devolved Scotland continues its remarkable run as a provider of political entertainment — and, perhaps, as a teacher of lessons about nationalist movements, proportional representation (PR) or the Scottish political character itself, whose stamp Canada still bears. On Monday, Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf resigned after only a year at the head of the Scottish government. Yousaf leads the Scottish Nationalist Party, which has a commanding position in the Scots Parliament at Holyrood. Or so he thought.
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Three years ago the SNP, led by Nicola Sturgeon, was returned to power in the country’s proportional representation elections. Sturgeon’s SNP won 47.7 per cent of the “constituency vote” in the slightly complicated Scottish electoral system, a performance that would have yielded overwhelming seat numbers and stability in a first-past-the-post election.
But 47.7 per cent, you will observe, is not quite 50. The SNP was awarded 64 of the 129 seats at Holyrood, leaving the government one short of a secure majority. This is PR doing what it says on the packaging: facilitating dialogue between parties and requiring a governing party to seek true majority power.
Sturgeon cut a far-reaching deal with the Scottish Greens, holders of just eight seats, and gave them two junior cabinet postings. She then left office last year with the constabulary nipping at her heels. (Her husband Peter Murrell, who had been party CEO, was arrested on April 18 and is charged with embezzlement.)
The Scots Nats, forced to find a new leader for its big tent in a big hurry, split almost evenly between left and right. Yousaf, the party establishment’s preferred leftist, won by a whisper. The SNP-Green bargain was quickly renewed without apparent trouble, but it left Yousaf more beholden than ever to a tiny band of truculent eco-radicals — while having to govern a modern industrial country of five million souls.
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The Greens are naturally eager to annihilate Scotland’s offshore oil industry, whose golden-goose value lies at the heart of traditional SNP arguments for secession from the United Kingdom. The pact was thus beginning to become a problem for the SNP in oil-dependent wrench-turning regions of the country, and Yousaf was facing tough policy decisions on net-zero targets and a “just transition” to desuetude for workers. Meanwhile, the SNP was, with Green encouragement, alienating some voters gratuitously on gender issues and on the Israeli war in Gaza, where Yousaf has family in the line of fire.
Polls showed SNP support dwindling from nearly 50 per cent to more like 30, with voters flocking to long-struggling Labour. Sentiment within the SNP caucus began to favour dropping the Greens and perhaps going it alone in Parliament. Meanwhile, Yousaf began to do and say things the Greens didn’t much like.
In the end, the minority tail wagged the near-majority dog. Last week the first minister blew up the Green deal unilaterally, in an apparent fit of fatigue and vexation. The Greens called his bluff, announcing that they would vote against the government on an approaching no-confidence motion. Yousaf, initially smug and confident, found to his surprise that fellow Nationalist members of the Scottish Parliament would much rather have a new leader than an immediate election.
In essence, the Scottish Greens, whose actual support corresponds well to that of the Canadian Greens, seem to have acquired a veto over the leadership and even the identity of a much more popular political party. This provides a rather big hint as to the recent struggles of electoral reform in Canada. You couldn’t devise a scenario more infernal to the imaginations of centrist Canadian Liberals.
It is not just Scottish PR that has brought about crisis and uncertainty, but fine details of PR’s implementation: in some electoral systems with partial PR, the Greens wouldn’t even qualify for Holyrood seats at all. If your view is that full PR is required by basic ideals of ethics, of course, then you might say, “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.” And you’ll be careful not to be caught adding “… and government itself goes to heck.”
National Post
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