Happy Christmas, John!

John Swinney must be thinking Christmas has come early this year. He has just received a wonderful gift from a most unexpected source. Just as he takes on personal responsibility for the constitution brief which became vacant with the defenestration of Angus Robertson (I enjoy writing that), John receives a resounding endorsement from former UK health secretary Wes Streeting. How it must have gladdened our First Minister’s heart to have such a prominent figure in the British establishment brand the SNP an “existential threat” to the UK. You can bet that’s going on John’s bio right away!

For the first time in our history, nationalists are in power in every corner of the United Kingdom. Scottish and Welsh nationalism represent an existential threat to the future integrity of the United Kingdom and Reform UK represent a threat to the values and ideals that have made this country great.

What a gift! OK, Wes did kinda take the gloss off his baubles by lumping the SNP and Plaid Cymru in with Farage’s mob. But nobody expects a British politician to understand Scottish nationalism. Or Welsh nationalism, for that matter. Nonetheless, it’s a terrific boost to John Swinney’s credibility as the de facto face and voice of the independence movement.

He could certainly use that boost. All eyes are on him now as we await revelation of his ‘Big Secret Plan’ to restore Scotland’s independence. Of course, some of us have learned to keep our expectations low. But there are still a lot of people out there who genuinely believe that John Swinney has a starring role in the British ruling elite’s nightmares. For such people, Wes Streeting’s remarks will be taken as confirmation of their hero’s status as the bane of British imperialism.

I haven’t looked at the below-the-line comments on The National’s piece on Wes Streeting’s generous gift. I don’t really need to. There will be lots of stuff about how the Brits are running scared and the UK is on the verge of collapse and blah! blah! blah! We might even see a rehashing of the old ‘never closer’ routine. Won’t that be fun! Few will stop to wonder just exactly what it is that the British state has to be afraid of. What precisely is the nature of this “existential threat”? What might John Swinney actually do that puts the Union in jeopardy?

By Swinney’s own account, he doesn’t have a mandate to do anything. He set the bar at 65 seats or more, and he fell a long way short of that. The party loyalists have already erased the SNP-only strategy from their memories, of course. If John Swinney is now saying that the Scottish Green Party’s seats count towards his mandate, then that is what he has always said. His words have been twisted. It’s all part of a ‘yoon’ conspiracy. If you are found quoting Swinney’s own words, you must be a closet Unionist. It’s all so predictable and pathetic.

Suppose we accept that Swinney does have a mandate despite failing to satisfy his own criteria. Mandate for what? All he’s ever intimated he might do is beg for a Section 30 order. Why would that strike fear into whatever it is that the British state has instead of a heart? All Starmer—or whoever—has to do is press the button that plays ‘now is not the time’ on an endless loop.

But there I go again! Ruining the festive atmosphere by bringing realpolitik to the party. It suits Wes Streeting’s agenda to portray the SNP as an existential threat so long as he can blame Starmer for allowing the Union to be put at risk. I doubt very much that Streeting actually believes John Swinney to be the man who will ‘break up the UK’. Nothing that Swinney has said or done might give that impression.

The truth is that the British establishment must be quietly delighted to have the SNP back in power. From their perspective, it could have been a lot worse. Had there been a genuine ‘party of independence’ standing in the Holyrood election, it might well have displaced the SNP. Then, the Union truly would be in jeopardy. For the moment, Wes Streeting has to pretend to believe that the SNP is an existential threat to the UK. Overjoyed as Swinney must be to have received Streeting’s hearty testimonial, the rest of us would be well advised to bear in mind that he is giving that testimonial for his own purposes. Any benefit to the SNP leader is purely coincidental.

Happy Christmas anyway, John!