December 2023 was arguably the high-water mark of the doomed SNP/Green partnership in Government. Finance Secretary Shona Robison introduced a Budget that increased income tax rates on higher earners – a key Green ask.
Nearly £5bn of investment to combat climate change was announced and cash for active travel was unveiled, guaranteeing the support of Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater.
But if a week is a long time in politics, twelve months is an eternity. The Greens were brutally ditched by Humza Yousaf in April and John Swinney now leads a minority administration.
Another deal between the two largest pro-independence parties on this month’s draft Budget is difficult to imagine. The irony is that failing to reach an agreement is in the electoral interests of the SNP and the Greens.
Yousaf’s eureka moment was Labour’s landslide win in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election in 2023. Scots who were neither poor nor wealthy deserted the SNP for Labour – a result repeated across Scotland at the general election.
SNP strategists believed the Greens had dragged their party out of the mainstream and onto the turf of niche concerns.
Passing a Budget next year without SNP support is part of a longer-term project at re-engaging with middle Scotland. But the Greens also have incentives to say “no deal” when they see Robison’s tax and spending plans this week.
The party’s left flank believes the leadership made too many compromises in Government and need to go back to their roots. Sitting out the next Budget could position the Greens as the ideal home for some disaffected SNP supporters.
Electoral realities are also behind the SNP Government’s decision to put pro-business Minister Ivan McKee in charge of Budget negotiations and open talks with the Lib Dems.
Alex Cole Hamilton’s party is just as hostile, perhaps even more so, to the SNP than Labour. He and previous leader Willie Rennie are effectively Unionist Unity MSPs and rely on Tory support in their seats.
But they have done a Budget deal before with the SNP and look likely to assist again, although support could be withheld until deep in the New Year.
Another factor in Swinney’s favour is that the effect of Budget failure – a likely early Holyrood election – would be a massive risk for the opposition parties. Labour are down in the polls and would not favour an election at a time when Keir Starmer is causing Anas Sarwar bother.
The Tories, meanwhile, are predicted to lose half their seats to Nigel Farage’s Reform. A Government shutdown, where public sector workers do not get the pay rises they are expecting in April, would play badly for the architects of chaos.
Swinney needs a handful of MSPs to help pass his first Budget since he took over from Yousaf. The laws of politics point to him succeeding.
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