GLASGOW — There is no good time to lose your finance minister. For the Scottish National Party, the resignation of Derek Mackay on Thursday — hours before he was supposed to unveil the Scottish government’s annual budget — was a particularly bad blow.
The optics are less than ideal. National papers reported Mackay had inappropriate social media contact with a 16-year-old boy. It’s an odious incident the party could well do without — and an uncomfortable echo of the case against former party leader and First Minister Alex Salmond, whose trial on a litany of sexual assault charges starts next month.
But if, from a distance, this looks like a PR nightmare for the SNP, their biggest political headache right now doesn’t come from the sex scandals threatening to stain its reputation.
With Britain now out of the European Union, and Boris Johnson in No. 10 Downing Street, the SNP’s most pressing challenge is navigating thorny policy issues that are complicating its efforts to hold on to power and — most crucially — push forward on independence.
SNP plans on hold
Replacing Mackay, who was tipped as a potential successor to SNP leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, could provoke a cabinet reshuffle at an inconvenient time for the party leadership.
Before his resignation, the budget was primed to be a set-piece showing the SNP struggling against open disrespect from Westminster — the U.K. chancellor having truncated his Scottish counterparts’ process by delaying his own budget. With only limited devolved income-raising powers, the SNP has long contended that Scotland is locked into an austerity program outside its control.
The budget spat is the latest flashpoint in a protracted PR war between the SNP and the Conservatives — mostly over the issue of Scottish independence.
Sturgeon and her party argue that Brexit has fundamentally changed the calculus regarding independence since 2014, when the country held a referendum on whether to break away from the U.K.
There are signs the public agrees. A new poll published earlier this week suggested 52 percent approval for independence post-Brexit, a historic high. Since the failed 2014 referendum, support has hovered stubbornly in the 45 percent to 50 percent range.
The SNP argues that news like that underscores the need to review Scotland’s constitutional future and that Johnson’s refusal to allow a second independence referendum is an affront to Scottish public opinion.
Derek Mackay resigned as Scottish finance minister after allegations made in a national newspaper | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
In response, Johnson insists on holding the SNP to its word ahead of the last vote that the 2014 referendum was a “once in a generation” event.
That’s a problem for Sturgeon, who has been adamant that independence can come only from a legal referendum, which would likely need Westminster’s backing.
But with the possibility of a green light from Johnson looking increasingly remote, attention is turning instead to the 2021 Scottish parliament elections — where more serious challenges are mounting for the SNP.
Domestic headaches
Scottish politics is far more fractious than at the U.K. level. The SNP’s regional dominance in Westminster hasn’t translated to Holyrood, where they are the largest single party but govern with a minority.
As such, the SNP’s drive for a new referendum could be undermined by a swathe of domestic policy issues.
Two new hospitals have been beset by construction issues. One in Edinburgh has been kept shut for a year due to construction issues, while another in Glasgow has seen faulty water treatment systems implicated in the death of several patients.
A public inquiry is now imminent, and health care remains fertile ground for headline writers and political opponents alike.
All this damages the image of stable, competent government with a pro-business tinge that the SNP has worked to build over its years in power
Elsewhere, anguish comes from an unlikely source: a dry dock on the country’s west coast. Four years after being commissioned, two ferries needed to support island communities remain years from completion amid huge cost overruns.
The shipyard was nationalized last year, but the Scottish government has since become embroiled in an argument between private companies over who is to blame.
Away from the front pages, a string of reports by Audit Scotland have highlighted serious structural concerns about public services’ funding after years of austerity.
All this damages the image of stable, competent government with a pro-business tinge that the SNP has worked to build over its years in power — with serious implications for the 2021 elections.
Opponents divided
For now, a bright spot for the SNP remains its opposition’s lack of firepower.
The Scottish Conservatives are in the process of electing a new leader to replace Ruth Davidson, who left last summer as the U.K.’s longest-serving major party leader.
Her departure has thrown the Scottish Tories ideological fissures into sharper focus, with the party’s MPs in Westminster being loyal to Johnson but its Scottish representatives deeply concerned at his toxic image north of the border.
Kate Forbes delivers the Scottish budget after Derek Mackay’s resignation | Andrew Cowan/Scottish Parliament via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour remains unable to agree a way forward on key issues of its own: whether to support a new independence referendum and the future shape of its relationship with the U.K. party.
Labour is the third largest party in the Scottish parliament, and faces an uphill battle to reverse a record decade of lost seats. After a rout in the U.K.’s December general election, senior party officials called for a reassessment of Scotland’s relationship with the U.K., which some argued grants it no autonomy.
The SNP knows the road to a new referendum must swerve around a litany of policy obstacles.
As it prepares for an election campaign pitched on constitutional grounds, it is unforced policy errors — not sex scandals — that will pose the greatest threat.