Stop the double standards – the SNP deserves power

Westminster wants Scotland to remain in the UK, but doesn't want to give legitimacy to the part it plays in Westminster elections

Sturgeon inside No 10: the SNP leader poses in a playhouse as she visits ABC Nursery in Dedridge, Scotland, while on the election campaign trail (Getty Images)

Last summer I went, for the first time, to the Cowes Regatta. It was a rather baffling event to watch – particularly for the uninitiated. There would be an enormous amount of strenuous action out there, a lot of people would be pulling this way and that, hoping to get a favourable wind, and at the conclusion of the race you had no idea who had actually won. It was only afterwards, when the reckoning was done, that a victor would be apparent. That’s the best metaphor I can come up with to describe this election campaign.

It seems probable that, for all the tacking this way and that, and for all the currents, swells and troughs of the past few weeks, we will wake up on Friday not knowing who has actually won this election. Behind closed doors, deals will be done and arrangements will be made between people who have been presenting themselves as enemies, and the shape of our political settlement for the next five years will only then become apparent. Such is the rather messy nature of democracy, and as someone who’s always thought that coalition government better reflects the moderate, political pick-and-mix inclinations of the British people, I can hardly complain if this is what happens.

That doesn’t alter the fact, however, that this somnambulatory campaign has further weakened the contract between the electorate and the elected. Democracy is a nuanced and complicated piece of machinery, yet our politicians behave as if it were a blunt instrument.

Take, for instance, the warnings (from all sides) about the SNP being public enemy number one, presenting Nicola Sturgeon (inset) as a one-woman wrecking ball intent on demolishing everything we stand for. How are we supposed to take that seriously when only a few months ago, we were encouraged by Messrs Cameron and Miliband to believe that the Scottish people had spoken, and that their wish to remain part of the union was sovereign?

Well, guess what? The Scottish people are about to speak again, and this time, rather inconveniently, some might not like what they say when they vote for the SNP in unprecedented numbers. So, on one hand, Westminster wants Scotland to remain in the UK, and on the other hand, it doesn’t want to give legitimacy to the part it plays in Westminster elections. Leave that to us, if you will. The overwhelming likelihood is that the SNP will be the third party in Westminster after Thursday’s poll, so doesn’t that give them a constitutional right beyond merely being present at security briefings? Regardless of whether you agree with what they stand for: if the Scots are part of a unified electoral system, then, with a coachload of MPs – and certainly with more than the Lib Dems – they deserve to play some role in government.

That the Scottish nationalists are now characterised as unwelcome interlopers in the Palace of Westminster is an example of political double standards which makes the British public question further whose interests our politicians are serving. The crude portrayal of an important force in British politics shouldn’t fool the people. The waters may be choppy, but we know what we’re watching.