How could global turmoil affect the election in Scotland? – BBC News

It’s nearly five years since the United Kingdom last went to the polls in a general election and a lot has happened in that time.

Three events in particular will have their own lengthy entries in the history books.

The global pandemic, the UK’s departure from the European Union, and the war in Ukraine have had deep and lasting effects on life and politics in Scotland and further afield.

What impact might they have on the outcome of this election?

Politicians responded to this unprecedented public health emergency by introducing the most extreme restrictions on our liberty ever known in peacetime.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of lockdowns – which were supported by all four big UK parties – the publicly-funded National Health Service is still feeling the effects of that period.

As much routine healthcare was suspended to prioritise tackling the virus, the number of people waiting for treatment, and the length of time they were waiting, soared.

With their treatment delayed, many patients became sicker, with some developing additional conditions.

That piled further pressure on the NHS, which is actually four separate systems, currently administered by the Conservatives in England; the Scottish National Party in Scotland; Labour in Wales; and the power-sharing government of Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland.

For all four governments, the pandemic highlighted existing problems.

“Critical underlying issues were brutally exposed with too few staff, too few beds, and buildings that were unsuitable for effective infection control,” according to doctors’ trade union, the British Medical Association (BMA).

In Scotland, a recent official audit pointed out that waiting times standards were often missed before the pandemic, adding that soaring costs, long waits, and staff shortages were now having “a direct impact on patient safety”.

Because of devolution, the outcome of this election will not directly determine policy on health, education or other devolved areas such as housing or transport.

Although the Scottish government decides how to allocate its resources (a limited amount of which it raises itself through taxation) the level of most of its budget, known as the block grant, is determined by Westminster.

Some may want to make a much wider point about the overall system within which the NHS is run, whether that is to support Scotland’s 317-year-old union with England, or to signal a desire for Scotland to become independent.

In other words, it’s pointless for any commentator to proclaim that the election is about this but not about that. What it is about is a matter for each voter.

The second big change since the last general election happened an hour before midnight on 31 January 2020.

That was the moment the UK formally left the European Union, 47 years after joining its predecessor trading bloc, the European Economic Community (EEC).

The Office for Budget Responsibility, a UK government body which provides independent economic analysis and forecasts, estimates that the UK’s departure will, in the long run, cut both imports and exports by 15% and reduce productivity (output per worker) by 4%.

Both the Conservatives and Labour say they have no intention of revisiting the result of the referendum.

In their manifesto, the Liberal Democrats vow to “fix the UK’s broken relationship with Europe”. That includes a pledge to seek to rejoin the Single Market, with a “longer-term objective” of rejoining the EU.

The SNP say Scotland should rejoin the EU as an independent nation, a proposal which is itself the subject of intense debate.

For now, the topic of immigration is another clear dividing line between, on the one hand the SNP and the Liberal Democrats, who both favour a more liberal approach, and, on the other, Labour and the Tories, who are more restrictive,

On Friday’s BBC election debate, the SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn argued that migration was essential for Scottish public services, businesses, and economic growth.

Mr Flynn pointed to last month’s release of census data which revealed that “without migration, Scotland’s population would have decreased,” with fewer workers to support an ageing population.

The Conservatives say they will cut immigration, which has risen sharply since the last election, and will press ahead with attempts to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda, to try to deter people from making the dangerous crossing of the English Channel in small boats.

As Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia, oil and gas prices soared, and supplies of wheat, sunflower oil and other products from the region were disrupted.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says 12 million people in the UK are now living in absolute poverty and this parliament “is on course to be the worst on record for growth in average incomes.”

But even before all three world-shaking events — the war, the pandemic, and Brexit — there were serious concerns about the underlying state of the UK economy.

Productivity had slumped following both the financial crisis of 2007/8 and the cuts to public spending, known as austerity, which were Tory chancellor George Osborne’s response to it.

Together, all of these shifts in the political and economic landscape over the past five years or so pose many challenges for the big parties at this election.

In any case the power to allow a second referendum on independence lies with Westminster, where both Labour and the Tories continue to insist they will block another vote.

But with annual growth still weak in historical terms, government debt still high, and living standards under severe pressure, is that credible?

Labour are promising “change” which they say means Sir Keir Starmer would stabilise the economy by sticking to Tory spending constraints while keeping “taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible.”

But could Sir Keir actually deliver meaningful change, given the state of the economy and his self-imposed constraints, which include, to the frustration of Scottish Labour, retaining some Tory curbs on welfare benefits?

Politicians of all stripes are scrambling for answers and struggling to adapt to the dramatic changes the world has witnessed since the last general election.