Viewpoint / Opinion: A vote for change
It has been a general election like no other across the UK, in Scotland and even here in the safe Liberal Democrat backwater of the northern isles.
Shetland and Orkney have provided the LibDems with their only Scottish seat, and even former Scottish secretary Alistair Carmichael has felt the roar of the SNP in his ear.
Tavish Scott must be considering the hard work that lies ahead of him to hold on as MSP for Shetland in next year’s Scottish elections.
What still seems unclear on the day after the night before is what people were voting for. This election seems on the face of it to have been more about what people were voting against.
In Shetland there has clearly been considerable anger with the LibDems for collaborating with the Tories on an austerity drive that has betrayed the values of fairness the party is so proud of.
In Scotland there is clearly disillusion with the behaviour of the Labour Party during the referendum campaign and their lacklustre performance in Holyrood over the past few years.
And in England it would seem the relentless campaign by the right wing press to blame Labour alone for the 2008 economic crash and terrify the population about the consequences of the SNP holding a Labour government to ransom had a real impact.
The Sun newspaper has got it right ever since they told voters in 1979 to “Vote Tory” and let Margaret Thatcher into 10 Downing Street. This year they did it again, telling voters “Don’t Vote Labour”, which meant supporting the Conservatives in England and the SNP north of the border.
If people were voting FOR anything, it appears that in Scotland they were voting for change, while in England they were voting for the status quo.
And now Shetland, which has always prided itself on standing outside the Scottish political and cultural mainstream, seems to have joined that demand for change.
So what is the change that people are looking for? Probably the one that every single party has pledged to deliver and few have any faith that they are willing or able to.
People are looking for a greater say in their own affairs, they want less remote government, they want people in power to pay more attention to local needs rather than adopt “one size fits all” policies – in other words, more devolved government.
That is something the Smith Commission committed itself to. It is something Alistair Carmichael promised the Our Islands Our Future campaign. It is something the SNP have pledged to deliver while their opponents accuse them of doing exactly the opposite. It is something that even UKIP voters are looking for in their demand to get out of the EU and send immigrants home.
We live in a new interconnected world where, in Scotland and Shetland at least, there is greater political awareness than ever before.
The current structures of government no longer reflect that world. Westminster is out of date and out of touch and needs reform. Failure to do so will only increase the chasm between Scotland and the rest of the UK and inevitably lead to the eventual break up the Union.
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