FIRST Minister John Swinney has drawn anger from Holyrood opposition parties after warning that a failure to support his SNP Government’s Budget could feed “the forces of anti-politics and populism”.
The Scottish Greens issued a furious statement accusing the SNP leader of “demeaning” himself with “hugely overblown language”, while Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar claimed Swinney was an “architect” of the populism he was warning about.
The Scottish Labour leader further told a crowd of party faithful, who gathered in Glasgow for a speech on Monday, that Swinney was aiming “to pretend that somehow the Budget's on a knife edge” in order to play politics.
Sarwar was speaking as the First Minister gave a concurrent new year speech in which he called for opposition parties to back his minority administration’s Budget – arguing that failing to do so could feed “the forces of anti-politics and populism”.
In a stark message to opposition leaders at Holyrood, Swinney said: “If party politicking results in the Budget failing to pass, there will be real damage done.”
Asked about the comments by the press, Sarwar claimed that Swinney and the SNP “are the architects of populist politics over the last 17 years, so I'm not sure what he's exactly calling out there”.
The Scottish Labour MSP went on: “We should end the shadowboxing on the Budget. John Swinney knows he has the votes to pass his Budget.
“We'll of course continue to engage with them in good faith, but I think he clearly has support from other parties already to pass his Budget.
“What we want to see from that budget though is not just where the money is spent, but how the money is spent, because the reality is that John Swinney and the SNP will passing Budgets in Scotland for 17 years and things continue to get worse, and that's why we have to see a change in direction.”
The Scottish Greens also hit out at the SNP leader’s language in strong terms, with MSP Ross Greer calling it “hugely overblown” and a “frankly demeaning way for him to start the new year”.
“Other parties in Parliament have a responsibility to carefully scrutinise the SNP’s draft budget and to push for inclusion of our own priorities. It is frankly daft and divisive for the Scottish Government to claim that such an important feature of our democracy is somehow fuelling dangerous political forces,” Greer said.
“There is more than a whiff of hypocrisy to the SNP warning of the dangers of Trumpian politics when they’ve spent the last two months falling over themselves to build a relationship with Trump himself.”
Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay, asked about Swinney's warning of a rise of populism, claimed it was "absolutely preposterous".
“We believe in cutting taxes responsibly, we believe that people who earn and work hard to earn for their families should keep as much of that money as possible. This is not radical stuff," he told the BBC.
The Scottish Government’s Budget plans will be voted on by MSPs in the coming weeks. The SNP, as a minority government, will need the support of another party for it to pass.
