Guest election blog – SNP by Lucy Lapwing Hodson
SNP manifesto – by Lucy Lapwing
I am an environmental campaigner, writer, amateur-ish naturalist and enthusiastic toad-tickler. I worked in the conservation sector for eight years, and now work with Wild Justice on their campaigns. I also write about wildlife, organise other campaigns and events, and work a bit in wildlife telly.
I first voted in the 2010 general election, and awoke on May 7th to a Conservative government just a month after my nineteenth birthday, which was excellent…
I joined the Labour Party aged 16, and have voted Labour in every general election since. I sat a term as a borough councillor in my early twenties, and voted in each Labour leadership race. I supported Jeremy Corbyn; I considered his vision of an equitable future for the most vulnerable folks in our society to be exciting and admirable. I left the Labour party in 2020, and have voted Green in local elections since then.
On July 4th I’ll be voting in Scotland for the first time, in Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber.
This is my review of, and my thoughts about, the environmental implications of the SNP’s election manifesto.
Things I like:
Four Nations Climate Response Group: SNP commit to establishing this, saying it’ll help ‘agree climate plans across the UK’ and make sure the UK government doesn’t backtrack on commitments. It sounds good in theory; we’ve seen countless u-turns and backtracking, and it’d be good to see whoever’s next in parliament being held to account.
Peatland: Gets a mention – which I like – but that’s about as detailed as it gets.
Voting age: Extended to under 16’s, who I think should get the chance to vote when the climate and nature crises will impact their future the most.
Palestine: SNP support a ceasefire & wish to recognise Palestine as an independent state. It might sound tenuous – but the crisis in Palestine is a land issue, and so is the nature crisis. I’d like to see more land justice dots being connected between human and nature issues.
No more coal: The SNP supports a ban on new coal licences. Ban new coal licences.
Things I don’t like:
Light on nature: The SNP manifesto only uses the word ‘nature’ once – and in that instance it’s light on detail. Compare that to the Scottish Green’s 14 (which I had a look at last week). It doesn’t use the words ‘biodiversity’, ‘wildlife’ or ‘environment’ either.
Carbon Capture: Like something out of a sci-fi film, the SNP commits to working with the Acorn Project and the Scottish Cluster in order to capture carbon. This would be a colossal infrastructure project, and would involve pumping CO2 into aquifers and depleted oil and gas fields in the North Sea. I’m wary of any climate or nature ‘solutions’ that involve allowing us to continue the status quo; in this case, ‘don’t worry, we can carry on consuming and emitting, because we can just shove all the carbon dioxide under the sea, no problem’. I don’t know enough about carbon capture to write it off completely, but personally, it doesn’t feel like it’s the answer when we could be being imaginative in how we restructure our ways of living so that we don’t produce so much CO2 (plans for reduction of CO2 aren’t mentioned).
Fishing: The manifesto seems to imply the continued support of Scottish salmon farms (there’s a brief nod to aquaculture and Scottish Salmon) – which I simply think are abhorrent. Energy should be being put into making our rivers and sees a place that supports thriving, bustling wild Salmon populations, not shoving thousands of fish in cages and drenching them in formaldehyde.
Growth-based mindset: See carbon capture, above. Most mentions of ‘green energy’ and ‘climate change’ in the manifesto are twinned with some spiel about the economic growth of Scotland. Whilst I understand the nuances of the draining effect of UK government when it comes to the economy and investment, it’d still be good to see something different here. The Green Party seek to measure our society’s success by different measures – moving away from a growth-based mindset and measuring things like our citizen’s wellbeing and happiness, which – when we need to use less, consume less, emit less – sounds rather nice.
Wishy-washy on oil and gas: The SNP give a very politician-style statement on the future of Oil and Gas in the country. They say ‘We believe any further extraction must be consistent with our climate obligations and take due account of energy security considerations. Decisions must be made on a rigorously evidence-led, case-by-case basis, through a robust climate compatibility assessment.’ To me, this basically translates as ‘we’ll make it easy for the industry to justify why extraction should be allowed to continue’.
Peatland: The manifesto commits to ‘Provide fair funding for climate’. It states that Scotland has over two thirds of the UK’s peatland – but gives no detail around peatland restoration, or resilience going into a warmer (peat-drying) future.
Trees: The manifesto states that the Scotland plants 60% of the UK’s trees. This sounds like a big figure, but again, it’s light on detail.If you’ve spent much time in Scotland you’ll know huge proportions of the ‘woodland’ there is forestry plantation. Where’s the native woodland restoration? The natural regeneration? Their short and vague statement does nothing but make this already fuzzy issue even less clear in voter’s minds.
Access: Considering Scotland has the right to roam already, and in light of the campaign to establish it elsewhere, it would’ve been nice to see this mentioned, as well as the wider subject of access to nature and the countryside.
Things that appear to be missing:
Nature Restoration: For a country famous for its wildlife, its nature tourism, and its national parks, there’s also no mention of any plans for restoration or recovery of wildlife.
Where’s the ambition? The manifesto says the SNP’s commitment to the climate and nature crisis is ‘unwavering’, yet they appear to be going along with the UK Government’s target of Net Zero by 2050, saying that Scotland’s is therefore 2045. Why not call for this to be brought forward? It’s an emergency, after all.
Overall assessment:
I’m drawn to the SNP for their left-leaning policy in a number of areas- but sadly their reputation of being a bit bolshy, bold and outspoken doesn’t seem to come across in any of their nature, climate or environmental policy (where it even exists). After reading their manifesto, I’m left feeling frustrated and disappointed. It’s especially frustrating when the SNP have been in coalition with the Scottish Greens in Scottish government. Surely they’ve had time for a good natter and to swap some ideas on these issues?
Would I vote for these environmental policies?
For the policies? No. On election day? Before reading the SNP’s manifesto in detail, I considered them my main voting option (having no Scottish Green candidate on my ballot paper) – but I’m disappointed by their environmental policy. I probably will vote for them, and hope their open-mindedness in other policy areas means they’d be willing to listen and adjust on environmental policy.
This is one of a series of opinion pieces on the political parties’ 2024 general election manifestos. We invited them to share their thoughts on one or two manifestos of their choice. We didn’t tell people what to write and we haven’t edited what they wrote (except to squeeze things into a common format, to correct minor grammatical and spelling errors and typos). The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Wild Justice.