There is no doubt the world today is a scary and often deeply unpleasant place.
In the Middle East, the conflict between Israel – and now the United States – and Iran continues and escalates, sparking fears of a wider war.
Meanwhile, Israel’s brutal operation in Gaza continues unabated, causing immense suffering among the civilians there, while also failing to release those Israeli hostages – both dead and alive – still cruelly held by Hamas terrorists.
Further afield, destructive conflicts rage in Ukraine, the Sudan, Myanmar and in countless other areas.
India and Pakistan only recently stepped back from the brink of a major regional war. China continues to menace Taiwan, Russia its eastern European neighbours.
It reflects the hubris of the Scottish political class then that, amid all this mayhem and devastation, they believe their interventions might actually make things better.
This is not a party-political point, but a collective chastisement of a devolved government and parliamentarians who seem unable to resist intervening in matters far beyond their remit (which is, ironically, one of the very issues they criticise Western governments for).
Interventions are ‘political posturing’
Take, for instance, the First Minister’s recent comments on the US attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
John Swinney began by implicitly criticising the American action, before calling for “a diplomatic solution delivered through the international community”.
With a grandiose flourish, he added: “I agree with the Secretary-General of the United Nations that we need to see immediate de-escalation and an end to the conflict through diplomacy.”
Few sensible people would disagree with such sentiments. But many sensible people would also wonder what business it is of the First Minister’s or, indeed, what impact his comments were likely to have.
After all, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu seem disinclined to listen to – in no particular order – the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom or any combination of the above.
Their closest allies – for worse rather than better – have seemingly no influence over their current decision making. In such a vacuum, does Swinney really believe he will succeed – via a three-paragraph tweet – where Sir Keir Starmer and the Foreign Office have failed?
As a shrewd man he, of course, understands that he will not.
Thus, his intervention is political posturing, pure and simple. And that is made all the worse for the fact these events have nothing to do with the Scottish Government or Scottish Parliament.
As has been noted in these pages before, war and peace are not devolved. The remit of the Scottish Government and parliament is over domestic affairs.
Is it too much to ask our devolved politicians to perhaps focus on building a ferry to time and to budget before trying to deliver peace in the Middle East?
It’s not just the First Minister
It is unfair, however, to pick on Swinney solely for this.
At least the current First Minister’s comments are generally constructive and sensible – words that cannot be applied to his predecessor’s intervention.
In recent days, Humza Yousaf has attacked “awful” Starmer for not condemning the “illegal” US destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
He has added that he is “old enough to remember the last time we went to war [in Iraq] on the basis of … dodgy intelligence” – a curious turn of phrase for a conflict that happened barely 20 years ago, but that is by the by.
This intervention has rightly been branded “inept and ill-informed” by the Scottish Conservative’s Rachel Hamilton, who suggested the former First Minister would be better off supporting his constituents than firing off missives on international law and diplomacy.
Yet the SNP is not alone in engaging in this posturing, either.
Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Green Party has inevitably attacked anyone and everyone apart from the nihilistic Iranian Ayatollahs.
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour’s Carol Mochan has decided – presumably after a detailed analysis of the latest classified reports from the Five Eyes intelligence partnership – that there is “no clear evidence” Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
Thank goodness.
‘Stop grandstanding’
None of this is to suggest that the views of MSPs on these issues are invalid, only that they are as informed and carry as much weight as yours or mine.
Nor is it an attempt to diminish the very serious events in the Middle East and elsewhere.
It is, however, a plea for our devolved parliamentarians to stop grandstanding and focus on the matters that they were elected to do: improve our economy, our NHS and our schools.
That is the remit of the Scottish Parliament, and it should be the focus of our devolved government and elected officials.
The world is in enough of a mess without MSPs getting involved too.
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