Sixteen-year-old Harvey Buchan will cast his first vote in Scottish parliament elections on 6 May, but as he paces the deck of a trawler in Peterhead harbour he admits it is hard to summon much enthusiasm. “The SNP want us back in the EU and the Tories sold us down the river over Brexit,” he says. “There’s a lot of anger amongst fishermen – I don’t think many will be voting this time.” Walking by the trawler is Ian, a marine electronics salesman based further up the coast in Fraserburgh. He intends to vote for the Conservatives, persuaded by their promise to stop a second independence referendum despite the “mess” he says they’ve made of Brexit. He says it’s “disheartening” to see so much support across the country for the SNP – which latest polling suggests is on course to win a fourth term at Holyrood with a majority or close to it – given its “terrible” record on education, for example. “But they do an extremely good job of not talking about that and blaming Boris Johnson for everything,” he adds. Across the harbour, David Simpson is standing on the wheelhouse roof of the Aurora, washing it down with a hose. The names of his grandchildren are painted above the windows. He’ll be voting for the SNP, as he always has done, “because they fight for Scotland”. Simpson is one of around a third of SNP supporters who voted for Britain to leave the EU. Not that it has helped. “Nothing’s better since Brexit,” he says, but still he’s hoping for another independence vote within the next few years. All three can agree that the first minister and SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has done a good job of steering Scotland through the pandemic.
Here in Peterhead are the politics of north-east Scotland in sum. This region of rolling farmland, market towns, forestry and fishing ports, as well as Aberdeen, the UK hub of the oil and gas industry, is a key battleground between the SNP and Tories in the Holyrood election. But constitutional debates take place against a backdrop of Covid. The high street in Aberdeen, Scotland’s third city, was lately devastated by the announcements that neither Debenhams nor John Lewis would reopen their flagship stores as retailers came out of lockdown on Monday. There is also the elongated decline of the petrochemicals industry and debate about an economy-boosting transition to greener technologies. It was in the north-east that the Scottish Conservatives made significant gains at Westminster and Holyrood under Ruth Davidson. Their new leader, Douglas Ross, holds his Commons seat in Moray, which came closest of any of Scotland’s 32 council areas to voting leave in 2016 and is top of the party’s regional list here. But this is also the area where the former SNP leader and first minister Alex Salmond was based as a MP and MSP across three decades, before the political fallout from sexual harassment allegations against him led him to launch the pro-independence Alba party just as the Holyrood campaign began. It is striking, in a place where local loyalty to one of Scotland’s most successful politicians was firmly entrenched, how few voters mention Alba – which is polling at between 2 and 6% – or its founder without prompting. And once asked directly, the response is almost entirely uniform, spanning sex and generation: a brisk shake of the head, a curl of the lip or a diatribe. In Ellon, where Salmond recently held an Alba press conference, Sharon Ness, a university administrator, says: “If you’d asked me a few years ago I’d have been pro-Salmond … Now he’s being vindictive.” (Salmond was cleared of 14 sexual assault charges following a trial in Edinburgh in March 2020. A Scottish government inquiry upheld a number of sexual harassment complaints against him but was declared unlawful because of procedural failings.) “I don’t trust him,” says Russell Mackay, another SNP supporter, burnishing his scooter in the spring sunshine. Nor is he convinced by Salmond’s argument that voting for Alba on the regional list can “maximise” the pro-independence vote. “If you’re thinking about that, the Greens are a more established party.”
Sitting by the riverside walk, Jackie, a yes voter in the independence referendum of 2014, says: “I don’t think we should be going for independence now. Nicola Sturgeon has been great [during the crisis] but she should concentrate on the powers we have. The only sensible option is Tory, which is sad.” Further south towards Aberdeen, in the village of Kingseat, Amy Nicolson has seen some local yes signs replaced by Alba signs. “Some people up here are so loyal to Alex Salmond, I’m not surprised that they would follow him,” says the high school teacher, a member of the non-aligned Women for Independence group. “It’s the same people who feel Nicola Sturgeon took her foot off the gas on independence.” Those local signs are among only a handful visible across the region for any political party – perhaps a consequence of activists getting about less because of coronavirus restrictions. “I don’t think there’s as much of a buzz about this election because of Covid,” says Nicolson. “Normally me and my friends would be chatting about it a lot more, but now the only politics we talk about is the roadmap [out of lockdown].” She wonders what effect this will have on turnout, which in 2016 was just under 56%, compared with just over 50% in 2011. Further into the city, Mark Lovie, at Woodside community centre, says sudden job losses over the past year have had locals “banging on the door” of the volunteer-run food pantry. “Independence is still important for some people,” he says, “but others are consumed with vaccines, reopening, what support is there for people when they get back to work.” Freya Bowes, who works in the centre’s nursery, has heard some older residents talking about postal votes – more than 1 million Scots registered, half what officials were predicting in response to worries about voting in person during the pandemic. This is a multicultural community, she adds, and she expects many to be drawn to pro-independence parties because of their position on the EU. “Polish families were heartbroken about Brexit and some had to leave because they felt not welcome here.”
Margaret Fountain, another volunteer, says it’s hard to gauge what people are thinking without face-to-face events. “I’ve had a lot of leaflets, and most have gone in the bin.” She adds: “There lots of chat online about how to use your list vote if you support independence – Green or Alba depending on where you live.” Does Salmond still have a base in the north-east? She shakes her head: “It’s more a case of hold your nose and put Alba on the list.” She is certain that independence is the best route to Covid recovery. The last year has changed many minds on independence, both because of the “English-centric” policies of Westminster and the capability that Holyrood has shown. “It’s become the default for a lot of people who haven’t thought about politics much before.” Russell Borthwick, the chief executive of Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, says members are clear how vital this election will be in determining the nature and pace of recovery from the huge economic shock brought about by the pandemic. The north-east has experience of bouncing back, after the oil price downturn in 2015, he argues, but Covid has “deepened the trust divide between government and business”. Last summer there were accusations of double standards when a local lockdown was imposed on Aberdeen businesses while central belt cities remained open despite similar virus rises. This week’s partial reopening signals “the most dangerous time” for many businesses, says Borthwick. “The Scottish government’s assumption is that it’s OK to be cautious. But as furlough ends and they are opening up but don’t have full order books or sufficient customer numbers yet, opening partially can be worse than being mothballed.”