A former First Minister has claimed Scotland is “worse than it ever has been” due to the constitutional standoff over independence.
Jack McConnell said the country is “struck in treacle” and he does not know how to get out of it.
The former Scottish Labour leader served as First Minister from 2001 until narrowly losing the 2007 election to the SNP.
His administration pushed through the smoking ban in public places and focused on education reform, international aid and combating sectarianism.
Although a lifeline advocate of devolution, McConnell gave a downbeat assessment of the state of Scottish politics since the independence referendum in a recent interview.
Speaking to Holyrood magazine, he said: “I just find the polarisation of politics, and of debate since the referendum in 2014, has now got us essentially stuck. We’re really no further forward than we were in the autumn of 2014.
“Putting the pandemic to one side, almost nothing has changed in Scotland since the referendum."
He said there is “no potential” in the immediate future to improve public services as “all we are doing is waiting for the next referendum”.
McConnell said: “I think we’re in a situation now where probably Scotland is worse than it has ever been. And I find that just incredibly sad. I’m really, really, sad.”
On the drugs death emergency, he said: “The drugs issue, for example, yes, it is complicated, but we’ll be no further forward on it, I guarantee you, by this time next year.”
He added: “The idea of devolution was to create better public debate in Scotland and more accountability. And it seems to me that we’ve ended up in a place where we have the opposite. And I don’t know how to change that.
“Right now, I genuinely feel like we are stuck in treacle and I don’t know how we get out of it.”
He also spoke at length about the decline of Scottish Labour, which has gone backwards at every Holyrood election:
McConnell said there had been a “real split” after 1999 between Labour MSPs who believed in devolution and MPs who found it “difficult to come to terms” with the Parliament.
He said: “I have always talked about the four nations, I always talked about the United Kingdom, rather than Britain.
“I strongly objected when different Labour leaders in the post-Blair era talked about one nation and not four nations.”
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