Duncan Thorp on democracy in 2024

2024 has been a strange year in politics. Elections, of both a fair and questionable kind, have taken place on an unprecedented scale. 

Certainly it’s difficult to know what to add to the range of confused, angry commentary around the re-election of Donald J Trump to the highest political office on Earth. 

It’s also hard not to conclude that the US political system has been broken in the most unexpected and unusual manner. 

In the latest trip down the political rabbit hole, Donald, the convicted felon, has now launched a range of fragrances that his supporters are spending their hard-earned money on, just in time for Christmas (note: this is not a joke). 

It’s clear that in the United States, as well as here and in the rest of Europe, that existing political systems are being rejected by increasing numbers of people.  

This means support for disruptive, authoritarian (and increasingly weird) leaders, disconnected from real life, with comforting lies, fake news and the politics of fear and hate. 

(Of course, as many of us know, the irony is that this support will inevitably end in disappointment, economic decline, corruption, environmental damage - and then blaming minorities). 

However, many voters are angry and frustrated and we must understand why. 

The underlying causes of extreme inequality, rampant inflation and economic policy failure, where much of the wealth is denied to the majority, has created a deep insecurity, anxiety and despair for many people.  

Scotland and the UK are absolutely not immune from this. 

In a fast-changing and seemingly unstable world, there’s a worrying disconnect between the policy interventions that ordinary people are desperately yearning for and the mild sticking plasters that are too often being delivered by politicians. 

So what could this all mean for us in Scotland, for our social enterprises, voluntary sector organisations, local community groups - and crucially for the people we exist to serve? 

With regards to our political culture, Scotland is relatively far better than the United States. Indeed, we don’t experience the oppression faced by civic society in Hungary or the regular political crises now plaguing France.  

Despite our frustrations our policy-making processes and relationships are far more inclusive, consultative and connected. 

However, deciding government policy and funding priorities, the failure of real-world policy implementation and the challenge of how to genuinely empower and enrich the lives of ordinary people, are huge practical challenges. 

What we need is to urgently re-think and reimagine how we make public policy decisions - and who makes them. This is really an issue of trust.  

Do elected politicians and government officials really trust those people living and working in our local communities, including those with lived experience, to not just be consulted, but to come up with the urgent, practical policy solutions?  

It should give us hope that Scotland has a precedent here.  

Citizens’ assemblies are an effective, efficient real-world initiative and additional method for decision making. 

The Citizen’s Assembly of Scotland produced a final report, however, the momentum behind this innovation was unfortunately swallowed up by the subsequent pandemic lockdown. There have also been calls to implement a more permanent assembly. 

The use of people's panels by Scottish Parliament committees is also an interesting development.  

The panel for reducing drug deaths and tackling problem drug use was made up of 25 people who are broadly representative of Scotland’s population and heard testimony from those with lived experience plus experts. 

In addition, we do have a number of positive, national policy interventions that we hope will make a real difference to our lives going forward. 

This includes promising Community Wealth Building legislation, the Minimum Income Guarantee (as a first step towards some form of Universal Basic Income), the next stage of a very slow process of land reform (that still leaves us trailing behind much of the world) plus the new report to triple the number of social enterprises, cooperatives and employee owned businesses within ten years. 

There is certainly wisdom in crowds. If we do trust ordinary people to come up with policy solutions, I genuinely believe that we’ll see the unleashing of exciting, imaginative, innovative and practical policies that benefit all of us.  

Scotland could truly lead the way in policy innovation - but only if we trust local people and community organisations to map the ways forward. 

The upcoming 2026 Holyrood election will be a key test of this trust.  

With a wide range of well-researched policy manifestos from civic organisations - based democratically on the views and experiences of local people and community groups - will the politicians actually listen to what we need? 

There’s a real urgency right now - political, economic and environmental - and tinkering around the edges of policy solutions is simply not enough. 

By implementing real world policy solutions from community organisations and those with lived experience, we can finally begin to shift the dial. 

Let’s make 2025 the year where policy rhetoric matches policy action. 

The 2024 Good News Summary  

To end on a positive note about policy successes, here are some of our key highlights from 2024! 

• Scotland’s third practical Social Enterprise Action Plan - to conclude the ambitious 10 year strategy. 
• Our new Policy Advisory Group (PAG) - gathering the grassroots views and experiences of Social Enterprise Scotland members, to inform our policy work. 
• The Social Enterprise Awards Scotland in parliament - celebrating success and innovation in social enterprise. 
• Buy Social Scotland - big steps forward to get social enterprises into private and public sector supply chains. 
• Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney MSP and minister Tom Arthur MSP speaking at our big Social Enterprise Summit for members. 
• The Inclusive, Democratic Business Models (IDBM) report - with a clear, practical 10 year growth plan. 
• Three popular motions lodged by MSPs in the Scottish Parliament - on our Social Enterprise Awards and the IDBM report, supported by many MSPs. 
• Meetings and social enterprise visits with MSPs - many examples across all the political parties. 
• The Cross-Party Group (CPG) in the Scottish Parliament - topics on funding, the IDBM report and other vital debates. 
• Evidence to parliament committees - written and oral, on procurement reform and also funding challenges. We also gave evidence to the official Covid Scotland Public Inquiry. 

Duncan Thorp is policy and public affairs manager for Social Enterprise Scotland.