Pass Scottish budget to thwart 'populist' Musk, urges Swinney

6 January 2025, 15:33 | Updated: 6 January 2025, 16:09

Scotland's First Minister John Swinney says his budget must pass next month to stem the rise of populism and thwart Elon Musk.

John Swinney also told LBC that he wants to work cross-party and with the UK government to ensure that there can be no foreign interference in next year's Holyrood elections.

He further criticised Musk's comments about Jess Phillips, saying they were "reprehensible" and said the tech billionaire only offered "glib" populist solutions to society's issues.

His comments came after the owner of X weighed in on UK politics in recent days, including calling Phillips a "rape genocide apologist" for not launching a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham. He has also run a poll on X asking if "America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government" and called Prime Minister Keir Starmer "utterly despicable".

Starmer has today hit back saying: "Jess Phillips has done a thousand times more than they've ever dreamed about when it comes to protecting victims of sexual abuse. I'm prepared to call this out for what it is... the whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it."

John Swinney'swas speaking after he delivered his first significant speech of the new year, in which he stressed his belief that if the Scottish Government's draft budget is blocked next month, MSPs risked "feeding the forces of anti-politics and of populism".

The government needs support from opposition parties to pass its budget as it's currently a minority administration. A failure to do so could ultimately lead to an early Holyrood election.

Asked who the populists he was concerned about were, he initially refused to be specific, but pressed on how he planned on dealing with Elon Musk's role in the incoming Trump administration, given he had clashed with his predecessor Humza Yousaf online, he said: "The whole theme of my speech today is about the importance of addressing issues that are relevant in people's lives today and to provide the solutions.

"Those solutions are not always straightforward and they're certainly not as glib as populists like Elon Musk would suggest they are."

He also said there should be no external interference in Scottish politics "whether it comes from London or the United States or Russia or anywhere else".

Pressed by LBC on what he could do to prevent interference from Musk in next year's Holyrood elections Swinney said he wanted to examine the rules around foreign donations on a cross-party basis.

There has been speculation Musk would seek to make a multi-million pound donation to Reform UK, though more recently its leader Nigel Farage has fallen out of the billionaire's favour.

Swinney said: "There are issues that I'm going to look at, and I would want to look at this on a basis of agreement across political parties, about questions around financial contributions.

"My view of the world today is that electoral law prevents international or external donations. That's the view I hold just now, but I've read enough over the course of the last few weeks, that makes me think 'I wonder how robust that actually is?' so that's something I'm going to explore.

"But as I explore it, I will do that openly with other political parties, because this should not be a sort of John Swinney SNP thing, this should be a political system thing. The electoral law that we have in place, and it's been broadly legislated for in Westminster and in the Scottish Parliament for a number of years, and I generally takes the view it commands confidence, but if there is something that threatens that or can be avoided in the current arrangements, then I'll want to have a good look at that."

Asked what could be done with misinformation about elections, particularly on X, he added: "That's in the space of social media regulation, and I've made it quite clear that I want to, I think, on a whole variety of different fronts, not just about issues in relation to politics - I'm very concerned about issues in relation to social media activity as it can have a negative effect on children and young people - so it's a reserved responsibility but I have to say, the engagement we've had with the United Kingdom government Peter Kyle the Secretary of State, has been very good and very collaborative. So that's obviously something I'd want to pursue in that respect,"

On Musk's remarks about Phillips he added: "What I heard and saw being said about Jess Phillips I thought was completely and utterly reprehensible."

Much of Swinney's speech in Edinburgh discussed how populism can thrive if politicians fail - as he warned of a "catastrophic reduction in service delivery" if Holyrood fails to pass the Government's budget for the coming year.

The SNP leader urged other parties to back his government's Budget deal in order to prevent "real damage" being done to Scotland's NHS.

He said £2 billion of additional investment would be put at risk, adding: “operations would likely have to be cancelled, nurses’ and doctors’ pay rises would be under threat, medicines might have to be rationed."

He also said “strict” emergency spending limits would have to introduced if the budget falls, which would mean government departments unable to increase spending from 2024/25 levels.

Spending would also be limited to month by month, he added, saying: “As an example it might mean we cannot spend any more money on health and social care in April 2025 than we did in April 2024.”

He questioned how pay rises and rising energy bills could be met in such a scenario, adding: “If the electricity or gas bill in a public building rises next year – and we know it is going to – how can the lights be kept on when the budget is frozen every month?”

His remarks were roundly criticised by opposition parties.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: “John Swinney wants to pretend that somehow the budget's on a knife-edge. Let's be really honest - he knows he's got the votes to pass the budget and he knows the budget's going to pass.

“All he is trying to do is play the politics of the budget to look away from the decline."

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay accused the First Minister of “getting desperate in his bid to pass another SNP Budget that raises taxes on working people without improving public services one bit."

Ross Greer, Scottish Greens finance spokesperson criticised what he called Swinney’s “hugely overblown language”.

“Other parties in Parliament have a responsibility to carefully scrutinise the SNP’s draft budget and to push for inclusion of our own priorities," he said.

“It is frankly daft and divisive for the Scottish Government to claim that such an important feature of our democracy is somehow fuelling dangerous political forces.

“John Swinney is right to say that the budget is an opportunity to bring people together, but not with the kind of threatening language he is now using.”

And Reform UK's Scottish spokesman Martyn Greene said: "The SNP's failure to address Scotland's real issues-underfunded services, a bloated public sector and a stagnant economy-is precisely what fuels public disillusionment.

"Populism doesn't thrive in a vacuum. It grows when governments fail, and that's exactly what the SNP has done for years."