There’s a definite chill setting north of the border – and we’re not just talking about Scotland being blasted by Arctic temperatures and snow. Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s son, has responded angrily to what he terms John Swinney’s “foolish” endorsement of losing presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Following Trump’s overwhelming victory, it now looks like his all-powerful family – who are more than capable of pursuing a long, public feud – are gearing up for war with the SNP.
Eric, who shared his frank thoughts in an interview with the Press and Journal, asked if he could “vent for a bit”. “Do we think it’s a good idea, two days before a presidential election, to go and endorse a person who has probably never even set foot in Scotland,” he queried tartly of Swinney backing Harris.
He then said of the SNP leader: “And he got it so damn wrong. [Trump’s] was arguably the greatest landslide win in American history. It probably embarrassed him. He read the tea leaves the wrong way.”
Eric insisted that his father hadn’t lost sleep over Swinney’s comments, quipping “Frankly I don’t think he gives a damn”, but he called it a “foolish” interjection nevertheless and warned that it “will make it harder for [Swinney] to pick up the phone to the Oval Office when he has a problem.”
Speaking about the future, Eric called Swinney’s intervention “a shame”, since it hampered what could be “the greatest political relationship” between Scotland and America. But though his father “adores Scotland”, they now have to factor in the First Minister “being fairly nasty”. “I mean, who did that benefit? Did that benefit Scotland?”
He’s not the only person baffled by Swinney’s mortifying political goof, which seemingly came out of nowhere. It wasn’t until the week before the US election that Swinney said to journalists: “People in the United States of America should vote for Kamala Harris, and I have not come to that conclusion only because Donald Trump is opposed to Scottish independence.”
The bizarre thing, points out former Scottish Conservative politician Brian Monteith, is that “Swinney didn’t need to say anything at all. By the time he did say it, he couldn’t make any impression on any wavering Scottish-American voters – and I’d be very surprised if they’d listen to John Swinney anyway.
“So I really think it was virtue-signalling for his home audience. But that in itself reveals an appalling error of judgment, in as much as, were Trump to win, and he did, it stirs up a hornet’s nest within the relationship between the Scottish government and the Trump presidency. That’s not good for the rest of the Scottish people. So it’s a highly selfish, self-important piece of virtue-signalling, and Swinney’s now having to scramble to try to repair the insult.”
The irony, adds Monteith, is that Harris doesn’t have any Scottish antecedents, whereas Trump does (his mother Mary was born on the Isle of Lewis), and many Scottish people disagree with Swinney’s view. “There are polls [taken by Norstat/The Sunday Times and YouGov] showing that Scots are Trump’s biggest supporters in western Europe.”
“The Trump organisation has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in Scotland and created hundreds of jobs,” adds Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr. “Swinney must set aside pettiness and be statesmanlike enough to celebrate the fact that both president-elect Trump and vice president-elect Vance have Scots heritage. He should not [be] thoughtlessly creating unnecessary tensions with the leader of the free world and the president of our single biggest trading partner.
“He should use the opportunity [of president-elect Trump’s return] to promote Scotland’s interests. He might like to start with securing tariff-free Scotch whisky exports.”
Another source from within the Conservative Party called Swinney’s endorsement of Harris “another colossal misjudgement from the SNP, once again weighing in unnecessarily on international politics. The First Minister should not enter into the fray on these matters – it’s clumsy. The problem is that they’re a devolved administration, trying to appear like the government of an independent nation.”
The source added that Swinney likely backed Harris because she’s more simpatico. “The SNP are a bunch of woke progressives, very similar to the Democrats in the States. But no one was asking for their opinion, and now they’ve messed up big time.”
It was an unfathomable risk for Swinney to take given that the polls were on a knife edge. As it turned out, Trump won comfortably, but surely any shrewd politician could have predicted that backing either horse in such a close race was a dangerous gamble.
Is there a way for the SNP to build bridges now, or do Eric’s comments suggest that Trump isn’t inclined to be forgiving? Eric did say that Swinney’s remarks hadn’t changed the family’s view of Scotland – they’re about to open what Eric calls “the Mona Lisa of golf courses” in Aberdeenshire next summer – but they may feel very differently about working with Swinney and his party.
Monteith notes that Trump already has reason to be wary after his relationship with Alex Salmond “broke down quite badly. That would suggest to me that the Trump family take a view of ‘once bitten, twice shy’ towards this Scottish government. And for all his faults, Salmond was attuned to business, which Swinney is not. Everything Swinney touches turns to dust.”
Monteith also thinks Swinney made a bad miscalculation by using the US presidential election to cosy up to political allies at home. “The SNP is now a minority administration, and they’ve got a big test coming up in trying to deliver a budget. I think he was courting the Greens by being critical of Trump.”
Now, adds Monteith, Swinney is in a similar position to Keir Starmer, who also drew Trump’s wrath when Labour volunteers travelled to America to campaign for Harris – which Trump termed “foreign interference”.
He surely won’t be any happier about Swinney’s direct, and in retrospect utterly disastrous, form of interference. It looks like the SNP leader may have started a fight he cannot win.
Additional reporting by Daniel Sanderson
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