Free tuition SNP-style is not all it’s cracked up to be

There is something rather odd about the SNP’s decision to attack Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer over the issue of university tuition fees. Higher education is, after all, a devolved matter. No prime minister, whether Labour or Conservative, will ever have a say in how Scotland delivers for students. Despite this, the SNP is currently focussing attention on Starmer’s position vis-a-vis the cost of going to university. In 2020, Starmer promised to scrap tuition fees in England —  now, according to the Nats, he is ‘set to abandon his promise’. 

So keen is the social media-savvy SNP to see this message spread that at the start of last month, it pinned it to the top of the party’s Twitter feed — and it’s still there. The truth, always denied by the SNP, is that the party exerts so much effort attacking Labour because it would very much prefer the Conservatives to win the next General Election.