“Ignorance from SNP politicians” Michael Marra on SNP failures in education, the NHS and the drug crisis

One day before the Scottish Parliament election, we spoke to Michael Marra, he is a Scottish Labour candidate and a regional MSP for North East Scotland since 2021. He is contesting the SNP stronghold of Dundee City West. He spoke to The Jute Journal about the financial crisis in higher education, drug crisis, housing, independence and his love for Dundee.

We started by asking Michael what the number one issue is that comes up on the doorstep.          
“The state of public services… People feel like they’re paying more tax and getting less back in return. So they’re feeling the squeeze in every direction, and that’s at a time when cost of living is really biting.”

Michael was clear that, especially locally and Scotland as a whole, there is a sense of decline tied to SNP governance.

“People feel locally that the city has been neglected by the SNP, that it’s going in the wrong direction. And they can see that quite physically in terms of the state of the city centre, state of the roads.”

We moved on to ask Michael about the ongoing crisis at the University of Dundee. Just recently a further £20 million was announced to be cut after the university has already lost around 20% of its staff. Michael, who worked at the University of Dundee for 16 years before being elected, has been very vocal on the issues facing the university and the wider higher education sector.

“The crisis at the university has taken up a really significant amount of my time in Parliament over the last 18 months.”

He described the university as the most important institution in the city, pointing to its role as an employer, a driver of the economy and a partner with the NHS.

“To me, the university is the single most important institution in the city.”

“There’s also the joint contracts that the university has with the NHS and the training of critical capacity in our public services and the people who make our economy grow.”

Michael was clear about the issues of management at Dundee specifically but argued that the crisis isn’t contained to the one institution.

“There are particular things that have happened at the University of Dundee, egregious failures of management, but there is a national crisis in our higher education system that’s absolutely clear.”

He pointed to the recent job cuts we have seen at Aberdeen and Stirling as evidence for a wider problem, blaming the Scottish Government.

“The SNP have imposed a business model on our university sector that at the moment is bringing them to their knees… Our university sector is many hundreds of years old and is absolutely critical to our national performance, our national reputation, and it’s been laid low by the SNP.”

When we put the SNP’s response to him, that the crisis is largely specific to Dundee and tied to the Labour Government in Westminster around national insurance and immigration controls, Michael was unconvinced.

“The level of ignorance from SNP politicians, whether that be wilful or accidental around the causes of this crisis, actually tells its own story.”

He pointed to the dependence on international students and therefore international markets causing volatile financial shifts.

“For well over a decade [the SNP] have not increased the unit of resource that goes for Scottish students. That’s led universities to have to pursue international students at an ever higher rate from ever more fragile states.”

On the drug crisis, Scotland has the highest drug deaths per capita in Western Europe, with Dundee second only to Glasgow.

Michael was deputy director of the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Dundee and helped do work that contributed towards the Dundee Drugs Commission report of 2019.

“I worry that SNP ministers, particularly the latest SNP minister, I think, has a slightly fatalistic view of Scotland’s relationship with drugs.”

Michael also argued that the SNP city council has effectively ignored the Dundee Drugs Commission’s recommendations.

“The SNP administration of the City Council have been pretty determined not to follow the Dundee Drugs Commission recommendations. Many of the key recommendations have not been implemented. I think it’s been put in the too difficult pile.”

When asked about the Scottish Greens approach to drugs, Michael was critical of their ideas and reflected on his own experience of growing up in the city.

“I have had friends who I went to school with who have lost their lives, boys who I used to go to the football with as a kid in Dundee and stand down at Tannadice, who have lost their lives.”

“The idea that the radical opening up of drug markets through legalisation of drugs is going to somehow save more lives, I think is ludicrous.”

Moving on to housing, we asked Michael about the affordability and conditions of housing for young people across Scotland, with many unable to get onto the property ladder and renters facing rising prices and poor standards.

“At the moment we have the lowest housing completion rate since the Second World War in Scotland, which is an utterly extraordinary situation.”

“The SNP cut the affordable housing budget dramatically as a result of a panicked in-year emergency budget.”

Scottish Labour’s manifesto commits to delivering 100,000 homes, a figure Michael highlighted.

“We cannot address the issue of increasing rents, low standards, if we don’t build more houses.”

He also pointed to the lack of enforcement on privately rented housing, stating it was an issue of government funding.

“Local government has been the principal target of the SNP’s budget cuts for 20 years. So it’s little wonder that they now don’t have the capacity to inspect and enforce the standards that many students and other people are facing in their housing in Dundee.”

Another issue we asked Michael on was whether a pro-independence majority would mandate another independence referendum. Michael opposes independence and argued the SNP’s own maths doesn’t add up.

“No, it doesn’t, and that’s by the definition of the SNP. The SNP have said quite clearly that they believe that there should be a SNP single party majority in the Parliament to create a mandate for a referendum.”

He argued that contrary to what the SNP say independence isn’t an issue on the doorstep.

“I don’t think the people of Scotland want a referendum right now. I mean, people are not raising it with me and I’m speaking to hundreds of people every day on doors across Dundee.”

“Many people who are independence supporters don’t believe that now is the time for a referendum.”

We asked Michael about what Dundee can offer that other Scottish cities cannot.

“It’s the most beautiful city in the whole of the UK.”

“It’s almost impossibly beautiful as a location on the banks, the north banks of the Tay.”

Michael spoke about his family history and his roots in Dundee.

“My own family history is absolutely tied up in this place for over 200 years since we arrived as migrants, fleeing famine.”

He spoke about how his family founded the Jute and Flax Workers Union.

We closed by asking Michael about the rising cost of living, fewer houses and fewer jobs that is plaguing young people across Scotland.

“This talks to the promise, a broken promise of progress to people in our economy, that if you do the right thing, you know, educate yourself, take on student debt, work hard, then there’ll be a better life for you and your family and your community as a result of it.”

He warned about the broken promises that drive people to the extremes of politics.

“The more the people who come don’t see a better future, they become more disaffected with the present. And we can see that in the kind of radical polarisation of our politics, both left and right.”

Despite this Michael ended on an optimistic note for Dundee and Scotland’s future.

“Scotland’s greatest times are in the future.”

Scotland goes to the polls tomorrow, on Thursday the 7^th of May. Whatever the result, the issues we discussed in this interview won’t be disappearing come Friday morning.

Young people are often the demographic that is least likely to vote and most likely to be ignored by those who win. Whoever you vote for, ensure you get out there and break the cycle and vote for your future.