A More Welcoming Climate: How Basic Income found better Traction in Holyrood than in Westminster

Abstract

Basic income has moved tentatively on to the UK agenda since 2015, but it has struggled to find a foothold in Westminster, where the dominant view of poverty is as the result of failure in the labour market, and the response remains coercive welfare conditionality. In Scotland, government-funded research into the feasibility of basic income pilots has drawn on health and well-being priorities and civic and local authority involvement, while making an explicit connection between poverty, agency, health and wealth. This article draws on literature and semi-expert interviews to argue that the nature of Scottish political institutions and culture, allied to a Nationalist party government keen to differentiate itself from Westminster, with independence as short-term or long-term goal, has created an unusual policy space that provides the conditions for basic income as a pivoting reform. While implementation of a Basic Income may be impossible without full independence, Scotland is creating an ideational climate where – unlike south of the border – it at least looks feasible.