Orcadian Column, 10 April 2025

Some may recall Boris Johnston’s hopelessly optimistic plans for street parties to celebrate Brexit Day. One wonders if Donald Trump harbours similar ambitions for a Liberation Day public holiday in future. If so, likewise, he should brace himself for disappointment.

In effectively dismantling the system of free trade from which the US has been the single largest beneficiary in the post-war era, Mr Trump has taken an almighty gamble. Early signs are that it hasn’t worked, and most predictions are that it won’t.

On the Antarctic outposts of the Heard and McDonald islands, the penguins have come to symbolise the folly this self-defeating economic vandalism as the poor birds struggle to come to terms with having punitive tariffs slapped on them by President Trump. It would laughable were it not so serious.

Stock markets around the world have been in freefall, plunging to depths not witnessed since countries went into lockdown during Covid. A global recession now seems inevitable, with trade flows gumming up, costs to consumers set to rise and market confidence shattered. In response, a defiant Donald Trump took to the golf course, while protestors gathered in their millions in cities across the US.

From a Scottish perspective, concerns are growing about the implications, particularly for sectors like whisky and salmon. These are by some distance Scotland’s biggest exports, and the US remains the key market. At First Minister’s Questions last week, John Swinney assured MSPs that he is working closely with the UK government on ways to minimise the impact of the tariffs.

That joint working will have continued over recent days on the margins of Tartan Week in New York, at which John Swinney and the Scottish Secretary, Ian Murray were both present. Doubtless too, Donald Trump’s familial links to Scotland and passion for golf will be featuring heavily in any strategy being devised. Nevertheless, these are worrying and unpredictable times.

With parliament in recess over the next fortnight, I am also on my travels this week, leading a cross-party MSP delegation to Faroe in my capacity as Deputy Presiding Officer. Over recent years, we have been developing closer ties with the Faroese parliament, and this visit provides a further opportunity for me to meet the Speaker of the Logting, who led a delegation of Faroese parliamentarians to Scotland in 2023.

Meetings are also planned with members of the Fisheries and Justice Committees, as well as with industry representatives from whom we hope to learn more about the Faroese experience in delivering transport and digital infrastructure. This includes tunnels and 5G projects that, in different but highly effective ways, have connected the islands of this archipelago. Tourism, and managing the growth in cruise traffic, also features on the agenda.

Faroe has long been on my ‘bucket list’. Given the ties with Orkney and the similarities in the issues we face as islanders, arriving on Monday afternoon felt strangely familiar.

That sense of fellow feeling is something I hope Jamie Greene might be experiencing just now. Having announced his resignation from the Scottish Conservatives last Thursday, he was then unveiled as the latest member of the Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP group at the party’s conference in Inverness the following day.

Jamie has been a good friend for some time, and I know from our regular discussions how unhappy he had become in a party that has been lurching ever further to the populist right. It is all a far cry from the prospectus offered by Ruth Davidson, who persuaded Jamie to join the Conservatives and to stand for election.  By contrast, current leader, Russell Findlay’s ‘dance with Reform’, as Jamie described it last week, is alienating many rank and file Conservative members, while causing deep unease and division within the group at Holyrood.

Leaving a political party is not an easy thing to do and Jamie has been wrestling with this dilemma for a year or more. Speaking to him on Thursday evening, though, his sense of relief was almost overwhelming. Jamie is a bright, articulate and hard-working MSP. I’ve been proud to call him a friend and am delighted now to call him a colleague after what one might reasonably call a personal Liberation Day.