Profound changes to UK politics mean Westminster is becoming a side show for the third sector, argues Graham Martin

It’s fair to say, I think, that it’s been a funny old election.

Not just for the anticipated result – with a week to go, as this is written, it’s too close to call on a UK scale. In Scotland, polls suggest the Labour Party is headed for an unprecedented near wipe-out.

Whatever the final outcome, it seems certain that deep stresses are causing the political topography of the UK to heave and crack – a seismic shift powered by the national question in Scotland.

Far from being resolved by it, last year’s referendum has set in train a process whose effects are still being felt.

Paradoxically, this has all made for an election which, while remarkable from a political point of view, has been somewhat underwhelming – not to say quiet – for the third sector in Scotland.

This – the potentially chilling effects of the Lobbying Act aside (more of that later) - is a consequence of the split polities which now govern the UK, and the evolving and contested spread of powers between them.

Deep stresses are causing the political topography of the UK to heave and crack – a seismic shift powered by the national question in Scotland

Put simply, there was probably not too much that the Westminster parties could realistically cede to the third sector here which is not already in the remit of the Scottish Parliament, or is in the process of becoming so.

Tellingly, both Nicola Sturgeon and Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, in interviews with TFN which in effect marked the start of the third sector’s election campaign (see here and here), promised major changes to funding arrangements.

Sturgeon offered three year funding deals – Murphy trumped her with five. No mention of the mechanics of this – but were it ever to come to pass, the legislation will stay in Scotland and will never be darkened by Westminster’s gothic spires.

David Cameron caused a brief stir when he promised to allow people the right to buy social housing, to a chorus of understandable ourtrage. Except in Scotland where the right to buy has been abolished.

It was a similar story when Theresa May disinterred the mouldering corpse of the Big Society and propped it up at a jaunty if grotesque angle when she said public sector workers may be dragooned into some kind of “volunteer” force. Maybe. Big maybe. But not up here.

Welfare is the one increasingly contested area where the third sector’s demands corresponded with the Westminster reality. But the ground here is moving, with more powers coming over through the Smith process – and who knows how that will play out, post 7 May.

The abolition of the Lobbying Act – which has the potential to stifle charity campaigning – is another area where useful progress could be made, and Labour and SNP pledges to review the legislation were welcomed accordingly.

A range of third sector groups – from Environment Link to YouthLink Scotland – did the right thing – they used the election campaign to highlight the issues most urgent to them.

But there was a feeling of shadow boxing. Waiting for the real fight, which will come next year at the Scottish Parliament elections – increasingly the more influential arena as the political subduction zone starts to consume Westminster.

In shifting terrain it’s hard to get a bearing. Best to fix points on our own, firmer ground and set a course from there.

Graham Martin is news editor of Third Force News