Why are the old, Unionist scare stories failing?

Thanks to Rachel Ormston of the Scottish Centre for Social Research, I've been able to get my hands on a little more of the data behind this week's press reports that as many as 65% of Scots would be willing to back independence, if it made them only £500 better off. In the interest of unaccustomed brevity, I don't propose to trawl through all this material in one go, winkling out the particularly interesting findings in a single, mammoth pile of detail. Regular readers will be familiar with themes which have particularly detained me, analysing past polling.  Under the headline totals, what differences of social class, of gender might the findings disclose? If there are differences, why might these be and what do they imply for nationalist strategies in the referendum? 

For today, I wanted to focus on the economic findings that have much exercised recent discussion. In the Herald, Robbie Dinwoodie wrote up the findings under a headline, suggesting that "Old scare stories lose the capacity to shock", arguing that negative Unionist arguments about the economy of a future, independent Scotland were generating a "diminishing return". I'm not convinced that this reading of the ScotCen figures is entirely convincing. Dinwoodie presents the image of a once potent discourse of economic calamity, now able only to generate an attenuated, quite diminished terror in the population.

What the data clearly suggests is that Unionists' current attempts to do so have comprehensively failed to promote the idea that Scotland would clearly be financially jiggered by independence, by no means does the data suggest that the narratives of financial fear have entirely lost their virtue.  Quite the contrary.  ScotCen's findings suggest effectively peddled images of a hobbled and beggarly Scotland retain their real potential to breed caution and seriously to curtail nationalist ambitions. To put it in Dinwoodie's terms, while the present returns of Unionist economic rhetoric on independence are poor, narratives encouraging fear, uncertainty and jittering chickenheartedness clearly remain a real asset for a negative Unionist case against Scottish nationalism. Let's look at the detail. Take first the respondents' attitudes towards the impact of independence on the economy.

Q1: As a result of independence would Scotland's economy become better, worse, or would it make no difference?

ScotCen's 1,156 respondents answered thus:

A lot/a little better: 34%

No difference: 26%

A little/a lot worse: 29%

Can't choose: 10%

If we combine positive and neutral responses, these figures suggest 60% of Scots believe that Scottish independence would have a positive or neutral impact on the Scottish economy, with less than a third fearing economic deterioration or collapse. To be cheeky, let's also lump the indecisive into that group, as characters who have not been convinced by the stories of a vagabond, indigent independent Scotland. 29% isn't an insignificant segment of the population, to be sure, but is hardly the sort of fearful percentage one might have hoped for, if the arguments of financial anxiety are to be primary points in a pro-Union argument.

ScotCen then tried their hands at a nice wee thought-experiment, where contingency in human affairs is suspended, and the Scottish voter, musing how to vote in an independence referendum, could have a clear apprehension about the economic consequences. How would that effect respondents' views?

Q2: "Say that it was clear that if Scotland became an independent country, separate from the rest of the UK, it would make little difference to the standard of living, and on average people would be no better off. In those circumstances, would you be in favour or against Scotland becoming an independent country?"

On an independent Scotland with economic prospects that are neither-good-nor-bad, folk divided as follows:

Strongly in favour: 15%

In favour: 32%

Neither in favour nor against: 19%

Against: 22%

Strongly against: 10%

Don't know: 2%

By way of comparison, it is worth setting this alongside folk's views in 2011, absent clear ideas about the economic impact of independence. Asked, Q3: which of these statements comes closest to your view? Quoth the respondents...

Scotland, independent and outwith the EU: 12%
Scotland, independent but within the EU: 20%
Scotland, within UK but with some tax powers: 49%
Scotland, within UK but with no tax powers: 9%
Scotland within UK with no elected parliament: 6%
Don't know: 5%

Collapsing the various options into independence or devolution or no devolution, this generates three rough blocks of opinion: 32% support Scottish independence, 58% would prefer a devolved parliament within the UK, with only 6% opposing devolution entirely, fondly recalling the rule of an imperial parliament in London. Contrast this with the results of the thought experiment, where participants are assured that an independent Scotland wouldn't impact on the economy. The difference is stark, with support for independence running 15% higher, if respondents take as given that the economic impact of becoming an independent state would be negligibly positive or negative. What if Q4: "it was clear that if Scotland became an independent country the standard of living would be higher and people would on average be £500 a year better off"? Would you be in favour or agin independence?

Strongly in favour: 29%

In favour: 36%

Neither in favour nor against: 9%

Against: 17%

Strongly against: 8%

Don't know: 1%

To the surprise of many, if assured (or in referendum terms, "able to be convinced") that they will see a relatively modest financial benefit from independence, support vaults up to 65%, with 25% opposed. As Iain MacWhirter suggests in the Herald, the key implication of this finding is the apparent softness of pro-Union opinion; wages of hollowed-out of accounts of the Union's shared purposes and narratives...

"Scots are thinking hard cash because they no longer recognise any coherent moral message from an increasingly eurosceptic United Kingdom, dominated by the City of London, and run by a Government largely composed of ex-public schoolboys. Why should Scots keep faith with a Union based on plutocracy, where personal enrichment is the only mission around?"

While no comfort to those whose convictions are rooted in deep-seated, and stubborn commitment to the Union, Scots "thinking hard cash" by no means deprives Unionists of powerful, negative arguments against nationalists. Take the opposite case, and say voters could be convinced that independence would strip £500 out of their wallets a year. What do their constitutional convictions look like then? Q5:

Strongly in favour: 6%

In favour: 15%

Neither in favour nor against: 12%

Against: 42%

Strongly against: 24%

Don't know: 2%

Imagining their depleted purses, and a lost half-thousand pounds per annum, the figures basically flip, with 66% opposing independence in some degree of intensity if they believe they are likely to lose out themselves. What to make of this? A grim testimony to the fickleness of Scottish public opinion, which is primarily venal and animated only by self-interest? 

For me, one of the particularly interesting questions is, just why is contemporary Unionist rhetoric about beggar Scotland so comprehensively failing to convince the public? Why does such a small slice of the population seem to be hearing the lines endlessly flung about by Westminster politicians? After all, these critical, anxiety-generating-and-sustaining stories continue to receive great play in the media. ScotCen's findings make crystal clear that uncertainties about the impact of independence on household budgets are powerfully capable of making a great many people think twice about independence. So why are they failing? Are nationalists winning the argument? Maybe, but clearly not by a significant margin. Recall that on ScotCen's figures quoted above, general support for independence remains some 15% lower than it would be, if folk believed that becoming independent was economically neutral vis-a-vis individual wealth. 

While these figures are in many respects encouraging for Nationalists, that such "hard cash" thinking will be vital in determining the outcome of the referendum is by no means only encouraging for us.  Indeed, it is easy to envisage that these findings may precisely encourage Unionists to unleash a terrifyingly negative campaign focussed on damning accounts of the impact of independence on household budgets, putting the fear of God into the Scottish population (or should that be the fear that Mammom might desert them?) Needless to say, this is not a terrifically uplifting prospect.

Interestingly, these findings suggest that if the promised sunny and compelling case for the Union does not materialise before 2014 (and increasingly, I suspect it simply cannot), Unionists will still have to find new ways to capitalise on the latent forces of fear and trepidation, if they are to prevail in the referendum campaign.  It may be that the concept of independence remains too abstract, and as voters apply themselves to the question more intently, the hostile doubt-sowing critiques of Michael Moore and his ilk will have more bite. For the moment, however, whatever their potential psychological force, the old Unionist tales about being better off in Britain, and beggared if not, are conspicuously failing to convince.