17 May 2015

WANTED: Scottish Nationalism with a head as well as a heart

The 2014 referendum was a premature confrontation between Scottish Nationalism and its ambitions. In a long campaign, Yes Scotland managed to achieve something remarkable. The Yes campaign was defeated and defeated handily, but support for Scottish independence roared into the mainstream of political opinion. Even victors are by victories undone. Short term advantage is sometimes bought at the expense of a disaster tomorrow. The Better Together campaign is a case study in the perils of short term thinking. 

Last Friday, we observed the aftermath of a stricken Scottish Labour Party, sinking beneath the waves, demasted in the crosswinds of political opinion, hull bust, lifeboats swept away, leaving a sole survivor in Ian Murray. Now the ship's skipper has finally done the decent - and probably necessary - thing, leaving the battered boat directorless and directionless heading into the long campaign for Holyrood in 2016. For the partisan SNP supporter, a squirming feeling of schadenfreude may attach to Labour's immediate challenges, but we must continue to take a longer view as the People's Party are gripped by their own internecine conflicts and disputes. 

The brutal fact remains -- if we held another independence referendum today, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year -- we would still be defeated.  Scotland is not awash with people feeling buyer's remorse. The poll wasn't fixed. The anxieties which delivered a No majority on the 19th of September have not been answered. The doubts of the folk outside the enclaves that supported independence by a majority - Clackmannanshire, Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, the Highlands - have by no means been allayed.  

Any indisciplined rush into a second referendum can lead only to disaster.  Exuberance in the wake of an exciting General Election campaign, I can understand -- but it must be checked and scrutinised cold-bloodedly. I would suggest that that scrutiny urges only one conclusion: the fundamentals are still agin us. Vital, it may have been, stimulating and new. But we must be honest with yourselves: on too many issues, the intellectual case for Scottish independence was never won in the long referendum campaign of 2013 and 2014.

One of my long lasting anxieties about the 1998 devolution settlement has been the kind of politicians it would produce. As a party which has rooted and grown in Holyrood since the turn of the century, the SNP has historically been particularly exposed to the limits of devolved thinking. A national parliament with an important range of powers, but one shorn of responsibility for economic affairs, for monetary and international affairs, defence and welfare.  For the unionist majority in the Smith Commission, the problem with this set-up is the lack of "responsibility", connecting decisions on spending with decisions on taxation. But for an independence-supporter trying to take a longer view, the issues are different. 

Devolution risks producing politicians with attitudes towards a great swathe of state policy which is at best intellectually underdeveloped and at worst empty oppositionalism and sloganising. These "big things" become someone else's problem. This attitude may cut the mustard in the forgetful ordinary run of politics. In the compressed formats of telly and radio, your spokesmen will find things to say, outraged soundbites to coin, but a slogan is not a policy. 

Slogans may work day to day, but they are bound to be seriously shown up in something as fundamental as a long referendum campaign. By no means am I suggesting that the SNP is the vacuous party of empty protest its opponents sometimes suggest -- but these reserved areas have often been our weakest suit. There is no shame, and no downside, in being frank with ourselves about that.

Take one example. You can understand the thinking behind the White Paper's currency policy. Folk wanted to keep the pound. The focus groups urged it. So the Scottish Government decided to back it. But in practice, the policy amounted to giving your deadliest enemy a loaded revolver and saying, "please don't shoot me with this". The rest is history. Osborne pulled the trigger. Salmond foundered in the first debate with Darling. Credibility was never demonstrated or gained. We lost. I could go on.

The election of the 56 is no mandate for independence, or even another referendum, but it is a remarkable opportunity to begin working quietly on these tricky fundamentals and to resist the narrow field of policy vision which devolution sometimes encourages. The Short Money is flowing in, up from a modest £187,000 to £1,200,000 a year, excluding any additional party levies on the new MPs' salaries. That is a formidable war chest which the SNP must put to work in pursuit of its short and longer term aims.

The intellectual, technical case for Scottish independence must be strengthened in the longer run if it is ever to be won. The target is moving. The issues are not static. But if -- when -- a second referendum comes along, we now have no cause and no excuse to run a campaign which is vulnerable on critical questions of reserved policy. Tough choices will, inevitably, have to be made and policy battlefields selected. But for the first time in its history, the party now has a formidable Westminster machinery and staff, scrutinising the reserved issues, with resources to think fundamentally about its approach to central issues in the economy, and choices in monetary policy and regulation, defence, welfare, international affairs.  That's an opportunity which cannot be squandered.

16 comments :

  1. A currency union WAS the best solution all round, but it was also a strategic blunder.

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  2. Sterling is Perth silver is not

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  3. Scotland Perth sterling silver original currency pound is scottish patent

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  4. A currency union may only have lasted a few years given it's currently a requirement of new EU members to sign up to Euro. This is one of the issues a second #indyref campaign must face up to and have a good answer on to convince No voters like me.

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    1. New EU members are obligated to state their intention to adopt the Euro, but adoption is not inevitable. This is because they have to meet economic requirements before adoption. One of those tests is two years' membership of the ERM (fixing exchange rate), but entering that is voluntary.

      Sweden meets all of the other tests for adopting the Euro and doesn't have an opt-out (UK and Denmark do), but chooses not to enter the ERM. This means they have never adopted the Euro despite being in the EU (1995) long before the Euro was even created (2002). Now, the real reason is that they rejected it in a referendum, but the EU isn't going to force it on them against their will.

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  5. Excellent article, Peat Worrier. You put your finger on the weak spot of a party operating in a devolved (mini-devolved) space.
    If there are far-thinkers in the upper SNP hierarchy, they should form a very discreet (bug free rooms because London will go berserk!) scout group to woo the Scandi nations, especially Norway. Sterling is a loaded gun as you say. The answer is a currency union with the Norwegian Krone, for a long enough period to reach stability, then we can make it on our own. Financial markets will have no problem at all with a Scottish Merk tied to the Krone, a well run currency by a highly regarded Central Bank. Currency Unions of necessity imply some loss of fiscal sovereignty, but far better agree fiscal policy with a sympathetic social democratic neighbour than cede to a hostile neo-liberal debt fuelled regime down south.

    Norway will hesitate; the UK alliance is old and well established, so you have to make it attractive. It is worth giving them a fund to manage (they are excellent at that), and privileged contracts offshore North Sea (their oil&gas industry is world class also), fishing rights... anything that will get them onside.

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    1. When I was in Norway in September after the indyref, to recover, one of my Norwegian neighbours said very kindly to me, 'Never mind! Scotland should join a union with Norway! Then between us we'll control all the oil in the North Sea!'

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  6. As uneducated as ever thats the problem with No voters Use of Euro is not a requirement of membership its up to a individual nation

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  7. Hear hear. We have now a breathing space to contemplate what needs to be tightened up - currency being a prime example. Also it gives time for more power to move north thus shortening the gap for the "wing walk". Who know - Labour may even spin off a party prepared for constitutional change. A powerful devolved parliament is like someone with a nice job but living at home and their mum still does the washing.

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  8. Andrew: 'The brutal fact remains -- if we held another independence referendum today, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year -- we would still be defeated.'

    I'm sure you are right - I certainly hope so - though I expected the SNP to get 30-32 seats so i know sod all.

    'One of my long lasting anxieties about the 1998 devolution settlement has been the kind of politicians it would produce.'

    - well, my anxiety goes beyond yours. Have we really got the politicians we deserve of all shades, at Holyrood and Westminster?

    I think we can say with coinfidence (cross everything) that the turnout for Holyrood will be larger than the dismal 50% last time round, and the quality - let us hope - will also be higher.



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  9. Not a good start--trying to scunner 83 year old Dennis Skinners seat H.O.C

    What idiot came up with that idea?

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    1. The trick to winning is to use their rules against them. No MP has their own seat in the Hoc, hell there's not even enough seats for all the MP's to sit down at the same time anyway.

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    2. thx since learnt labour didn't agree to 3rd party rules seating arrangement

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  10. Fantastic article Andrew, exactly along the same lines as I have been thinking of late.

    There is one thing of which I am absolutely convinced - that responsibility without power is a trap.

    If we are ever to be made responsible for the full range of economic expenditure and revenues we possess, we must also have the power to make our own rules. Playing by a set of fiscal rules devised for another economy ('UK') in another context entirely will limit our ability to advance our economy.

    The distance between devolution and independence is fraught with pitfalls in a way that independence is actually far more straightforward.

    However, popular momentum is behind us, and no matter what our opponents try to throw at us in the way of ties that trip and bind, I don't sense that any of the 50% are for turning back, which I think that even our opponents are beginning to accept.

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  11. 🎶'You take the high road, and I'll take the low road, and I'll be in Skinners seat before yae' #Eurovision2015

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  12. The other thing the SNP can and should be using is the questions that can be asked of ministers can be used to get information to base policies on. In addition to all the FOI requests the new army of spads and researchers can now submit to do similar work. Seemingly innocuous requests are often gladly acceded to. A series of them is how Eck pushed William Waldegrave into a corner so he had no choice but to admit how much Scotland contributes to the exchequer.

    Doing these things and pushing for ever more data openness should be a prime task for the SNP people at Holyrood. Wresting the details of state for our own uses. If they can make them more widely available and benefit others all the better.

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