Wings Over Scotland

Proceedings in the House of Lords are little seen by the public. While it’s possible for the determined to locate online coverage in the depths of the internet, very little ever makes it to popular broadcast media, and as a result the general public remains mostly ignorant of what goes on there. So we’d very much recommend you find a few minutes to watch some of this. (Annoyingly requires Microsoft Silverlight.)*

It’s the Lords debate on the Scotland Bill, which took place on the 26th of January 2012. It starts at 11:36.55 in the embedded video above (we think the timestamp on the clip represents the time of day the debate took place), and goes on for some hours. Don’t panic, you don’t need to watch all of it – you’ll get the gist from the first 20 minutes or so, by watching the speeches from Lord Forsyth and Lord Foulkes.

There are no SNP representatives in the House of Lords. This is how they talk about us when we’re out of the room.

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Among Scotland's professional media, there's a pretty wide consensus that the Herald is the best of a bad bunch when it comes to fair and balanced reporting. It's arguably Scotland's only genuine remaining "quality" newspaper, the Scotsman having to most intents and purposes become a large-format tabloid, full of shrieking headlines and "SNP accused" churnalism fed by Unionist-party press releases. While openly opposed to independence, the Herald offers regular commentary from all sides of the political spectrum, takes a mostly non-partisan line in editorial and rarely allows overt bias to seep into its news coverage.

Every now and again, though, it lets its guard down.

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There could have been nothing more predictable in the independence debate than that the Unionist parties, having furiously demanded a clear, simple, yes/no question for the last eight months, would be in a tumultuous rage when they finally got one. The First Minister had barely announced the Scottish Government’s chosen ten-word proposition to the Scottish people when a chorus of angry voices in the Unionist camp were on the airwaves denouncing it as “leading”, “unfair” and “rigged”.

Supposed experts were hastily summoned to explain to us how the phrasing of the question was designed to lead brainless voters down a “cognitive chute”, because the poor stupid Scottish electorate had no idea of what the SNP meant by “independent”. The Telegraph leapt into action, conducting its own polls with various possible versions of the question in an attempt to demonstrate how widely responses could be altered by simple changes in wording. It then swiftly wrote up the results in doom-laden terms, thundering in the article’s strapline that:

“The “loaded” question Alex Salmond wants to ask in the Scottish independence referendum leads to at least a 10-point increase in public support for ending the Union”

That analysis came a little TOO swiftly, as it turned out.

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(See here for the whole story.)

“We need to hear detailed reasons and hard facts about why Scotland is better off as part of the UK — not slogans and scaremongering.“
(The Sun editorial, January 2012)

“In a speech in Glasgow later today, Ed Miliband will seek to go beyond the process-driven debate over independence for Scotland, seeking to make a positive case for Scotland to remain within the Union.“
(Left Foot Forward, January 2012)

“Darling – whose reputation was enhanced after he warned of the looming global economic meltdown in defiance of then PM Gordon Brown – said he was determined to make a positive case for Scotland remaining in the UK.“
(Sunday Mail interview with former Chancellor of the Exchequer, January 2012)

“Questions abound. How will the campaign be structured? Who will lead it? And can it develop a positive case for the United Kingdom?“
(David Torrance, commentator and biographer of Alex Salmond, January 2012)

“I have a positive vision for Scotland.“
(Johann Lamont, Scottish Labour leader, January 2012)

“Everyone wants to see positive arguments for the Union, and we will have these in spades.“
(Murdo Fraser, Conservative MSP, January 2012)

“I am not going to run a campaign that says Scotland cannot survive on its own. I am going to run a campaign — and others will run a campaign — about the advantages of being together. Let’s have a positive conversation, because I think the Union is a very positive thing.“
(David Cameron, UK Prime Minister, January 2012)

“There is a positive case for the Union.“
(Gerry Hassan, Scottish political commentator, January 2012)

“We are likely to see the likes of Labour’s Alistair Darling, the Liberal Democrats’ Charles Kennedy and the Tories’ Annabel Goldie playing leading roles in putting a positive case for the Union.“
(Leader in The Scotsman, January 2012)

“My ten tartan rules for success: 1. Make the positive case for the Union.“
(Peter Duncan, former Conservative MP for Galloway, January 2012)

Do we need to bother indicating to you, beloved and attentive readers, whether any of these fine people and publications went on to actually explain what this ever-elusive “positive case” might be? We suspect, all too sadly, that we do not.

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TIME ELAPSED: 31 years, 11 months
ACTUAL SIGHTINGS OF POSITIVE CASE FOR UNION TO DATE: 0
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We're supposed to live in an age where politicians are trained to within an inch of their lives by media advisers, in order that they can spout bland pre-programmed soundbites about any given subject at a second's notice. (With the infamous nadir of the phenomenon being represented by Ed Miliband's toe-curling broken-robot impression at the time of the public-sector strikes.) So perhaps we should be happy on the rare occasions when we discover a couple of elected representatives still willing to appear like clueless idiots in front of the public.

First came a few comments in the Scotsman from the leader of the SNP group on Glasgow City Council, Alison Hunter. With the SNP hoping to take control of the Labour stronghold this May – or at least deprive Labour of its majority – she was asked which policies she would seek to implement if her party pulled off such a titanic feat. Hunter's scarcely-believable and less-than-inspiring response was "I haven’t thought about that yet. Actually, I’m not an out-there leader. I’m a team leader. So we haven’t actually thought about that yet."

Before you ask, we have no idea what the difference between an "out-there leader" and a "team leader" is either, and we imagine Ms Hunter will soon be leaving SNP HQ with a well-skelped erse and a disinclination to say anything quite so stupid out loud ever again. In her defence, however, we suppose we could offer up the fact that she's highly unlikely to ever have to consider such a scenario – with Labour currently holding 45 seats (out of 79) to the SNP's 22, even denying Labour a majority in Glasgow this time round would be a huge and significant achievement for the Nats. Winning outright or even plurality control this year is surely beyond its reach.

We're not sure what Johann Lamont's excuse is, though.

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You can’t heave a brick into the Scottish political media and blogosphere without hitting half-a-dozen Labour MPs, MSPs or activists all claiming that they belong to “the party of devolution“. This self-awarded title is based on the premise that Labour “gave” Scotland the limited degree of home rule it currently enjoys. It’s a premise of dubious merit – given that it was the Scottish electorate which actually made it happen by voting for it – but let’s be generous for a moment and treat it as truth.

Labour also regularly claims ownership of the phrase “devolution is a process, not an event” – although despite it being commonly attributed to Donald Dewar (whom the party self-aggrandisingly dubbed the “Father Of The Nation” in much the same way that Michael Jackson presumptuously crowned himself “King Of Pop”), the term was in fact coined by the former Welsh Secretary, the pre-disgrace Ron Davies.

So how can it be that Labour is suddenly so desperate to disown and deny the thing it claims so proudly to have invented? Because the party’s extraordinary outbreak of poisonous hostility towards devolution as an ongoing process – in the shape of its advanced forms, so-called “devo plus” or “devo max” – since the SNP won a majority in the Scottish Parliament can only be interpreted, on any sort of remotely rational examination, as a complete reversal of its entire ideology on the subject. But why?

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So that was the launch of the independence referendum consultation. Not much we didn’t know, and the usual tired, pointless carping from the FUD benches, but there was one very significant new development. The question being proposed by the Scottish government is this:

“Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?”

It could barely be simpler or more direct. But the fascinating aspect is the impact the form of the question could have on the legal status of the referendum. The previously-suggested question was rather longer and encased in tortuous legalese:

“Do you agree that the Scottish Government should negotiate a settlement with the government of the UK so that Scotland becomes an independent state?”

The seemingly-technical change is potentially of vital importance. The core dispute over whether the Scottish Government has the legal right to conduct a consultative referendum is the “purpose and effect” of its doing so. The old formulation of the question clearly implied that the Scottish Government would use the referendum as a trigger to actively attempt to remove Scotland from the UK (by opening negotiations with the UK Parliament), and as such the referendum could very easily be held to be exceeding Holyrood’s devolved powers by directly leading it to take action on the constitution, a matter reserved to Westminster.

The new question, however, merely innocently enquires as to the Scottish people’s opinion on the subject, without promising that the expression of that opinion will cause it to take any particular action. As such, it’s difficult to see how it could fall foul of any reasonable interpretation of the law.

Does this mean that Alex Salmond is preparing the ground to face down the UK Government and hold the referendum on his terms – without the Section 30 order that would clear away most possible legal challenges – should the imminent negotiations with David Cameron not turn out to his liking? We’ll be watching with great interest.

This blog doesn't share the eagerness of much of the centre-left to either abolish the House of Lords or make it an elected body. Politicians pandering to the public's most primitive prejudices in pursuit of power are responsible for much of the atrocious state of British democracy, and while we're uneasy with the exercise of mostly-unearned privilege, the Lords were responsible for obstructing some of Tony Blair's worst attacks on civil liberties, and have been the only voice speaking up against the coalition's brutal welfare "reforms". We're not so sure we trust them less than MPs, who regularly stand for election promising one thing then do the precise opposite in government.

There's also nothing exclusive to the Lords about ham-fisted attempts to insert ludicrous amendments into new bills. But it so happens that the most recent example has come from that direction. Conservative hereditary peer the Earl Of Caithness (who owes his position to ancestors over 600 years ago) has put forward a series of extraordinary alterations to the unloved Scotland Bill, currently making its weary way towards a likely rejection by the Scottish Parliament. They're unlikely to be passed, but even the attempt reveals a great deal about the mindset of Scottish Unionists.

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We’ve had our hands full in the real world for a few days, so let’s catch up on what’s been worth reading recently. Iain Macwhirter is on the money as usual as he ponders why Unionists cling to the “scare story” [paywall link] tactics that have proven so spectacularly unsuccessful over the past decade or so and propelled the SNP into power, while Alex Massie in the Spectator eloquently expresses his frustration with the idiotically negative approach of his fellow Great Britain fans in the right-wing press. Kenny Farquharson takes a related line in Scotland On Sunday, excoriating the FUD camp’s ludicrous attacks on Sir Peter Housden.

Jackie Ashley, one of the Guardian’s more thoughtful commentators on Scottish affairs, takes an interesting angle on how the Scottish situation relates to and impacts on the centre-left in England, while Socialist Worker demolishes the lie still being implausibly peddled by Labour that the Union serves the interests of the left, by openly advocating independence for Scotland.

In the blogosphere there’s a really good piece on BaffieBox, spinning off a theme we’ve been shouting about for a while – the fact that independence is in essence merely an administrative change to the electoral register, with post-independence policy being a matter for the Scottish people, not just one party. Better Nation covers a very similar point in less detail and with less insight, but does see an excellent debate in the comments section, with numerous posters eviscerating Labour’s recent dismal smears and sneers about an independent Scotland’s defence policy.

And finally, if you’re having trouble sleeping this evening, try penetrating this vision of a more fully devolved Scotland by Labour activist Ian Smart. It’s a commendable attempt at a positive argument, describing in some detail where devolution could go rather than sticking to the “LABOUR SAYS NO” party line, but if you can get all the way to the end of it you’re a better blog than us.

Enough to keep you going until lunchtime there, we reckon.

(See here for the whole story.)

Northern Ireland’s politicians seem keen to get involved in the debate at the moment, with the latest contribution coming from Lee Reynolds, Director of Strategy for the Democratic Unionist Party, writing on the Slugger O’Toole blog.

“The Unionist case needs a Scottish and non-party political voice that will sell a positive narrative.”

Reynolds’ piece runs to over 750 words, concerning itself entirely with the need for the Unionist case to be made positively rather than negatively and insisting that the FUD camp needs to “sell the benefits of our Union”. Unfortunately, perhaps due to pressures of space, Mr Reynolds was not able personally to specify in the article what any of those benefits actually are. We’re confident someone will soon.

TIME ELAPSED: 31 years, 11 months
CONFIRMED SIGHTINGS OF POSITIVE CASE FOR UNION TO DATE: 0
 

Dear Willie, since you're implausibly still peddling this ridiculous fantasy hypothetical, perhaps you could quickly answer a similar one for us. It won't take a moment.

In a two-question 1999-style referendum of the sort you posit in your zany "99-51" scenario, the vote in autumn 2014 instead delivers the following outcome:

In favour of the status quo: 2%
In favour of devo-max: 98%
In favour of independence: 97%

So has Scotland just rejected independence, despite 97% of the electorate voting for it? By your logic it has. Is that seriously your position? With a straight face and everything? Are you going to be the one to tell the 97% of Scots who've just voted to leave the UK that they're staying in whether they like it or not?

If not, please shush with your daft, embarrassing haverings. But if so, we'll wish you the very best of luck with that. And then, if it's all the same to you, we'll run for cover.

There's an aspect of the recent constitutional brouhaha that we're a little surprised nobody's looked into (so far as we've noticed). Let's assume for a moment that the Scottish Parliament, as claimed last week by the UK Government's Scottish Secretary Michael Moore, does NOT have the legal power to conduct any kind of referendum into Scotland's constitutional future (far less a legally binding one). And let's assume, for the sake of argument, that for one reason or another – perhaps the refusal of the SNP to play ball in negotiations – Westminster declined to give it that power.

How, then, could the people of Scotland ever legally choose to leave the Union against England's wishes?

It is an inviolable democratic principle, in this country and many others, that no administration can bind the hands of its successors. So despite the wording of the Treaty Of Union which stated that its effects were to endure "forever after", the Treaty cannot be imposed for eternity by those who signed it in 1707. But if the Westminster Parliament is the only arbiter permitted to allow the Scottish people a plebiscite on revoking it, and it chooses not to do so, how might the Scots legitimately extract themselves from the UK without armed revolt?

Electing MPs to Westminster is no good – making up less than 10% of the Parliament they can't force any legislation through, even were every one of them to represent a nationalist party. And in the Scottish Parliament, where it IS possible to elect a majority government dedicated to withdrawing from the Union, we've just been expressly told that there is no authority to even ask the question, far less act on it.

A mass petition? Millions demonstrating on the streets? The people of Britain tried that with the Poll Tax and the Iraq war, and a fat lot of notice the government took.

The UK government currently IS offering to empower the Scottish Parliament to hold a referendum, but while hinting at all manner of terms and conditions and limitations. It could, of course, also withdraw that offer at any moment. So can anyone tell us the democratic means by which the people of Scotland could assert and enact their desire to leave the Union, without asking for England's permission first?

Should such a means not exist – and it would seem that it doesn't – then the idea of Westminster imposing any rules whatsoever on the referendum mandated to the SNP by the Scottish electorate is a plainly indefensible outrage against the most basic rights of civilised peoples. We are not England's prisoners, and for that reason if no other, we are confident that any legal "obstacles" will be overcome. Roll on 2014.