Wings Over Scotland

For independence supporters of a certain age, the 1979 devolution referendum is one of the most infamous moments in Scottish history. While a wafer-thin majority of Scots voted Yes to devolution, an electoral fiddle conceived by a Labour MP meant that it didn’t happen, and part of the reason was that in effect, dead people were counted as No votes.

(We won’t go into all the details here, but basically an impossible threshold was set for turnout, and people who’d died but hadn’t yet been removed from the electoral roll were counted towards the calculation of that threshold.)

We were put in mind of it by an odd development this evening.

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After the implosion of Rory Stewart MP’s “Hands Across The Border” initiative (to be replaced by “Make A Big Pile Of Rocks For The Union”, which we’re sure will be a roaring success, despite being currently £52,500 short of its fundraising target), we comforted ourselves that there was still to be a big lovebombing exercise between Scotland and England this month, in the form of the Border Union Rally.

Tragically, it seems as though some “unforeseen technical problems” have struck the event – although we’re not absolutely sure how you can have technical problems with going for a walk – and it too has had to be cancelled.

The website has vanished, so the precise details of these insurmountable logistical obstacles aren’t as yet forthcoming. (We’re finding it hard to shake the terribly cynical suspicion that they’re related to the difficulty of calling something a “rally” if there are only three people at it.) But we’ll bring you more news as we get it.

Go and read this. It’s an electric piece of polemic on Bella Caledonia by the respected Scottish playwright Peter Arnott, and it’s the best distillation we’ve ever read of one of the key principles of the referendum debate.

The myth that a No vote is a vote to keep things the way they are is one of the most powerful and dangerous weapons wielded by the anti-independence campaign. The reality is far worse, for all sorts of reasons.

Some are cold hard facts: the financial trap waiting for the Scottish Government in the form of “more powers” that aren’t powers at all, but huge burdens which will cripple the Scottish budget. But what Arnott’s piece outlines is something much more insidious.

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Kerry Gill in the Scottish Daily Express, 17 July 2014:

“Two months to go until the referendum, but acrimony will last for years

There are just two calendar months to go before we go to the ballot box to decide whether we prefer Scotland to remain within the proven safety of the United Kingdom, or take a chance on Alex Salmond’s distintegrating case for separation.

The Yes Scotland campaign – comprised largely of SNP members and sympathisers, aided by a ragbag of Green nationalists, a small number of disaffected Labour voters and rather more anti-English bigots than anyone cares to admit – is in trouble.

On September 19, whatever the result may be, we will all have to try to get along together, but it will be difficult, no matter the good intentions.”

Our emphasis. It sure is a mystery where this “acrimony” is coming from, eh readers? Perhaps, if we all have to get along together after the referendum, it might possibly be better not to engage in furious, unhinged rants where you call your opponents a bunch of racist bigots. Just a thought, like.

Alert readers might be thinking that headline sounds vaguely familiar and they’d be right, because we published a post two months ago with a similar title, highlighting the curiously inverse relationship between media scare stories about alleged abuse in the referendum campaign for which there’s no evidence whatsoever and actual abuse that really happened.

We were put in mind of it this week, after the Daily Record ran a particularly barrel-scraping “vile cybernats” piece about how a Labour activist from England got a little bit of extremely mild stick on Twitter after announcing he was on his way to Scotland to stick his nose in the independence debate, and how he WORRIED that he might meet a hostile reception at the railway station (although of course, and happily, he didn’t).

“Better Together” campaign leaders Blair McDougall and Alistair Darling constantly demand that the Yes campaign, and Alex Salmond in particular, takes responsibility for and action against random online nutters behaving in abusive or threatening ways, even when those people have no discernible connection to Yes Scotland or the SNP.

But they’re less keen on putting their own house in order.

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Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson, bless her wee heart, is banging once again in today’s Scottish Sun on the drum she’s made her own personal pet issue of the referendum campaign – the BBC.

The Tory chief – who likes to bash the public sector but has spent almost her entire life funded by the taxpayer, first as a Beeb employee, then as a student at a Scottish university and now as an MSP – notes that viewers in Ireland pay £5.50 a month to access the iPlayer, and that the same fate might befall an independent Scotland.

It sounds a reasonable argument, but like so many of the No camp’s assertions it unfortunately falls to pieces under the pressure of reality.

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The media and the No camp, in so far as those are two different things, got incredibly excited today about some comments made by new European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in which he said that the EU wouldn’t undergo any further enlargement for the next five years.

“Juncker deals blow to Alex Salmond’s EU claims” (Telegraph)

“Independence: Juncker deals blow to Scots EU plans” (Scotsman)

“Alex Salmond’s dream of staying in the EU dealt a blow by new President of the European Commission” (Daily Record)

“Blow for SNP as Junker [sic] rules out EU expansion” (Express)

“Unionists hail Juncker ‘hammer blow’ to Scotland’s EU place” (Financial Times)

“Better Together said the president’s comments make it clear that a Yes vote in the referendum would also be a vote to leave the EU.” (Herald)

So far so mundane. And then something odd, but welcome, happened.

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A post appeared on the news-and-discussion site Reddit Scotland last night. We’ve reproduced it in full below, because it seems like something people should know.

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Below is a clip from the short report on social media in the independence referendum that appeared on tonight’s STV News, and will apparently also air on Scotland Tonight. (You can see the whole thing here.)

Like every other media report of our article about Alex Johnstone MSP, it omits the bit where we explained WHY we called him some rude names, but in this case we’re happy to accept that that was for reasons of time.

The more interesting bit is Johnstone’s own comments, because the MSP’s reaction is a breathtaking piece of hypocritical dishonesty that seems to us to be entirely in keeping with the character of the man.

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To be fair, the article in today’s Sunday Mirror isn’t shy about setting out its position.

“In the end it will all come down to two little words. One of which will save our 300-year union with Scotland. The other will rip it to shreds. If Scotland’s Bravehearts vote YES on September 18 it will tear apart that union which has seen both countries’ men march shoulder-to-shoulder in two world wars.

Which is why YES seems such a small a word to bear responsibility for dismantling one of the world’s oldest democracies and for cutting a centuries-old umbilical cord that has kept us joined to Scotland since 1707.”

It’s all in there – “tear apart”, “rip to shreds”, Braveheart, two world wars, Rule Britannia blah blah etc – inside the first 100 words, so you know what’s coming. Although we’re pretty sure you’re not supposed to leave umbilical cords attached for centuries.

But as it turns out, that’s the most sensible part.

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We assume Danny Alexander has been writing for the Record this morning.

We still haven’t been issued with our special UK Goverment Scottish Independence Costs Calculator by the Treasury, but we nevertheless still feel fairly confident that £550 million minus £250 million is £300 million, not £3 billion.

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Our ever-alert readers will almost certainly recall – for it was only four days ago – this piece, in which we noted the Scottish media’s curious reluctance to cover what looked like a pretty blockbusting story.

Professor Sir Donald Mackay of the pro-devolution think tank Reform Scotland, an extremely distinguished businessman and adviser to the UK government, wrote a stinging article for the Sunday Times rubbishing the Office for Budget Responsibility’s gloomy forecasts for North Sea oil revenue in the coming decades, and suggesting that the real figures were likely to be over £8 billion a year higher.

Despite the enormous effect such a sum would have on the economy of an independent Scotland – wiping out the highest estimate of its deficit at a stroke and leaving it with an annual surplus of hundreds of millions of pounds – the rest of the media uncharacteristically didn’t swipe the ST’s story for their Monday editions.

But then the OBR issued a new forecast.

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