Wings Over Scotland

There's a fair old explosion of activity in the Scottish political scene today, with what appear to be some potentially highly significant policy movements starting to creak into life. In the Scotsman, slightly-renegade Labour MSP Malcolm Chisholm once again urges his party to back a referendum offering a devo-max option (or as he describes it, "devolution plus"), albeit one which stops short of full fiscal autonomy. Chisholm doesn't specify precisely how far the new devolution should go, instead proposing a cross-party convention – also including representatives of civic Scotland – to agree on the details of the option. While a commendable and sensible approach in theory, Chisholm is likely to struggle to get his own party to back such a plan, let alone persuading the Lib Dems and Tories to join in as well.

Meanwhile, over on the Herald Iain Macwhirter identifies signs of Labour beginning to shift on their current policy of backing the status quo, and examines the implications for the other parties if Labour manages to successfully occupy the middle ground. His conclusion is that should Labour suddenly become converts to the cause of devo max, the SNP may backtrack on its offer of a devo-max question and instead run a straight Yes/No referendum on full independence. In this blog's view, those are two very big assumptions – Labour (and the other opposition parties) are going to find it very hard to change their position now without looking utterly ridiculous, and the SNP would similarly find it extremely tricky, having made such a play of offering a devo-max question, to then retract the offer if the Unionists actually did manage to come up with a defined interpretation.

In the Guardian, Severin Carroll offers a different perspective on the debate over the number of questions on the referendum, from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, which represents over 50,000 voluntary charity workers. The organisation, while not explicitly taking a view on the referendum itself, urges that in the light of the Westminster government's brutal attacks on the poor and the sick, Scotland must take control of its own welfare revenue spending – a status which would in practice require either independence or an extreme version of devo max.

Carroll then spins off in some odd directions from the SCVO's comments, for example getting Labour's Margaret Curran to apparently support the coalition's policy, claiming that "a million voters supported Labour's tougher stance on benefits". (She presumably means Scottish voters, and is presumably citing Labour's 2010 general election result in Scotland as backup for the assertion, which is a rather strained assumption about what people were voting for.)

He also states that "Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary and most powerful Scot in the shadow cabinet, confirmed last Saturday that Labour's stance on more powers for Holyrood had now shifted, in favour of greater devolution", which is something of a stretch. What Alexander actually did in his speech to Scottish Labour's youth wing was express a personal opinion which at present is still explicitly rejected by all three of Scottish Labour's leadership candidates in favour of the status quo. If the party is indeed now in favour of greatly-expanded devolution, it's not letting on.

Finally, the Dundee Courier picks up on an embarrassing display of hypocrisy by the UK Government. Having spent weeks and months demanding that the SNP publish the Scottish Government's legal advice on an independent Scotland's position with regard to membership of the EU and the Euro, the Westminster coalition has now refused to publish its own legal advice on the same issue. Oops.

We'll let you digest that little lot for a while.

(See here.)

"The starting point is that we are equal nations choosing to come together and that equality means we in Scotland can make demands in a claim of right for the powers and responsibilities that we want. Beyond that however we need to describe the positive advantages of being part of a new United Kingdom."
(Malcolm Chisholm, Labour MSP, November 2011)

"[the proponent for independence] deserved to win, because he did the thing which usually wins a debate: he asked the question which mattered, and didn’t get a satisfactory response. And the question was this: what is the positive case for the Union?"
(Andrew McKie, conservative political commentator, November 2011)

Still waiting.

A wise old German proverb was quoted in the Guardian recently. It runs like this:

"What do two monsters do when they meet each other in the forest?"

"They smile."

It's hard not to think of it as you watch the progress of the Scottish Government's anti-sectarianism bill through Parliament. The media has devoted a lot of column inches to the bill in recent days, with a variety of viewpoints. SNP MSP Joan McAlpine wrote an impassioned opinion piece for the Scotsman in support of the bill yesterday, while legal blogger Lallands Peat Worrier took the opposite approach, forensically examining the finer details and concluding that in extreme circumstances it could conceivably be used to criminalise behaviour that might seem trivial at worst.

The Scotsman's main editorial coverage today takes an uncharacteristically neutral stance, reporting the fact that the opposition parties, particularly Labour, are refusing to back the bill despite having put forward no amendments to it. They also provide two further short opinion comments, one from each side of the debate.

Against the bill, a sociology lecturer from Abertay University (no, us either) offers a rather unfocused ramble that sounds uncomfortably like some bloke in the pub sounding off after a couple of pints and concludes dramatically that the bill is "the most authoritarian piece of legislation in recent history", while the President of the Association Of Scottish Police Superintendents contends that in fact it's a welcome clarification and simplification of the law with regard to sectarian offences.

The vast majority of the Scottish people, meanwhile, heartily sick of the poison that spreads outward from Ibrox and Celtic Park and infects the rest of Scottish society, wait to see if something is finally going to be done.

Read the rest of this entry →

Scottish Labour embarrassed themselves horribly today when they jumped on comments from SNP MSP Stewart Maxwell in which he noted that the Scottish Government was only legally empowered to hold an advisory referendum on independence rather than a binding one. Not withstanding the fact that ALL referenda in the UK are only advisory, whether conducted by Holyrood or Westminster or anyone else, Labour’s humiliating blunder was in triumphantly asserting there was something new about this position, when in fact the very first sentence of the SNP’s National Conversation website – dating back over two years – says the exact same thing:

“The First Minister has outlined plans for a public consultation on a draft Referendum Bill which sets out proposals for an advisory referendum on extending the powers of the Scottish Parliament.”

But there’s another aspect to the nature of referenda that everyone seems to be inexplicably overlooking of late. The Unionist parties have recently ramped up a campaign in which they demand the SNP “clarify” every last item of policy in an independent Scotland, from currency and EU membership to renewable energy transmission costs, pension provision, and all the way down to what colour the First Minister’s going to paint Bute House’s front door. What nobody seems to have grasped is the fairly crucial point that that’s not what a referendum is for.

Read the rest of this entry →

Ever since the SNP achieved what was thought by most people to be impossible – winning an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament under its proportional representation system – the Unionist camp has discovered a sudden pressing concern about the perils of majority government (regardless of the fact that almost every UK Parliament in history has operated with an absolute majority on a minority of the vote, and that Labour and the Tories regularly proclaim this as a great benefit of the wildly undemocratic First Past The Post method thanks to its delivery of "strong" governments, and oppose any form of PR for Westminster).

This concern was given voice today in a report by the Electoral Reform Society, proposing a change in the rules governing Holyrood's system of proportional representation, to a format which – quite coincidentally – would have resulted in the SNP narrowly missing out on a majority in May. The society's justification for the change was that "democracy works better with more parties represented", which seems a hard argument to find fault with.

The odd thing about the report, though, is that the Sainte-Laguë system which it put forward as the solution would have done precisely nothing to increase the number of parties represented at Holyrood, as this analysis of the results by Better Nation shows. The existing parties/groups would have had their representations fiddled around with slightly, but the same six (SNP, Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Green and independents) would have won seats as actually did. The only difference would have been that the pro-independence Greens would have held the balance of power, wielding a disproportionate influence with their 7 seats over the 64-seat SNP, as they could have held them to ransom over any policy they chose as a price for supporting an independence referendum.

This blog is a supporter of PR, so that's all fair enough. But it's curious that this report has suddenly raised issues with Holyrood now, after 12 years, just at the point where the SNP has taken control over it. It'll be interesting to hear the Unionist parties' take on it, and how they'll square it with the FPTP system at Westminster. Is "strong government" good or bad? As with many things, we suspect the answer depends which side of the border you're on.

Scottish Left Review's "independence issue", in keeping with the publication's core philosophy, gives equal opportunity to both sides of the debate this month. Both a nationalist and a Unionist were asked to provide a "positive case" for their respective positions, from a left-wing perspective, and two substantial figures took up the challenge. For independence we heard from Stephen Maxwell (the Treasurer of the Scottish Independence Convention and the director of the SNP’s campaign for a yes vote in the 1979 referendum), whereas the Union's champion was current Lothians MSP Neil Findlay. The contrast is interesting.

Maxwell's piece, it must be said, is in fact largely negative. It focuses on the damage done to Scotland by various Tory governments, and that yet to come from the current one, while also making the legitimate but far-from-positive point that UK Labour now offers little more than a diluted version of Tory policies (for example on welfare reform). It does, however, also make a decent case for an independent Scotland being better able to afford social-democratic policies (thanks in part to increased oil income and significantly reduced defence expenditure), as well as having the demonstrated political will to carry them out. Maxwell reaches a cautious but optimistic conclusion about a greater sense of national self-confidence and the ability to challenge the prevailing neo-conservative view of UK politics.

Findlay's "positive case for the Union", however, (also run on LabourHame) presents only a dismaying blend of scaremongering, negativity and hopeless defeatism – indeed, it explicitly asserts that the SNP's optimism is a "mistaken analysis". It warns of the dangers of nationalism (spectacularly missing the point of civic as opposed to ethnic nationalism), then accuses the SNP of being pro-business and complains about the SNP's intention to remain in the EU, as if either of these were policies on which the Unionist parties offered an alternative standpoint.

Findlay then looks wistfully back at the working-class (small-L) labour movements of the 50s, 60s and 70s, characterising them as something that could somehow only have happened within the context of the UK without offering any explanation as to why. This is a viewpoint that neglects, for example, to consider the way even partial independence has enabled the Scottish NHS to resist many of the worst market-based "reforms" in the sector that have befallen England and Wales, or the education sector to retain free tuition while English and Welsh students are cast into debt.

He then ponders whether devo-max within the UK could offer social-democratic solutions for Scotland, before being forced to admit that there is no party in Scotland offering it, rendering the question something of a moot point. He concludes that "the role of the Labour and Trade Union movement has to be in evaluating and recommending just what arrangement is most appropriate for ordinary people", which ranks high on the scale of "the bleeding obvious" but perhaps more importantly has nothing whatsoever to do with the question he was asked, namely to provide a positive case for achieving such things under the Union as opposed to independence. "We need to think about it" isn't much of an answer.

It is strikingly and empirically self-evident that in the world as it currently exists, Scotland is better placed to pursue social-democratic policies on its own than within the UK. This is not a supposition or an opinion but a bare black-and-white fact: the UK, after all, just elected a neo-conservative government, while Scotland overwhelmingly returned a social-democratic one, and those respective governments will rule for the best part of the next half-decade (and probably longer). Findlay's piece contains not a single sentence of practical positivity, just vague socialist nostalgia combined with a fantasy about a UK political environment that doesn't currently exist and shows no signs of doing so. Is it really so hard to think of a single positive advantage of the Union? For now, the wait goes on.

We've just caught up with an interesting piece over at Bella Caledonia from a few days ago, in which Robin McAlpine, editor of the non-aligned Scottish Left Review, heralds that publication's "independence issue" with an overview of the Scottish political left wing's position on the subject. We'll let you read it for yourself, but the takeaway soundbite is this one:

"roughly no-one seems to have been persuaded out of a pre-existing pro-independence position but more and more people are moving in the other direction"

The true nature of the modern Labour Party seems to have taken a while to fully dawn on the left, in the UK but particularly in Scotland, and it's intriguing to see a slow but perceptible shift begin to take place, especially with regard to trade unions. The fight between Unionists and the independence movement for the heart and soul of socialism seems to be very much on.

The source is Lord Foulkes so it's probably best not to have it tattooed onto your forehead or anything, but the Express reports today a possible twist in the referendum saga that, if it turns out to be true, would be a genuinely surprising and interesting development. The thirsty peer notes that the Scotland Bill in its current form is a "dead parrot" – given that it's likely to be rejected by Holyrood if not significantly enhanced, something for which the coalition has no apparent appetite – and that as such it's likely to be abandoned altogether, with pressure of time in the House Of Lords cited as the face-saving reason.

It's extremely hard to imagine the Unionist parties rallying around a flag of "no change at all" in the referendum, so it may yet be that the devo-max option isn't as dead as it currently seems. Keep watching this space.

As the debate continues to rage about the legality or otherwise of a Holyrood-run independence referendum, the SNP's Stephen Noon provides a handy reference list of both professional constitutional expert opinion and some pretty unequivocal quotes from non-SNP politicians. While many fight over the technicalities, the argument that in practice Westminster would do nothing to obstruct the referendum, for fear of a counter-productive outcome, remains the most plausible.

"Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said minimum pricing was not a magic bullet, but a part of the solution."
(BBC, 1 Nov 2011)

"Sturgeon said a minimum price was 'not a magic bullet'"
(Alcohol Policy UK, 1 Nov 2011)

"Minimum pricing is not a magic bullet, but it is a huge step in the right direction."
(Nicola Sturgeon, Evening Times, 8 Sep 2011)

"[Nicola Sturgeon] doesn’t and never has believed that minimum pricing is the magic bullet solution."
(Holyrood magazine, 15 Oct 2010)

"We should not see any particular initiative as a magic bullet — we need a strong package of measures. That initiative was simply another tool in the box."
(Nicola Sturgeon, Findlaw UK, 30 Sep 2010)

"While [minimum pricing] is not a magic bullet, it would effectively target problem drinkers and help them reduce their alcohol consumption."
(Nicola Sturgeon, STV News, 31 Aug 2010)

"While it's not a magic bullet, we believe that minimum pricing would effectively target problem drinkers."
(Nicola Sturgeon, Newsnet Scotland, 9 June 2010)

"The SNP seem to think that minimum unit pricing is some sort of silver bullet."
(Richard Simpson, Labour Shadow Health Minister, 14 Nov 2011)

Sigh.

We’re going to come right out and say it. Tom Harris MP will not be the next leader of Scottish Labour. This is because while Scottish Labour might be collectively a bit dim, it’s not THAT dim. Despite having by far the highest media profile of the three leadership candidates (which, in fairness, is clearing a not-very-high bar), Harris failed to secure the support of a single Holyrood MSP for his nomination, a situation that would hopelessly undermine whichever unfortunate lackey was chosen to deliver his attacks on Alex Salmond at First Minister’s Questions.

Opponents of blood sports would shy away from the screen in horror as Labour challenged the FM every week with – at best – a deputy leader acting as a mouthpiece for a Westminster MP. The lack of credibility of an MSP group unable to put forward a single member of sufficient talent to lead would make the party in Scotland a laughing stock, particularly if – as might well happen – the new deputy was a Westminster politician too, such as Ian Davidson or Anas Sarwar.

The SNP, though, will doubtless be hoping against hope that Harris manages to win anyway, because the MP for Glasgow South would represent a massive liability to Labour in many other ways too.

Read the rest of this entry →

Lots of stuff going on in the papers on Saturday and Sunday which we didn't have time to feature individually. The Daily Record covers Lord Forsyth's latest bright idea, namely that SNP MSPs should be forced to pay for the referendum should it be judged unlawful, a bizarre notion given that if the referendum were to be so judged it's hard to see how it could go ahead at all.

Conversely, the New Statesman runs a balanced and realistic piece on "Who owns the Scottish independence referendum?", identifying some of the possible legal implications but also coming to a practical conclusion about what will actually happen. Meanwhile – in fact from earlier last week but having hitherto escaped our attention – Aidan O'Neill QC pens a rather less balanced and less realistic view for The Guardian on the same subject, which ends up insisting that not only would any referendum have to be run by Westminster but that it would have to be conducted across the UK. The article is strikingly detached from the real world, but is notable for some excellent and highly-informed reader comments. (After the first one.)

The Scottish Left Review has a somewhat daunting but detailed account of the conduct of Labour-led Glasgow City Council, in the light of Newsnet Scotland's revelation that the head of the City Building ALEO (arm's-length external organisation), set up by the disgraced former council leader Steven Purcell and the subject of allegations of cronyism and patronage, is set to receive a £615,000 payoff funded by the taxpayer after just five years' service to the company.

Scotland On Sunday features the story that Labour flak-magnet Tom Harris (of whom more shortly) is trying to push a so-called "Clarity Act" through Westminster in order to grant the UK Parliament de facto control over the referendum, based on Harris' erroneous claim that "The Scottish Government has a mandate but it is for a specific question on independence."

The same paper also details Michael Portillo's advocation of full fiscal autonomy for Scotland, the first time (so far as we're aware) that a significant Tory figure has called for a version of "devo max" as their preferred option for Scotland's constitutional future. These are interesting times.