Wings Over Scotland

Oh, what the heck, let’s do all of it.

“Bloodless Revolution”

We can’t find a single line in the text of Blair McDougall’s article for Progress which refers to any sort of “revolution”, or discusses its “bloodless” character. Pretty impressive – we’re only two words in and already there’s something inexplicable.

“With Scotland’s vote on independence one year away, Blair McDougall finds the nationalist strategy stalled

Next September Scotland will be asked to make a choice. Do we want to remain a strong part of the United Kingdom, or do we want to make a leap into the unknown and go it alone?”

We’re fairly certain that’s not the question on the ballot paper.

“It is a choice that the people of Scotland will make, but it is a decision that could have a profound impact on everyone who lives on these islands.

Most readers of this article will likely be inside the UK but outside of Scotland and so may not have been following Scotland’s debate as closely as those of us living it every day. So, with a year to go, where do things stand in the independence debate?”

For some reason, Progress appears to have neglected to include an alternative assessment from anyone on the Yes side, or even anyone notionally neutral to discuss it from a Labour perspective. We’re sure it’s just an oversight.

“The first thing to understand about the referendum is that it is taking place in spite of the level of support for independence, rather than because of it.”

Let’s generously call that “disingenuous”, rather than a flat-out lie. “The level of support for independence” is completely irrelevant in the context of the referendum taking place. It’s happening because it was a manifesto commitment of the SNP in 2011 and they won a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament, enabling them to pursue the goals of said manifesto.

Nevertheless, public support for a referendum has been consistently and conclusively in the majority even before 2011. In 2010, for example, the Guardian referred to “regular opinion poll findings showing that up to 80% of Scots want a referendum”. Whether they wanted independence or not, Scots wanted to have a referendum to settle the matter, and the Scottish Government is granting their democratic wish by giving them the voice that the three London-based parties fought for decades to deny them.

“Alex Salmond has worked hard since he became first minister to try and tell the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland that we here in Scotland are somehow desperate to break away from them.”

[citation required]

“In telling this particular story he is being dishonest. For generations, support for independence has been a minority view. The overwhelming majority of people are entirely comfortable with being a Scot within the UK.

Current polls average out to around 60-40 for the Union. That’s a majority, but the word “overwhelming” seems rather a dramatic exaggeration, particularly when several polls put it considerably closer or even give the Yes camp a small lead.

“Salmond and his party strategists know this. That is exactly why he absolutely refused to talk about the constitution during the last election.”

Except for putting it prominently in the manifesto, of course. The word “independence” appears 35 times in the document, including the fourth paragraph of Alex Salmond’s statement (p3) and the third paragraph of Nicola Sturgeon’s (p5).

(For comparison purposes, the number of times the word “socialism” appears in the Scottish Labour manifesto for the same election is zero.)

“He knew that to push independence front and centre in the campaign would have lost, not won, votes.”

Or, that he knew the election wasn’t about independence, but about the devolved government of Scotland. The referendum IS about independence, and we think it’s fair to say that the First Minister has mentioned it once or twice since 2011.

“Indeed, 55 per cent of people who said that they voted for the Scottish National party in 2011 have said that they are not in favour of independence.”

We’re still awaiting a source for this claim.

“Indeed, since Salmond started his campaign to break up the UK, support for independence has dropped in almost every published opinion poll (apart from one poll that the SNP commissioned and which has since been largely discredited).”

“Largely discredited”? We must have missed that happening.

“Recent polls show that support for independence currently stands at just one in four.”

See above. (This is also, obviously, a subtly dishonest way of presenting even already-dubious data. It implies that backing for the other option is 75%, when in fact a large percentage of voters are undecided.)

“But Salmond pushes on undeterred. He is a politician who builds his success by creating an unstoppable sense of momentum. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, his narrative of recent Scottish history is that independence is inevitable, that devolution is a staging post on a journey to the inescapable dissolution of the union.”

[citation required]. But “overwhelming evidence to the contrary”? What evidence is that? Can you have evidence about the future?

Scottish independence may or may not be “inevitable” and “inescapable”, but as there’s never been a vote on it before and there won’t be one for almost a year yet, it seems unarguable that there is, in fact, no “evidence” either way.

“Therein lies his difficulty today. His belief in leaving the UK is based on faith rather than facts. Like all nationalists he starts with a conviction that Scotland should, and will, be a separate state. The evidence follows afterwards.”

Isn’t that how ALL debates work?

“He describes those leading the opposition to his project as a traitorous ‘parcel of rogues’ whose job is to talk down Scotland.”

[citation required]. As far as we’re aware neither Alex Salmond nor anyone in the Yes campaign has ever described opponents of independence as “traitorous”.

“In his mind, when these ‘anti-Scottish’ forces are defeated, national pride and patriotism will awaken and Scots will achieve their true destiny. It is an utterly dishonest and objectionable prospectus.”

It’s also, as far as we know, one Blair McDougall has just invented.

“To suggest that people who do not share his faith-based world view are somehow less Scottish than those that do”

Once again, we’ve never heard Alex Salmond or anyone in the Yes Scotland campaign say such a thing or anything remotely akin to it.

“is an insult to the majority of people in Scotland – the very same people that he has to convince to vote for him if he is to have any chance of success.

Most Scots do not feel any less proudly Scottish just because we are part of a union with the other nations within the UK.”

[citation required]. The most recent survey found that 62% of Scots defined themselves as exclusively Scottish, with just 18% opting for “Scottish and British”.

“The great Scottish achievements and triumphs – from the age of enlightenment to our modern innovations – have occurred as part of the UK. They may not have happened because of the union but being part of the UK certainly has not prevented us from being a distinctive and successful nation.”

That rather depends on how you define the word “nation”. It is, clearly, impossible to say definitively how much better Scotland might have done as an independent country.

But the example of Norway – a nearby nation with an almost identical population and very similar natural resources – seems to provide a possible comparator, by whose standards Scotland within the UK has fared extremely poorly.

“In fact, from the preservation of our own religious and legal institutions, to the powerful and successful devolved parliament in place since 1999, Scottishness has always coexisted as part of something bigger.”

This sentence doesn’t appear to make any sense. In what way did Scottishness “coexist as part of something bigger” prior to 1707?

“The nationalists’ strategy is trapped between a need to excite the electorate about the change they claim could occur with independence and a fear that a radical offer will only further alienate a sceptical electorate. The result is an independence offer best described as ‘everything will change but nothing will change.’ Ironically, this attempt to ‘de-risk’ independence has only further alienated voters.”

[citation required]

“Sometimes described as ‘indy-lite’, rebranding a product Scots neither want nor need has left a once-passionate and well-defined cause seeming inauthentic and bloodless.”

In fact, polls consistently show that when offered a three-way choice between independence, the status quo and a “halfway house” of greatly expanded devolution, Scots divide into three almost exactly equal groups. What Blair McDougall sneeringly dismisses as “indy-lite” is at least as popular as either of the two other options, and usually the most popular.

“Take the issue of what currency an independent Scotland would use. A couple of years ago Salmond argued that the pound was bad for Scotland and that early entry into the euro was essential. After the eurozone crisis the SNP switched to a policy of creating a sterling zone after independence underpinned by a fiscal pact between an independent Scottish government and the government of the remainder of the UK.”

A sensible reaction to events unforeseen by any UK politician.

“Honest nationalists have raised questions over whether such a fiscal pact would make a ‘free’ Scotland truly free, as Edinburgh’s spending and taxes would have to be sent for sign-off in London. And this policy is not something that the SNP could promise: a currency union, by definition, would be something the rest of the UK would have to sign up to.”

Even a contractually-agreed currency union would not give Westminster a veto, merely require the Scottish Government to pursue broadly-sensible fiscal policies.

“With Scotland having just walked away, would the rest of the UK agree to enter into a currency union with a new foreign state? It is a big risk, yet the SNP refuses to say which currency Scotland would use if a deal to share the UK pound could not be done.”

A straw man. Any country can use Sterling even without the agreement of the rest of the UK, so the question of Scotland being refused permission simply could not arise, as McDougall goes on to note:

“There is vague talk from Salmond of using the pound informally – which would leave Scotland without a lender of last resort.”

This isn’t true. The Bank of England is not the only option, and Scotland’s assets, particularly its natural resources, would ensure the availability of lending.

“The result of the nationalist effort to pretend that leaving the UK comes without any cost or risk has, paradoxically, meant that the electorate in Scotland has actually been left with greater sense of risk.”

[citation required]

“If on this issue, as with so many others, the Yes camp sets out a radical change, along with the risks and potential rewards, voters could make a judgement and some might even decide the gamble was worth it. Its dishonest strategy has only increased the level of doubt.”

In fact the only dishonesty and doubt on the issue has come from the No camp. The UK government has consistently refused to say that it would reject a currency union, for the very good reason that to do so would be completely irrational. Refusing it would have disastrous results for rUK businesses who trade in Scotland (which is almost all of them), and be political suicide.

George Osborne could in all probability completely torpedo the Yes campaign by simply saying categorically that there would be no Sterling union with an independent Scotland. (And Ed Balls could say the same on behalf of a prospective incoming Labour government.) So why doesn’t he? The answer is that every company director in the UK would string him from the nearest lamp-post.

“As a group of people who believe unquestioningly in the need for an independent Scotland, the nationalists now struggle to articulate why it is that we need independence. Their starting point has been an ill-defined promise of a more socially democratic nation. It is a familiar tune from them: We will be all the things that Labour used to be. Of course, while Labour was introducing the welfare state, the NHS and the minimum wage, the SNP was, as ever, arguing that what really mattered was independence.”

The SNP backed all of those things, despite regular Labour attempts to suggest otherwise. The welfare state is currently being dismantled at speed, thanks to a UK government implementing policies rejected by large majorities of Scottish MPs. The Scottish NHS is only saved from the large-scale privatisation currently being inflicted on its English equivalent by the fact that it is, and has always been, independent.

We’re sure the irony is lost on Mr McDougall.

“Leaving aside its record in government, where it has been sacking nurses and cutting college places, the idea that the SNP are socialists seeking to build a Nordic model north of the border lacks basic credibility.”

We’re not aware of the SNP ever claiming to be “socialists”.

“Oil companies have been offered a cast-iron guarantee that taxes in the North Sea will not rise”

[citation required]

“while multinational companies have been promised a Reaganomics race-to-the-bottom corporation tax cut of three per cent below the rate of the rest of the UK – regardless of what rate the rest of the UK has.”

Leaving aside the addition of the pejorative adjectives, ALL companies – large, small, multinational or one bloke operating out of a shed in Auchtermuchty – have been promised lower Corporation Tax. Mr McDougall’s own party cut it by FOUR percent over its last period in office, as well as making numerous other downward adjustments.

“In contrast to the effort expended to reassure international business, on issues that matter to Scots, like pensions and welfare, the nationalists have failed to make basic preparations. When Scotland’s chartered accountants pointed out that cross-border pensions schemes are required to be fully funded under European Union rules it caught Scottish ministers completely by surprise,”

[citation required]

“despite the fact that the creation of a new border would create a £200bn cost for UK pension schemes.”

This is completely untrue. There would be no new “cost” whatsoever as a result of independence, only an obligation to adjust the structures of some pensions in order to avoid exposing to EU rules the vast black hole which has arisen under the policies of successive UK governments.

“When, at the start of this year, after five years in office, Scottish ministers gave a panel of experts less than six months to write a plan for establishing a new welfare state the experts concluded that separation presented ‘serious risks to the continuity of payments’. Remember, this is not an insurgent political movement: It has had the full power of the Scottish civil service at its disposal for six years now.”

The quote cited by Mr McDougall applied only in the event of an immediate separation of welfare, which had not been proposed. The report found that it would be mutually beneficial to both Scotland and the rUK to have a period of transition in which the two nations shared infrastructure.

“When you consider that the nationalists have been waiting 80 years for this moment, their failure to articulate a compelling, credible vision for independence is remarkable.”

The Scottish Government’s white paper on independence is due to be released in November, fully 10 months before the referendum. We understand Mr McDougall’s impatience to begin rubbishing it and insisting that Scotland, alone among the nations of the world, is incapable of running its own affairs, but that seems like plenty of time to discuss its vision.

“However, those of us who want to maintain the unity of the UK cannot be complacent. The nationalists are well funded, disciplined and will devote every waking hour of the next year to their cause.

But we also cannot be complacent because the cause we are campaigning for is so important. In practical terms, sharing risks, rewards and resources with the rest of UK is a better future for Scots.”

In fact, we’ve already been told by Gordon Brown and other Labour figures what that actually means – Scots subsidising the rest of the UK even more than they do now.

“We have the best of both worlds today with a distinctive Scottish voice in our parliament alongside the back-up of the bigger UK economy. But we should not lose sight of the principle at stake here. This is also a battle of ideas between division and unity. We are proud to argue that the people of this small island have far more that unites us than divides us.”

Bad news for everyone in Northern Ireland, Orkney and Shetland, there.

We’re still not sure what the “revolution” was or why it should be notable that it was “bloodless”, but not for the first time we doff our caps to Blair McDougall and his incredible ability to pack large numbers of lies, distortions, red herrings and unsupported assertions into small amounts of text. We make it 35 this time round, which might be a new record.

We remain, we’re pretty sure, his most avid readers.