Wings Over Scotland

Iain Macwhirter on his own blog, acting like a proper grown-up journalist and actually doing the research on the "Would Scotland be allowed into the EU?" debate:

"I've just been looking at the latest report to hit the front pages.  It came from the House of Commons Library and it is a background briefing note, not an authoritative assessment of the Scotland's legal status within the EU. It carries its own health warning:  "[This briefing note]  should not be relied upon as legal or professional advice or as a substitute for it.  A suitably qualified professional should be consulted.""

(For the details of individual entries, see here.)

As alert followers of Scottish politics will know, the Unionist parties (Scottish Labour in particular) are deeply convinced of the need to put to the people of Scotland the “positive case for the Union”, in order to secure victory for the No campaign in the forthcoming independence referendum. Oddly, while the parties and their friendly pundits are apparently unanimous on the need for this case to be put urgently following the SNP’s majority victory in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, it’s remained stubbornly conspicuous by its absence, even if you search back for over 30 years.

Wings Over Scotland is keeping its eyes peeled, though, and you can be sure that if and when this mythical beast ever does rise from the murky waters of the political Loch Ness it must be lurking in, we’ll be there to capture it for posterity. From today we’ll be logging possible sightings, and recording them below, like this:

“It’s our job to drown out [Alex Salmond’s] separatist rhetoric with a positive case for keeping the Union intact.”
(Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Conservative Party chairman, March 2012)

“There is a desperate need to say why Scotland is better, stronger and more united as part of the UK. Make the case. Get the pro-Scotland in the UK side on the pitch and let battle commence.”
(Tavish Scott, former leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, February 2012)

“We have to make a positive case for the union.”
(Unnamed “Scottish Tory spokesman” in the Telegraph, February 2012)

“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 author, 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

“The Unionist case needs a Scottish and non-party political voice that will sell a positive narrative.”
(Lee Reynolds, Director of Strategy, Democratic Unionist Party, January 2012)

“It is absolutely essential that the pro-Union forces articulate a convincing and positive case for the continuation of the Union in the 21st Century. Those of us who wish to see Scotland and its people remain as fellow citizens in a United Kingdom must both articulate the benefits which the Union has brought to Scotland and provide a positive vision for the future continuation of the Union.”
(Tom Elliott, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, January 2012)

“Add these deeply serious warnings [about debt, banks, subsidy etc] to the positive case for maintaining a union which has served the English and Scottish people well for 300 years and Mr Cameron has an irresistible argument.”
(Daily Mail editorial leader, January 2012)

“Does the Prime Minister agree with me that we must make the case for the Union – not simply against separatism, but the positive case about the shared benefits to us all of Scotland’s part in the United Kingdom?”
(Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, January 2012)

“Politicians are much given to talking – as Mr Cameron did yesterday – about ‘a positive case for the Union’ and commentators (I’m one of them) have been asking for the same thing for some time.”
(Andrew McKie, conservative commentator, January 2012) [paywall link]

“Politics is about emotion as well as simple accountancy. So as well as making the economic case for staying in the United Kingdom, we also need to tell a better, more positive story for Scotland’s future to compete with the SNP’s narrative of nationalism.”
(Douglas Alexander, Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary, January 2012)

“As we get closer to the referendum, people will realise that staying within the Union has substantial benefits for Scotland.” (benefits not specified)
(James Kelly, Labour MSP, December 2011) (at 4m 20s)

“We’ve got a distinctive argument to make on the power of Scotland inside the United Kingdom.”
(Johann Lamont, Labour leadership contender, December 2011) (at 23m 08s)

“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)

“The bigger challenge with Alex Salmond, in my view, is […] about addressing the political strategy he has been successful around. It is about making a positive case of Scotland in the UK and I can make that case.”
(Johann Lamont, then-prospective Scottish Labour leader, November 2011)

“Scottish Labour needs to develop its vision of a devolved, confident Scotland and make its case for a vote against independence with a positive alternative.”
(Mike Robb, Labour Hame, November 2011)

“We really need someone who can articulate a positive vision for Scotland, and sell it to the people of Scotland.”
(John Ruddy, Labour Hame, November 2011)

“The Scottish Conservatives have a huge responsibility, to Scotland and the United Kingdom, to make the positive case for the Union”
(Ruth Davidson, Scottish Conservative leader, October 2011)

“We will need to make that very positive argument in the next few years; the very human, very individual benefit of the United Kingdom.”
(Willie Rennie, Scottish Liberal Democrats leader, October 2011)

“I am determined, along with a new Scottish Labour leader when that person is chosen, to make that positive case for the union”
(Ed Miliband, Labour Party leader, September 2011)

“A clear vision of and a positive case for the Union needs to be developed”
(John Curtice, Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde, May 2011)

“Voters should be inspired by being offered a positive case for the Union”
(David Cameron, Conservative Party leader, now UK Prime Minister, April 2007)

“We have got to show the positive case for the Union”
(Gordon Brown, former Chancellor and Prime Minister, January 2007)

“We have left unargued the essential case for the Union, because we do not believe that most British people need to be persuaded of it.”
(Editorial in The Spectator, February 1979)

———————————————————————————————-
TIME ELAPSED: 32 years, 3 months
ACTUAL SIGHTINGS OF POSITIVE CASE FOR UNION TO DATE: 0
———————————————————————————————-

“I’m beginning to wonder if there is a positive case for the Union at all.”
(Iain Macwhirter, Sunday Herald)

One of the most dismaying aspects of the state of Scottish politics is the way that the weekly Holyrood joust between the party leaders appears to be conducted solely for the benefit of those in the chamber, with no regard at all for the watching electorate. This week's episode was a case in point.

Iain Gray chose to spend his entire allotted time battering on about whether an independent Scotland would automatically become a member of the EU, and under what conditions, particularly in terms of currency. This, we'd hazard, is somewhere near the bottom of the average voter's priorities at the moment – given that we're several years away from having to think about it, and that the way things are going you wouldn't necessarily want to bet your mortgage on the EU and/or the Euro existing at all by then –  but the opposition sense a weakness (not unreasonably) in the Scottish Government's disappointing refusal to release its legal advice on the subject, and so we get a concerted attempt to score a fairly meaningless playground point rather than usefully addressing any real-world issues of actual concern to the Scottish people.

As the session showed, the simple fact is that nobody knows what will happen with regard to Scotland's EU membership in the event of independence, not least because it's a decision wholly outside the influence of anyone in Holyrood. Both sides were able to quote a litany of sources supporting their respective views, none of them in any way definitive, and the exchange ended with nobody any the wiser, resulting only in the generation of massive heat but absolutely no light. (FMQs does seem to be a bottomless well of the former, and so is perhaps the ultimate in renewable energy sources. Who needs oil?)

Ruth Davidson's debut appearance at the front of the Conservative benches was no better than Gray's ineffectual jabbing, pointlessly repeating the futile demand that the Unionist parties have been making for the past seven months – namely that the SNP should hold the referendum immediately. It's perhaps fitting that on the eve of Armistice Day, the spiritual leader of the Union would choose to adopt the Douglas Haig approach to battle: if you've got a strategy and it's failing again and again and again, keep doing it anyway just in case the 50th time is the charm. The SNP are extremely well entrenched on the high ground here – having clearly laid out their proposed timing in the election campaign and getting an unprecedented mandate from the electorate – and Davidson's feeble shelling didn't so much as scuff the barbed wire.

Willie Rennie's question was so boring we've forgotten it already, and the entire spectacle was an unedifying waste of everyone's time. And since the agenda of FMQs is set by the opposition leaders, for that they must carry most of the blame.

Ever since the SNP's victory in May, Unionist politicians of all flavours have been going on and on about making "the positive case for the Union", a thing which apparently exists but which none of them have as yet been able to actually define. The only specific example of this positive case so far has come from the new Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, who pointed out that being in the Union enabled us to enjoy the performances of the GB team at the Olympics.

(An event which has directly sucked money out of Scotland and down to London, and which mystifyingly enjoys a different tax status to the forthcoming 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, which our sources tell us is in Scotland.)

Over on Better Nation, though, Labour activist Aidan Skinner (one of the few who seems to have any grasp of the scale and nature of the party in Scotland's predicament) has had a stab at it. Apparently the "coherent and convincing" case for the Union is that it enhances Scotland's "shared defence and commercial interests".

Further details are unforthcoming in the piece, however, which raises more questions than it answers. It doesn't explain, for example, how Scotland's interests are served by years of UK government underspending on defence in Scotland (as identified by Professor Andrew Hughes Hallett), the siting in Scotland of nuclear weapons which are overwhelmingly opposed by the Scottish electorate, or UK foreign policy which makes the entire UK at greater risk of terrorist attack. Nor, oddly, is any nation state which poses a military threat to Scotland identified.

Similarly, the single sentence devoted to this "coherent and convincing case" neglects to clarify any specific instances of Westminster control of Scotland's economy bringing commercial benefits. We're sure there are many, though, and look forward to reading them when the No campaign finally gets round to publishing "The Positive Case For The Union" through Her Majesty's Stationery Office, which we're currently expecting some time around 2017.

The Scotsman's lead politics story today is a fairly bog-standard run through the "too wee, too poor, too stupid" routine. The line is that if Scotland was independent AND in the Euro it would be liable for an £8bn contribution to the Euro bailout fund. It's an assumption constructed entirely from individual building-blocks of nonsense piled up on top of one another (Scotland isn't going to be independent for four or five years at least, and nobody knows what the status of the Eurozone is going to be four or five days from now, never mind half a decade; the SNP have clearly stated that their policy on independence would be to retain Sterling for an inspecified period of time; the issue of whether an independent Scotland would be an EU member at all, and on what terms, is contentious to put it mildly; and so on), and indeed below the thunderous headline the piece grudgingly acknowledges them, but we should probably expect the Scotsman to keep banging away at the issue of Scotland's pathetic inadequacy as a prospective nation every day or two from now until the referendum.

Time has an interview with Alex Salmond today. The US-based magazine has a commendable stab at covering a fairly alien subject, but drops a number of clangers of varying bizarreness. They initially claimed the SNP had formed a coalition with Labour in 2007, but have since (semi-)corrected that to the slightly less-wrong but nonsensical assertion that "the SNP formed a minority government with Labour". In the next sentence they note that "The party's growth has spiked, from six seats in 2005 to an outright majority of 69 seats after a landslide victory earlier this year", rather misleadingly neglecting to point out – or perhaps to know – that they're comparing Westminster election results to Holyrood ones.

There's a real cracker a couple of paragraphs further on, though, when the magazine suggests that "A Sunday Mirror poll out in mid-October found that 49% of Scots and 39% of Britons overall support independence, up from 11% and 6%, respectively, five months ago". Blimey, we knew there was an upwards trend, but 11% to 49% in five months is a little much. (Even if you assume it's just a rogue extra "from" that's snuck in, we're not sure there's been a poll with 38% support for independence recently. Also, the 49% figure is presumably the poll that was built from a tiny Scottish sub-sample, and therefore pretty much meaningless anyway.)

Next up we get "Salmond plans to hold a referendum on independence before the end of his term in 2015", but we'll forgive them that one because countless UK and even Scottish media outlets have made the same careless error – the current Holyrood term ends in 2016, not 2015. Less forgivable (though also perpetrated repeatedly by the UK media) is the bald statement that "The referendum will have two questions", since that has never been the official position of the SNP or anyone else, and is looking less likely to be the reality with every passing day.

But, y'know, otherwise bang on the money, guys.

The theoretical possibility that the UK Government could usurp the Scottish Government and hold its own referendum on Scottish independence is one that's been kicking around ever since the SNP won its historic majority at Holyrood back in May. But one question that nobody seems to have asked is "So what?"

Much of conventional wisdom has it that only the UK Parliament has the ability to grant Scotland independence, and that the Scottish Parliament can't legally bring about the dissolution of the Union. This is essentially a fallacy, based on misunderstanding of the sovereign nature of the Scottish people, but is generally held to be an academic technicality anyway – should a referendum conducted by Holyrood indicate the desire of the Scottish electorate for independence, the idea of Westminster even attempting to refuse would in practice be unthinkable.

But were Westminster to conduct its own vote, would the situation be any different? It's hard to see how. It was recently claimed by the Tories' Lord Forsyth that Alex Salmond had told George Osborne the SNP would boycott any Westminter-led referendum. This would throw up a pretty interesting constitutional brouhaha by itself, but let's assume the referendum went ahead in 2012, the SNP did indeed refuse to collaborate in it, and let's say for the sake of argument that as a result it delivered a resounding "No" vote on a very low turnout. What then?

The UK would continue business as usual (assuming there hadn't been a civil war), and soon enough would arrive at 2015. At which point the SNP would table the referendum for which the Scottish electorate gave them an overwhelming mandate, and invite the UK Government to try to stop it.

It's difficult to identify any legal grounds on which Westminster would be able to block a referendum which the Prime Minister had repeatedly acknowledged was Holyrood's to hold. Short of Cameron sending in the tanks, the second referendum would go ahead regardless of the result of the first. The constitutional sovereignty of the Scottish people would remain unchanged, as would the unthinkability of any refusal by Westminster to accept the result. Once again, beyond military conflict there simply wouldn't be any way to keep the Union together.

(It's not even as if there isn't extremely recent precedent on these very islands for having two referenda on the same subject in the same country in close succession. Less than 16 months separated the people of the Republic Of Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty from a second vote in which it was accepted.)

So we're going to go ahead and say with some confidence that there will be no Westminster-conducted referendum on Scottish independence. That it would be democratically outrageous ought to be reason enough, let alone that it would likely be highly counter-productive, but more importantly it would be also completely pointless. Only Holyrood has a mandate for a referendum, and only Holyrood – on Holyrood's own terms – will conduct one.

David Maddox in the Scotsman livens up a previously-slow news day with a report that Labour are preparing to team up with the Conservatives in the UK Parliament to force a Westminster-led referendum on Scottish independence. The article is short on solid quotes to contradict David Cameron's repeatedly-stated position that the referendum is a matter for the Scottish Parliament, relying instead on unnamed "sources", but if true it would be an astonishing development. None of the UK parties stood on a platform of holding a referendum – indeed, all three explicitly opposed the idea – so where they'd be conjuring a mandate to do such a thing from would be anyone's guess, whereas the SNP have an extremely clear one from the Scottish people to conduct the vote in the second half of the Holyrood parliamentary term.

Most observers on both sides of the debate agree that a Westminster-imposed referendum would be an enormously risky gamble for the Unionists, as Scottish voters are unlikely to take kindly to such a democratic trampling. But it may be that the three London-based parties sense a growing trend of support for a Yes vote – reflected in recent polls – and consider it less of a risk than waiting for three more years of brutal cuts to take effect and persuade Scots that they're better off away from Tory-led UK governments. Labour especially, though, would be dicing with death were they to collude in such a scheme. We shall see.

A fairly in-depth lead piece on the "devo max" conundrum, including an interview with referendum expert Dr Matt Qvortrup who, under very determined and persistent questioning from an unhappy Glenn Campbell, offered the professional opinion that a notional two-question poll where Q1 was "Do you want more powers for the Scottish Parliament?" and Q2 was "Do you also want full independence?" would be both legitimate and fair, and also that in his view, a vote of 51% for independence in such a scenario would mean independence for Scotland, regardless of whether the "devo max" question received a higher vote.

The unambiguous clarification of Dr Qvortrup's position was welcome given the strenuous attempts by the Unionist parties to misrepresent it last week, after the First Minister gave what turned out to be an entirely accurate summary of Dr Qvortrup's views, but one based on an erroneous source. Dr Qvortrup confirmed that he'd spoken to the First Minister and accepted his "misquote" was an honest error rather than an attempt to portray his views inaccurately.

The episode also featured a piece on whether the Scottish Conservatives can recover from the divisions caused by their leadership contest, in which party donor John McGlynn called for a change in direction.

Not a great deal going on in the papers today. The Herald and Scotsman both cover a mildly interesting story about prospective Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont acknowledging – unusually for the party – that the Scottish people might vote Yes in the referendum, and talking of Labour's role in a post-independence Scotland.

Meanwhile, back on the party's more traditional ultra-Unionist wing, veteran Nat-basher Brian Wilson pontificates at length in the Scotsman on another variant of the "too wee, too poor, too stupid" line, this time focusing on issues relating to Scottish Power and whether its renewable energy would find an export market post-independence. The piece appears to concentrate mostly on the cost of transmitting electricity from the furthest extremes of the country – Orkney and Shetland – and makes no mention of that which would be generated on or closer to the mainland. It also plays heavily on the idea that England might prefer to import energy from Russia than Scotland, which seems a bit of a stretch.

The same publication offers some balance in the form of a rather rambling diatribe from SNP MSP Joan McAlpine, which is constructed mostly from suggestion and innuendo but does contain a small nugget or two for analysts to chew over with regard to the Scotland Bill, not least the writer's assertion – heavily qualified with "personal opinion" disclaimers – that given a choice between accepting the entire Scotland Bill as it stands or rejecting it outright at Holyrood, she'd opt for the latter.

And that's pretty much your lot.

A very welcome piece in the New Statesman on the much-propagated lie that Scotland is subsidised by England. Could do with linking some of its sources, but still a worthwhile non-partisan reference. Also features a comment debunking another myth, namely the one that Labour need Scottish MPs to form a majority at Westminster. (Details appended below the jump.)

Read the rest of this entry →

The impact of Scottish independence on the whole UK; the Lib Dems struggle to define "Home Rule" for a third time; new Scottish Tory leader claims that a question on devo max would represent a "rigged referendum" and require the UK Government to step in; First Minister clarifies referendum status once again; terrifying graphic morphs Annabel Goldie into Ruth Davidson. And more!

The most interesting moment, perhaps, is at 23m 39s, where Scottish Labour leadership candidate and Westminster MP Tom Harris asks, with regard to the prospect of the Scottish people voting unilaterally for devo max, "Can you imagine the outcry in Scotland if the English people wanted to impose a form of government on Scotland against our wishes?" What might that look like, Tom? A Westminster coalition between the two parties most comprehensively rejected by the Scottish electorate twice in the space of a year, say?