Wings Over Scotland

If you’re a bit naive, it can be hard to understand why the parties of the Union are so bitterly opposed to a second question on the referendum ballot. All three of them, after all, claim to want more powers for Scotland (though not yet, and they don’t want to tell us which ones), and after all the fuss they’ve made before it seems odd that they don’t feel the need to get any democratic mandate for them.

It’s also odd because it’s pretty much agreed by everyone on all sides that a second question for, let’s call it Devo-X, would all but completely sink the SNP’s chances of winning a Yes to full independence, whereas in a straight two-way face-off it’s already very close and the numbers (as well as the arguments) are slowly but steadily moving in the Nats’ direction. That appears an awfully big gamble for the No parties to take purely in order to deny the SNP something (more powers, but short of independence) that all the Unionists are supposedly in favour of.

So what’s the real reason? Well, it’s not too hard to figure out.

The Scotsman boldly broke the astonishing news this week that the SNP accept that there’s a theoretical possiblity they could lose the referendum. (We know, we were amazed too.) But if the FUD camp does manage to win the vote, it’ll be a hollow victory. They’ll have spent two years running Scotland down, generating all sorts of hideous ill-feeling and emptying their already threadbare bank accounts, all to gain nothing. (As they’re all determined to campaign for the status quo.) But there’s a way all that effort could be worthwhile for them, and they mention it often.

That’s because politics is all about power, and all three Unionist parties in Scotland have something in common – they realise that as things stand, as long as the SNP exists their chances of ever getting any again are close to zero. Most recent polls have the Nats more popular with voters than the other three put together, and with no reason to suspect the quality or electoral appeal of “Scottish Labour”, the Scottish Lib Dems and the Scottish Tories is going to suddenly take a massive upswing, their only hope is that the SNP somehow implodes.

It seems to be a near-uniform belief – indeed, verging on an article of faith – among the parties of the No camp that the SNP would shatter in acrimony should it lose a single-question referendum. The party would tear itself apart, runs the reasoning, in the event of a No vote which would in effect have blown apart Alex Salmond’s “gradualist” strategy.

Salmond would resign, the SNP “fundamentalists” would split off into a new hardcore faction, the alliances between those on the left and right of the party would crumble, and the Union parties would march triumphantly into the electoral gap.

All three would have something to gain from this scenario. Labour would, of course, storm back to power at Holyrood as the largest party. The Lib Dems would regain all their strongholds in the north of the country, and probably be required for a coalition administration again.

With a vote for the status quo bolstering the Union, even the Tories might find a new lease of life as a “Scottish Unionist Party” under Murdo Fraser – there being no place left for the “line in the sand” approach of Ruth Davidson in the rush to set the agenda of the “Devo X” discussions that we’re (now) solemnly told would follow a No vote.

You can see why it’s a comforting fantasy for the FUDs. But the idea of the SNP falling to pieces if they lose the referendum doesn’t stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.

Firstly because SNP politicians want power too, and the Scottish Parliament would still be very much up for grabs. We already know that a large percentage of SNP voters don’t actually back independence, but voted for the party on the basis of its competence as an administration – they’re likely to be even happier voting SNP again if independence is off the immediate prospectus.

And those SNP voters who DO back independence would of course almost certainly stick with the tried-and-tested Nats at least until some splinter group had had a couple of years to establish itself, so it’s hard to see where a significant number of 2011’s SNP votes would be lost in May 2016.

But more importantly, we’ve now reached a situation where all three parties in the No camp are standing on a platform of enhanced devolution after the referendum, but aren’t prepared to say in advance what new powers will be devolved. That would give the SNP a hugely powerful card to play in the Holyrood 2016 election – “You know we have Scotland’s interests at heart, put us back in power so we can speak up for Scotland in the negotiations, and run the country well in the meantime”.

Who would the Scottish people be more likely to trust as the “guarantors of change“ after a No vote – the Lib Dems or the SNP? The polls suggest that’s something of a no-brainer. The SNP would be able to offer a very compelling deal to the Scottish people: “You’ve voted No like the Unionists asked you to, and they promised you more powers as a reward – elect us and we’ll hold them to that promise, with the threat of another referendum if they break it.”

In fact, in the event of a No vote, the reasonable and logical assumption would be an INCREASE in the SNP vote. If the Scottish people decided that they wanted greater devolution rather than full independence, we doubt they’d want to negotiate the terms with nothing backing them up other than the honesty and integrity of the Unionist parties, and we also can’t see them suddenly deciding that the third-rate numpties currently occupying the opposition benches – who they rejected so unequivocally in 2011 – would make an attractive Scottish Government after all.

(As we’ve noted before, independence is actually Labour in particular’s only hope of bolstering the thin, watery gruel that is their Scottish talent pool. If there were no Scottish MPs at Westminster, Labour’s “big hitters” would have to come to Holyrood looking for work, but if Scotland stays in the Union would-be Labour voters would be stuck with the prospect of Richard Baker running our country. Brrr.)

If the Unionist parties’ plan is to reject a second question in the belief that they’ll then win a No vote and see the SNP disintegrate as a result, we think they’re misguided in at least two ways.