It’s odd to think that in a little more than three
months we might have been arriving at Scottish Independence Day. It doesn’t seem that long ago since September
18th 2014. I wonder if we would have been ready.
Of course, countries can become independent more or
less instantly. Look at the history of Europe in the past thirty years. Many
places woke up almost by surprise to find that they were independent. Sometimes
this was by choice, sometimes by means of conflict, sometimes pretty much by
accident. So clearly it’s possible.
Yet I don’t think a vote for independence in
September 2014 would have led to independence in March 2016. The reason for
this is that almost no-one in Scotland wants independence.
When Eastern bloc countries suddenly found
themselves to be independent in the early 1990s, they didn’t get a pick and mix
form of independence, they got the full on form and they got it instantly.
There were border controls, there were new currencies and there were frequently
poor relations with neighbours. Not one of the newly independent countries in
Eastern Europe gained a form of independence remotely resembling the one that was
promised to people in Scotland. What we were promised was a sort of interdependence.
We were promised that life would go on more or less the same only instead of
sending MPs to Westminster we’d have them all in Holyrood. But nothing very much
else would change at least not for the worse. All of the things we liked about
the UK would continue. Nearly every independence supporter I’ve ever come
across wants this. It’s for this reason that I don’t think we’d ever have got
close to Independence Day in March 2016.
What have we learned since September 2014? We’ve
learned that referendums are pointless. If a referendum does not decide a
question decisively what is it for? Given that a referendum doesn’t decide a
question decisively one way, why should it decide it decisively another way?
Neither side needs to cease campaigning if it loses a referendum. The idea then
that the whole population of Scotland would get behind the result of a pro-independence
vote is preposterous. In this sense it matters little who wins, we still remain
more or less divided equally. This feels more like Ukraine than Scotland.
We’ve also learned that SNP promises and the
promises of influential independence supporters have not come true. The optimism
of the Yes campaign was very powerful. In a similar way to Mr Obama’s statement “Yes
we can” won him huge support. It made everyone feel so good to proclaim that we
can. But being a president and being an orator are rather different matters. It
frequently has turned out in fact that he can’t. The world is a worse and less
safe place now than it was when Mr Obama became president. He is in part
responsible for this, more because of his inaction than his action. History will
remember him, of course, but only for something that he was born with, rather
than anything he achieved. A nice man, but one of the poorer presidents. So too likewise I suspect Mrs Clinton would be remembered only for what she was born with. But neither the world nor America need still more inaction.
So too the optimism of the Yes campaign and the
predictions they made about an independent Scotland have been shown to be
wildly optimistic. They would have been unable in the short term to create the
independent Scotland that they promised their supporters. Many of those
supporters do not believe this, but this is mainly because they have chosen to
read only those accounts that support their beliefs rather than challenge them.
When you go down this route of not thinking objectively and ignoring
inconvenient facts, don’t be surprised when bridges begin to fall down.
Imagine if Yes had won by a whisker and throughout
the next year or so we had all begun to realise quite what independence would
have entailed. It would have rather concentrated minds. Imagine if we had realised
that an independent Scotland would be significantly poorer than a Scotland
within the UK. We would all then begin to make personal calculations about our wages
and about the amount of tax that we would have to pay. Imagine if the result
didn’t make for pleasant reading. What would have happened?
My guess is the following. Scotland would have
become “independent”, but some sort of deal would have been made that also kept
us in the UK. There are a few countries like this in the world with interdependent
relationships with others. The result of the referendum would have been
respected, but in reality most things would have remained the same. This after
all is what everyone in Scotland wants. Scotland
could have become a sort of Hong Kong to the UK’s China. Call it “independence”
if you like, but really its interdependence.
This is in fact something similar to what has
actually occurred in Scotland. We have become a sort of semi-detached part of
the UK. The Scottish Parliament now has considerable powers and many more than
it did a few years ago. Why did these happen? They happened because Yes did so
well in the referendum. If Yes had only won 30% there would have been no extra
powers. We don’t know how these extra powers will work out. At the moment the
SNP appear disinclined to use them. They seem most concerned of
all that the UK as a whole continues to subsidise Scotland. This means that they are
unionists at heart as people like me are likewise concerned that we keep the
benefits of the UK including the fact that we receive a subsidy. Hardly any
Scots except a few fundamentalists want to be poorer. They think a poor and fully
independent Scotland would be worth it. But apart from these few brave hearts,
there are few enough Scots who find virtue in a diet of oats and salt. I don’t think Nicola Sturgeon
wants this, which may make her a closet unionist too.
Until and unless Scotland ceases to dependent on UK
subsidy, independence is off the agenda. That’s the reality. If the SNP dare
not even raise income tax, they are not going to dare to actually vote for Scotland
to become independent and poorer. They are so desperate to keep the subsidy
that they are even threatening not to accept additional powers. What does this
tell us then really? It tells us that even if they had won a vote on
independence they would have gone to David Cameron threatening not to accept
it.
Unfortunately nearly everyone in the Scottish
Parliament has more or less the same solution to every problem. Ever more public
spending, plus freebies for the middle classes, plus centralisation kills all
known germs. There is though no reason whatsoever why Scotland could not be much
better off than we are at present. But the way to get there is to lower public
spending, lower tax, decentralise within Scotland and to accept that free
markets bring wealth. If we all voted for a party that implemented such
policies we would be ready for independence in next to no time. I therefore suggest
that independence supporters vote en masse for Ruth Davidson.
The SNP are the best friends the Union ever had. It
is their policies that keep Scotland dependent on the UK. It matters little to
me therefore if they win every seat in the Scottish Parliament, it only makes
their goal recede further into the horizon.
We have learned recently that referendums don’t
necessarily lead to the intended result. Greece was told that if it voted No,
it would cease to be a part of the Euro and indeed would probably have to leave
the EU. Did any of these things happen?
Likewise a vote for independence would
not I believe lead to independence, unless and until the majority of Scots were
willing to take a massive pay cut or until the Scottish economy is more or less breaking even. Given the way Scotland votes neither of these circumstances is likely to happen anytime soon.
There is a final moral to this story however. We are
soon going to have a vote on leaving the EU. If we vote to remain, our
relationship with the EU will be more or less the same. But if we vote to
leave, it doesn’t follow that we will actually leave. Suddenly there will be
panic at the heart of the EU. After all the recent troubles, could they really
afford to lose Britain? I rather think they would be somewhat more willing to accommodate
a semi-detached Britain. I think indeed
they might even be willing to accept the sort of relationship we had when we
joined, a common market, a free trade zone and not much more. Whatever happens our relationship to the EU is going to be one of
interdependence. This semi-detached interrelationship could still be called leaving the EU. But really we can
no more leave the EU than we can leave Europe. We are always going to trade
with our European friends and be interdependent. But here’s where it is
important to do a calculation. If we vote to stay in the EU, we will get
nothing whatsoever, but voting to leave sometimes gets rewards.