There is minimal interest in Scotland in what goes on
in the Scottish Parliament. How many MSPs can you name? In a Pointless style
quiz my guess is that 99% or more Scots could name Nicola Sturgeon, one or two
political anoraks could name the other party leaders and the rest would be
pointless.
The same lack of knowledge applies to the Scottish
Parliament’s electoral system. We all understand how General Elections work,
because we all pay attention during these elections. We all understand how
Westminster works. We know obscure words like “prorogue” and have opinions on
bits of Erskine May and the role of the Speaker, but Holyrood is a near away
country of which we know nothing.
Some people are getting just a touch over excited
about next year’s Holyrood election. A few polls have shown support for
Scottish independence bubbling a little higher, everyone including me begins to
go into full campaign mode. But these are the most extraordinary times that any
of us will live through. More importantly the full effect of Covid on the
Scottish economy has not been felt yet. It’s a Phony War. The blitzkrieg on
jobs and the Scottish economy comes later. Furlough makes us feel secure behind
our Maginot Line like a holiday that has gone on since March. Under these
circumstances polling is meaningless.
Of course, there is only one issue in Scottish
politics. The SNP are a single-issue party and that is the only issue the rest
of us care about too. I’m a Conservative, but if you offered me Labour
Government in Britain for 100 years or Scottish independence, I would choose
the former in a second.
But the conversation next year during the Scottish
Parliament elections must not be exclusively about independence. In some way or
another the SNP will put in their manifesto a demand for a second independence
referendum. If that’s all everyone talks about during the campaign it will be
easier later for them to claim that they have a mandate.
It is crucial however to point out that Scottish
independence is not a devolved issue. It is a reserved issue. The SNP can no
more have a mandate on a reserved issue like the constitution (i.e.
independence) than they can have a mandate for annexing Berwick because it was
stolen by the English.
What we should be talking about is devolved issues,
such as education and healthcare. More unnecessary deaths have occurred in
Scotland due to SNP mishandling of care home and long term more will occur
because of the SNP’s unnecessary decision to go it alone on leaving lockdown. The
SNP are only concerned about Scottish Covid deaths, but higher unnecessary
cancer and heart disease deaths will in time far overtake these. The SNP will
be to blame.
The more the focus is on holding the SNP to account on
devolved issues the less it will be possible for them to claim the Holyrood
election is proxy independence vote.
There are various moves being made by Scottish
nationalists to maximise support for independence at the Scottish
Parliament.
There are 73 seats in Holyrood elected by First Past
the Post (FPTP) and 56 seats elected by a system of proportional representation.
Scotland is divided into 73 constituencies and 8 regions. We each have two votes
one for the constituency and one for the regional list based on each party’s
share of the vote. But crucially the number of seats won by a party in the FPTP
constituencies is taken into account when allocating the regional list seats.
If the SNP had 45% of the vote and won nearly all of
the FPTP constituencies it would not win 45% of the regional list seats. It
might in fact win no regional list seats. The reason for this is that the
Additional Member system is designed to give Scotland the benefit of having
FPTP constituencies and proportional representation. If a party has already won
45% or more of the constituency seats on a 45% share of the vote it cannot
expect to gain much from the regional list. Instead if, for example, the
Conservatives won 25% of the vote, but no FPTP constituencies, the
Conservatives would gain list seats so that their representation in Parliament
reasonably closely matched their share of the vote.
This electoral system was designed so that no one
party would win an overall majority but would have to work with other parties
in coalition. It was for this reason that the Scottish Parliament doesn’t have
a second chamber to act as a check and balance on the first. Coalition
Government makes this unnecessary.
The problem for the Scottish nationalists is that they
need an overall majority of independence supporting MSPs in order to press their
claim for a second referendum, but the electoral system makes the second
regional vote almost completely wasted if the SNP win most of the 73
constituency seats.
It is for this reason that certain independence
supporters are planning to game the system.
They plan to create a second independence party. Let’s
call it SNP2. This party would only stand in the regions not in the
constituencies.
Let’s say that SNP1 won 45% of the constituency vote.
This would give them most of the 73 constituencies. SNP1
would win few if any regional list seats. But if SNP2 won 45% of the Regional
Vote it could expect to win around 45% of the list seats because it would have
won none of the constituencies.
The result would be that SNP1 would win the
constituency vote and SNP2 would win the regional vote. This would give
independence supporting MPs perhaps 75% of the seats on a 45% vote.
Independence supporters can call their regional party
anything they please, but it would in truth be SNP2. It would not differ in any
significant respect from SNP1. It would formally or informally vote according
to the instructions of Nicola Sturgeon. It could turn Scotland into a one-party
state on a minority share of the vote. Someone else, of course, did this in the
year before the SNP were founded.
There has been some discussion as to whether the SNP
are behind this scheme. Sturgeon publicly opposes it. The lady doth protest too
much, methinks.
There is some doubt as to whether it would work. It
might confuse voters, or voters may resent being gamed.
But let’s be clear. This is an undemocratic attempt to
abuse the Scottish electoral system by creating a new party that is not really
any different from an old party.
What Scottish independence supporters don’t realise is
that this sort of electoral abuse would make it less likely that the British
Government would give them a second independence referendum. It would be easy
for the Conservative Government to dismiss any demands from a Scottish
Government elected in an obviously unfair manner.
This would leave independence supporters with the same
dilemma they face now. Do we go down the illegal route, which if the British
Government stands firm leads to diplomatic isolation and jail or do, we go down
the legal route? But the legal route depends on legitimacy and this legitimacy
would have been squandered by an attempt to fix the result of an election.
So, bring it on dear Scottish nationalists. Even if
you win all the seats in the Scottish Parliament with SNP1, SNP2, SNP3 etc. it
will not merely fail to bring you one step nearer to your goal, it
will make it recede still further into the distance
