We have learned this year that devolution is a bigger
mess than we thought. Some people in
Britain have mayors without devolved parliament, others have devolved parliaments
without mayors. Others still have neither a mayor nor a devolved parliament.
Manchester gets to delay going into tier three lockdown because it has a mayor
demanding money from the Government before it does so. But Mansfield only has
its MP so has to do what it’s told.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have parliaments,
but each have different powers. Northern Ireland’s parliament has power
sharing, but the others do not. England doesn’t have a parliament at all. The British
Government controls health, education and all of the other devolved powers only
in England. But this means Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish MPs vote on
matters that affect only England, while English MPs cannot vote on those same matters
when they apply to Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland.
If Labour and the SNP had formed a coalition Government
after the last election, there might have been an SNP health minister telling
Manchester it had to be in lockdown. But that same SNP health minister would have
no say on whether Glasgow was in lockdown nor indeed over any other health
matter in Scotland.
When Tony Blair’s Government introduced devolution, no
one suggested it would involve the Scottish Parliament shutting the non-existent
border between England and Scotland, let alone the Welsh parliament, which had
only narrow support when it began, doing the same with England. If anyone had
suggested such a thing it would have been dismissed as preposterous.
Now in response to some polls suggesting support for
the SNP and Scottish independence increasing we have a leaked report from an
organisation called Hanbury that the solution is to give Scotland still more devolution.
It is worth noting that Hanbury was set up by David
Cameron’s former director of strategy. It is hard to think of someone other
than Tony Blair who has done more damage to the UK than David Cameron. His strategy
of giving Alex Salmond as long as he wanted to campaign for independence with a
question of the SNP’s choice was what caused the surge in support for Scottish
nationalism in the first place. It was the independence campaign itself that fuelled
support for the SNP. If Cameron had simply said “I’m sorry Alex” the UK is one
country indivisible. There would have been mutterings and some people would
have said it was undemocratic, but there would not have been the surge of
support for independence from 25% to 45% and now 55%.
It was Cameron and Cameron alone whose arrogance and
stupidity led him to think that he could win a referendum on Scottish independence
easily. He nearly didn’t win it at all. That same arrogance and stupidity meant
he thought he could win a referendum on EU membership. Perhaps Hanbury guided
his strategy then too.
There are really only two things that you can do to
defend the UK that will work permanently.
1. You have to make clear that the whole of the UK is
British territory and we will defend it like every other country in Europe
defends its territory. If you keep offering referendums on secession you will
eventually lose.
2. You have to make devolution to apply to every British
citizen equally.
It is no good giving Scotland still more power. SNP
supporters are completely uninterested in what goes on in the Scottish
Parliament. The Smith Commission gave the Scottish Parliament more powers. Did
this in anyway lessen support for the SNP? No. But Scottish nationalists still
go on about “The Vow” being betrayed.
There is no point begging the EU not to allow Scotland
to join after independence. The EU hates Britain and cannot be trusted on this
issue. It might give Scotland a special deal just to spite us. Spain has solved
its Catalan problem, by saying No and meaning it, so it might well be willing
to accommodate Scotland.
What you need to do to deter those Scots tempted to vote
for Scottish nationalism is to make absolutely clear what it would involve.
This is where a Canadian style Clarity Act is crucial.
There are two sorts of secession movements. There is
the sort like in Catalonia, Flanders or Lombardy where a rich region wants to
secede from a poorer whole. The EU did not support Catalan independence because
if Catalonia had become an EU member state with the same rights as it had
before, then it would indeed have been better off than Spain as a whole. This
would have set a precedent that could have been followed in other parts of
Europe. The EU would have fallen apart.
The other type of secession movement is in places like
Scotland and Wales, where a poor region wants to secede from a richer whole. Some
Scottish nationalists think it would be worth being poorer if only we could be free
from the English. Others mistakenly think that Scotland is richer than the UK
as a whole. SNP propaganda is good enough to make them believe this, but they
would discover the truth if Scotland became independent.
The problem then is one of communication not one of truth.
Scotland really would be financially poorer if it ceased to receive the subsidy
it receives from the UK treasury. Brexit would make Scotland poorer still, both
financially and because as Britain will no longer be an EU member there is no
guarantee that Scots would have the same rights in the former UK as we have
now.
The task is to make this argument. It is true that the
Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative opposition is pitiful. This is mainly because none
of them are willing to use Brexit as an argument against Scottish independence
because they are nearly all Remainers. We
have excellent arguments, but they are not being heard. Sort the problem of
communication, which is due to the media and the lack of talented Pro UK politicians
in Scotland and you will begin to convince voters. A majority of Scots will not
vote to be poorer so long as they know and believe this.
If you want to give Scots new powers give it to them
on a local level. Go beyond the Scottish parliament and bypass it. But above
all recognise that lopsided devolution is the source of the problem and if you
make devolution still more lopsided you will increase the problem in the long
term rather than alleviate it.
There are people who think federalism is the solution.
But Spain has federalism and it was only defeated because the Spanish Government
was willing to say No and mean it. The United States Government would say the
same. Would the SNP be willing to give up the goal of independence in exchange
for federalism? No of course not. So how does it solve the problem?
The task is to undo the mess created by Tony Blair which
was made worse by David Cameron. The ideal solution would be if Scotland had
five regional parliaments each representing around a million people. The other
parts of the UK could have the same. This would not merely equalise devolution across
Britain so that every voter had the same power, it would also take away the
national aspect of these parliaments. If you want to stop Scottish nationalism,
first say No and mean it, then use local parliaments to undermine it.
