If Alister Jack is correct that there won’t be a
second independence referendum for 25-40 years, then that would mean the SNP
would have a minimum of 19 years to wait.
Alex Salmond would be 84.
Nicola Sturgeon would be 69.
Given that it would take a few years to organise a referendum
and given that if it were won it would take a few years to actually achieve independence
then we can add a minimum of five years to that number.
It begins to look like Mr Salmond will play the role
of Moses, never destined to reach the Promised Land. It’s hard to believe that
Sturgeon will still be leader when she is 69, so it would have to be a new
generation that led the fight.
But if the British Government can say No to a second
independence referendum for 19 years, they can equally well say No for forty
years and if they can say No for forty years they can say No for ever. This I
think is really what they are saying. You had your chance. We gave you the
right to set the question. We gave you the chance to set the date. You asked
the people of Scotland, they said No. The margin wasn’t that close. 10% is a
landslide in a General Election. It wins the whole Electoral College in a presidential
election. It’s over.
Sturgeon of course complained that Mr Jack’s statement
was undemocratic. She said
As we’re seeing across
the Atlantic just now, politicians who rage against democracy don’t prevail.
But it is a poor example. Donald Trump is opposed to
secession in the United States, but so too is Joe Biden. The United States only
is a united country because it fought a war against secession. The Confederacy
used exactly the same argument as Nicola Sturgeon. The North voted for Abraham
Lincoln, but the South didn’t. This gives us the democratic right to vote for independence.
Sturgeon’s argument is exactly the same. Scotland didn’t vote for Brexit and Tories,
but England did. That gives us the right to vote for independence. If Sturgeon
were right, there would be no United States Presidential Election.
There is no question that British elections are free
and fair. No one questions counting the votes. If there is any electoral fraud
it is small scale. We have in the past few years had a number of referendums
and elections that have been bitterly fought. But while people have questioned
the legitimacy of campaigns, no one has seriously suggested that the counting
was wrong. People from all parties and none oversee the counts. We accept them
and trust them. This is why nothing like what has happened in the USA over the
past few days has happened here.
When Sturgeon complains about a lack of democracy, she
doesn’t mean that the vote in either General Elections or Scottish Parliament
elections is unfair. What she means is that she thinks that it is undemocratic
to not allow Scotland to have a vote on secession when it pleases.
But let’s look at this issue. If Scotland were independent
would Nicola Sturgeon allow a part of Scotland to vote to become independent?
The answer of course is No.
When Ireland decided to leave the UK, this was
considered by Irish secessionists to be legitimate. But somehow it was also
considered illegitimate for Northern Ireland to leave Ireland. Not only was it
illegitimate for Northern Ireland to leave, it would also have been illegitimate
for Munster, or Leinster or Connaught to leave.
The unfairness of this is obvious. If Scotland can
vote to leave the United Kingdom then logically any part of Scotland could vote
to stay in the United Kingdom, just as Northern Ireland did. But if that were
to be allowed then only those parts of Scotland that voted for independence
could be expected to become independent. The rest would remain in the UK and would
not be dragged out against their will. This of course would make Scottish
independence impossible, because unless the SNP could expect to win every
region, independence would equal partition.
It is not remotely undemocratic to refuse a second referendum
on independence, not least because the word “democratic” is used to describe
countries which make referendums on independence illegal. Not one member of the
European Union would allow a part to have a referendum on independence. Is
Nicola Sturgeon going to call every European Union member state undemocratic.
If she does so, does she think she will prevail.
In Britain there has up to now been a political convention
that has suggested that the four parts of the United Kingdom had the right to
leave if they so pleased. This convention still applies to Northern Ireland
because the people of Northern Ireland voted to ratify the Belfast Agreement.
But I fear this political convention no longer applies to Wales, Scotland or England.
The SNP’s task is this. They have to win a vote for an
independence referendum in Westminster. It doesn’t matter one little bit if
they win half the seats at Holyrood or all of them. The reason it doesn’t
matter is that Holyrood is merely a devolved parliament that cannot decide
constitutional matters. If the SNP can persuade the Parliament at Westminster
to give it a majority on a bill proposing a second referendum on independence
it can have one. This will be perfectly democratic. If it can’t persuade
Westminster, this will also be perfectly democratic. It is a pity, but the SNP
are rather outnumbered at Westminster, which means that likelihood is that they
will lose and continue to lose indefinitely. Not being able to win a vote in
Parliament is perfectly democratic.
Likewise it is unfortunate, but because constitutional
matters are reserved it doesn’t matter how many MSPs the SNP has in the
Scottish Parliament, they still won’t be able to decide about independence or a
second referendum, because it is not a matter, they are legally able to decide.
That too is democratic.
It has been conventional in Scotland to think that if
Scotland alone says it wants an independence referendum that is enough and that
this is what it is to be democratic. But no one in the United States thinks
that it is enough if Texas says it wants to leave the USA because it voted for
Trump but got Biden. No one in France thinks that Corsica alone can decide to
leave. No one in Germany thinks that Heligoland can vote to rejoin Britain
which it left in 1890. Only Sturgeon thinks she has the right to unilaterally
decide that she should have a vote on independence. When you are alone and obsessively fixated on
something it is worth being careful lest you are accused of monomania.
Whenever Scottish nationalists argue that it is unfair
that Scotland should not be given a referendum on independence because we are
supposed to be a union of equals, I always reply that we are not a union at
all. The Union of 1707 created a single child called Great Britain. There is no
union now in the same way a child of a marriage (a union) is not itself a union.
The United Kingdom is one nation. We are as united as France, or Germany or the
USA.
Alister Jack is suggesting that just as votes on
secession will are forbidden in the USA so they are forbidden in the UK. The
problem for Sturgeon is that unless she tries to do something illegal, the UK
position will prevail, because it is not merely legal it is democratic and
there is not a thing the SNP can do to challenge this. They can huff and they
can puff, but in the end, they will have to hold an illegal referendum, a
revolt or a war of independence because they have no other means to their goal.
We can stop you for twenty-five years. We can stop you
for forty years. We can stop you forever. There isn’t a thing you can do about
it. Rejoice in your polls with fake questions from organisations that are paid
to say you are winning but realise that none of these things matter. You and
your children and your children’s children will all be dead before there is
Scottish independence.
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