I have been writing less since the Scottish Parliament
election. The mood has changed. It is partly because it is summer. I have been
more interested in using the sunshine to travel around Scotland than write
about Scottish politics. But it’s not just me. Both sides of the constitutional
divide spent the year or so before the election building up to the vote only to
discover that we had reached a sort of stalemate with neither side able to move
forward.
During the early stages of the pandemic support for
Scottish independence increased, because Scots saw Nicola Sturgeon on their TV
screens every day, but since April this year it has become clear that neither
Brexit nor the pandemic is going to push support for Scottish independence
above the critical 60% mark which would give the SNP a good chance of winning.
The stalemate is that enough Scots support the SNP to guarantee them permanent government
in Scotland and the vast majority of seats at a General Election, but political
support for the party of independence does not fully translate into support for
independence itself.
The reason for this is the economic situation that
Scotland finds itself in. Many Scots have concluded that they want independence
theoretically, but they do not think for the moment that we can afford it. If
Scotland was running a surplus, breaking even, or even perhaps running a small
deficit, then it might be possible for the SNP to be confident of winning a
poll on independence. But we are not.
Scotland’s economy is worse than it was in 2014, partly
because of the pandemic, partly because of the decline in oil. But the strategic
situation is worse too. Brexit increased support for independence because of Remainer
Scots seeing independence as a route to rejoining the EU. But it is not
accidental that neither the Lib Dems nor Labour will campaign to rejoin at the next
General Election and the same argument applies in Scotland too.
Brexit has not been the disaster that Remainers
predicted. It is unimaginable that Britain would have gone it alone over
vaccines if we had still been part of the EU. Scots benefited from this. The EU’s
Pandemic Recover Fund will be used by the EU to increase political control and
bring the 27 member states closer to political union. If the UK were to rejoin
the EU it could only be on condition that we fully signed up to Europe, Schengen,
the Euro and the loss of our previous rebate. We would therefore pay more for
an EU membership that we have discovered in the past years that we do not need
to be prosperous and successful. We would have to discard any trade deals we
will make in the years ahead such as with Australia only to have to accept
those aspects of the EU such as federalism which have never been popular in
Britain even with Remainers.
But the same argument goes for Scotland too. Scots may
have wanted to remain part of the EU that existed in 2016, but that is no
longer on offer. The contradiction inherent in “independence in Europe” is going
to become ever clearer as the EU makes clear to Hungary and Poland that they
will have to change their ways or not receive anything from the Recovery Fund.
The Scottish Parliament would have less power if Scotland were an EU member
state, because it would have to give up control over those areas that the EU
controls.
The dilemma of Brexit is that if Scots choose independence
in the EU, it would lead inevitably to a hard border with England, tariffs and trade
controls at the border, because Scotland could not have an independent trade
policy within the EU. But we trade far less with the EU than with the other
parts of Britain and would have to use English roads and ports to get our goods
to the continent. The loss of membership of the UK internal market would not be
compensated by membership of the EU’s Single Market, not least because English
customers might be reluctant to buy Scottish goods and services if they were no
longer domestic.
But the alternative of not joining the EU looks even
less attractive. Scotland would start life as an independent state with no
trade relationship either with the EU or the former UK. There would be no recovery
fund either from the UK or the EU if there were another crisis.
Scotland in its present economic state would be brave
indeed to vote next year or the year after for complete independence. Both the
2008 economic crisis and the pandemic have shown how we rely on the Bank of
England’s ability to borrow and how we have relied on the British Government to
pay our wages, keep our businesses going and supply us with vaccines. Nicola
Sturgeon may be on TV, but it was not her government that supplied the money or
the medicine needed to keep us well. She may say that Scotland could have done
just as well in the pandemic if we had been on our own. But how? Scotland does
not have a central bank with a track record of paying back debt and we live beyond
our means to such an extent that markets would only lend to us at a high rate
of interest.
Yet support for independence remains high. Support for
the SNP that continually threatens a vote on independence, that would be a coin
toss, is if anything still higher. The SNP uses its power to spend ever more UK
tax payer’s money, which means Scotland is ever more dependent on Britain and ever
less ready for independence, but perversely uses this money to increase its own
support and support for independence. The result is stalemate. Independence
supporters want independence with present levels of public spending, but that
level depends on a British Government they reject. It means like Augustine they
pray “Lord make me independent, but not yet.”
How to get out of the impasse? Independence supporters
ought to focus on the economic fundamentals. Scotland must spend less and earn
more. But this project would take years and they are impatient. Worse if the
SNP did try to live within its means, support for both the SNP and independence
would fall. So, we are left with Scots wanting independence, but not wanting
what it would involve. No wonder support for it decreases whenever the prospect
of a second independence referendum increases.
The Pro UK side of the argument must focus on two
things. Polling organisations still use the 2014 question with a Yes/No answer.
It must be made clear by the British Government that if there were ever to be a
second referendum, the question would be Leave/Remain. We must also argue that
the franchise for any referendum would involve all those people who would be
citizens in an independent Scotland.
The SNP proposed in 2014 that all British citizens habitually
living in Scotland would have the right to Scottish citizenship plus anyone
born in Scotland or with a Scottish parent or grandparent. Logically if someone
were to have the right to a Scottish passport in an independent Scotland such a
person should have the right to choose if he wants one.
At present the SNP has extended the franchise in
Scotland so that everyone with the right to live in Scotland would have a vote.
This means that people who would not intend to become Scottish passport
holders, have the right to chose whether Scotland should leave the UK, but
Scots who would become Scottish passport holders living outside Scotland would
not have that right. This is unjust for a variety of reasons.
In 2014 Theresa May made it clear that there was no
guarantee that Scottish citizens could remain British citizens. There is a very
good argument for the British Government going further than this by ruling out
dual Scottish/British citizenship. Irish citizens who had been born British
citizens like my grandfather had to chose in 1948 whether they wished to be
British or Irish. Citizens of the Soviet Union are not automatically citizens
of Russia and leaving the EU meant that British citizens lost their EU citizenship
and with it free movement in the EU.
Independence involves a choice and Scots cannot expect
to have free movement both in the EU and the former UK. Minds need to be concentrated
and independence supporters must accept that it would involve both gains and
losses.
But it is for this reason that Scots living outside
Scotland should be asked if they want independence. If a Scot living in Bath
campaigns for independence, we can assume that he would want a Scottish
passport. But if the British Government refused to allow dual Scottish/British
citizenship, this would mean he would lose the right to live in Bath unless he
obtained leave to remain in the former UK. No doubt this would be granted to
long time residents, but he would not necessarily have all of the rights that a
British citizen had, because he would now be a foreigner living in Bath. Other Scots living in the former UK might
decide that they preferred to be British citizens, but this would mean that
they would have no automatic right to live and work in Scotland. But clearly an
issue that might lead a Scot not to have the right to live in Scotland, should
be a matter that he has a say over.
At the moment polling about Scottish independence is
skewed in two ways. The question is unfair and only Scottish residents are
asked their opinion. It is completely unjust that someone living in Scotland
who may have arrived very recently and who doesn’t even speak English, should
be able to decide Scotland’s future, while someone born and raised in Scotland,
but working in England cannot.
If all those who would become Scottish citizens were
allowed a say on independence it would change the argument, because it would
involve those Scots who have particularly benefited from their British citizenship
because it gave them the right to live and work anywhere in Britain. If
independence meant losing the automatic right to live and work in the other
parts of the UK, far fewer Scots would vote for it. They would no longer be
able to take over London without a visa.
This would break the stalemate because it would show
that the overwhelming majority of Scots, as defined by the SNP in 2014, wanted
Scotland to remain a part of the UK. With independence off the agenda, it might
be possible for Scottish politics to focus on making Scotland a more pleasant and
prosperous place for all of us.
