Since May everything has gone quiet. I sometimes
wonder if the Scottish nationalist body is sleeping or else that it has died
from lack of interest. Sturgeon is tired and irritable. She is only 51, but there
is increasing speculation about her retirement. It wasn’t so much the Covid
virus that did for us as her exposure to Salmondella. The strain was virulent
and the strain on Sturgeon’s bowels exhausting. If Scottish independence is the
promised land, then Sturgeon is Aaron to Salmond’s Moses and neither will see
it.
But the Scottish nationalist corpse still twitches.
Angus Robertson grabs you by the ankles as if it is the end of Nightmare on Indyref
Street Part 23. The plot is very familiar by now. Perhaps Robertson is merely hamming
it up for the Indy Marchers and the other fundamentalists. But no with Kenny
MacAskill’s intervention we can shout out like Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein
“It's alive! It's alive!”
Do Robertson and MacAskill compare notes even though they
are now in different parties or is it merely the natural tendency of Scottish
nationalism to imitate its green hooped Irish equivalent. But there is a sea
separating Glasgow and Belfast and this means contrary to Robertson that the
Belfast Agreement does not apply in Scotland and sets no precedents.
If we had known now how the Belfast Agreement would be
used by Ireland and the EU, I’m not sure that we would have signed it. The
people of Northern Ireland might have been still more reluctant to agree to it.
But peace treaties are not always ideal when both sides are capable of continuing
to fight. Each side then has to make concessions to the other. The British Government
made a concession to the IRA that it could have a border poll if the majority
of the people in Northern Ireland wanted one.
We did this to stop IRA terrorism. If there had been
no terrorism, there would have been no need for the treaty. Was it worth it?
That’s really for the people of Northern Ireland to decide. But it is important
to realise that the Belfast Agreement was signed under duress. The implicit
threat was if you don’t sign it, we will continue to bomb you. It is for this reason
above all that it is distasteful for the Irish Government and the EU to try to
leverage this peace treaty for their own ends. They take advantage of what the
terrorists did. It is even more distasteful for Robertson to suppose that it
applies to Scotland.
Nowhere else in Europe is one state allowed to claim
the territory of another. It doesn’t matter that German speakers live in the South
Tyrol and that it used to be part of Austria. There would be outrage if Austria
had a long-term foreign policy of annexing part of Italy. There is no prospect
of a border poll anywhere in Europe, no matter if a majority wants one. There
is also no prospect of a part of any EU member state being allowed to secede
from another, because it was a kingdom some hundreds of years ago. The
boundaries of Europe are everywhere fixed except in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Scotland did not have decades of terrorism. There was
no peace treaty between the Scottish Republican Army and the British
Government. Alex Salmond and Ian Blackford did not go on hunger strike nor did
Kenny MacAskill engage in a dirty protest. The closest Scotland came to the IRA
was singing about it and pretending to be involved in the armed struggle at
football matches. So contrary to Robertson the Belfast Agreement does not apply
to Scotland.
MacAskill is 63. He is one of two Alba MPs. But
neither were elected as Alba MPs they merely defecated due to Salmondella. Will
Alba stand at the next election and split the nationalist vote? Even if it
does, it is unlikely that MacAskill will retain his seat. So, he is seeing his
career ending and if there isn’t an independence referendum soon MacAskill will
be no better off than Aaron and Moses. There is therefore a hint of desperation
in his proposal to imitate Sinn Féin in not sending MPs to Westminster.
There is an obvious problem with imitating Sinn Féin’s
strategy. It hasn’t worked for Sinn Féin. The Belfast Agreement did not happen
because Sinn Féin refused to send MPs to Westminster, but rather because the
IRA murdered people. The only obvious change if the SNP withdrew its MPS would
be that there would be a still greater chance of their being a Conservative majority.
It would moreover make a mockery of SNP complaints that Scotland is losing two
MPs due to boundary changes, it then went on to withdraw all of them.
MacAskill thinks that these withdrawn MPs could vote
for Scotland to be independent or failing this that the Scottish Parliament
could do so. But 59 MPs meeting in a pub who happen to be from Scotland does
not a Parliament make and constitutional matters are outwith the control of the
Scottish Parliament.
Of course, independence has sometimes in history been
achieved by self-appointed groups, but if you go down the revolutionary route
you had better be sure that you have the overwhelming support of the electorate
behind you, otherwise you are likely to look foolish at best, end up in jail at
worst.
The problem for Scottish nationalism is to achieve
Scottish independence in such a way that it does not destroy the Scottish
economy. Scots are going to resent anyone who leaves us massively worse off. Some
of us may be persuaded to vote for independence if it leaves our life-style
intact, but few are fanatical enough to live in a cave like Robert the Bruce
with only spiders to eat.
Robertson and MacAskill are impatient, which sees them
going down the revolutionary road. But if you succeeded in forcing the British
Government to give in to your demands, or if you succeeded somehow in declaring
independence in a revolutionary act, all you would do would be to achieve an
independent Scotland recognised by no one and with no international agreements
or cooperation. MacAskill and Robertson’s impatience would merely turn Scotland
in South Ossetia, Abkhazia or Transnistria, places most of us would struggle to
find on a map.
Scottish nationalism to succeed depends on friendly
relations with the former UK and an amicable divorce. Without that Scotland has
zero chance of joining the EU. There is no right to an independence referendum
no matter what Scottish nationalists think. So, you cannot batter on the door by
pretending that the Belfast Agreement applies. Nor can you suggest that Scottish
MPs or the Scottish Parliament can take matters into their own hand to repeal
the Act of Union. The UK is a sovereign nation state. It is not a union of independent
states, equal or not. It is not a union at all. It was a union in 1707. But to
think that it is still is, is to suppose that a child is the same as its mother
and father. The UK is not a union. It is the result of a union.
The only route forward for the Scottish nationalist corpse
is patience. If when we get back to where we were prior to the pandemic, there comes
a point when it becomes clear that the overwhelming majority in Scotland want
independence then it may happen because I very much doubt that the British
electorate would want Scotland to stay under those circumstances. The same
applies to Northern Ireland.
Rather than plotting rebellion it would make more sense
if MacAskill and Robertson applied themselves to making Scotland wealthier,
more efficient and productive. If in the future this made us less dependent on
Westminster money, we might actually be able to afford independence, which might
see support for it increase.
Unfortunately for MacAskill if he succeeded in withdrawing
Scottish nationalist MPs, the British Government might decide to withdraw the block
grant to Scotland as well as those MPs salaries, which might leave them like members
of the tartan army in London who having blown all their money on booze are
sleeping off their hangover on a London street smelling of last nights drink.
The smell would be still worse if they had caught Salmondella.
