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In praise of separatism

Jun 7

Posted by James in Constitution | 14 Comments

scotland scissorsSeparatism is a dirty word, apparently. The No campaign use it all the time about those of us who support independence, just as non-nationalists for independence constantly get called nationalists by them too. Aside from partisan naming of US legislation, the independence referendum has been the site of perhaps the most intense linguistic and political battles I’ve ever seen.

I see why “separatism” gets used like that. Togetherness sounds warm and fuzzy. Let’s all have a big British cuddle. And what about your auntie in Bristol? Don’t you want to stay in the same country as her? Would you genuinely rather see a really big pair of scissors cut Scotland adrift, to float off into North Atlantic isolation? It’s a fine bit of rhetoric, even though a fair proportion of those same people would quite happily see us be much less Together with our European friends and family.

And socially, I agree. I’m part English, with countless friends and family members there. And when I say England already feels like a foreign country, for me that’s a compliment, or at least neutral. The Netherlands or Greece or America feel like foreign countries too, and (not being a ‘kipper or a near-‘kipper), I like going there and I like the feeling of being abroad. Differences are sexy.

But then I look at the institutions of the British state: the endless crown to symbolise the people’s powerlessness, the House of Lords to remind us that the gentry should inherit their right to legislate (and an arbitrary subset of bishops too), the corrupt House of Commons with an electoral system designed to preserve the rule of two grim neoliberal parties, the City with its unbalancing greed and unrestrainable influence, and the pound sterling, managed to suit the City rather than the people. I see an uncodified constitution which offers the public no clarity, no protection, and no real democracy, and I see some unpleasant international entanglements too – notably NATO.

I don’t want anything to do with any of them. Not a jot. I may not be a nationalist, but I am a constitutional separatist. I want to be separated from these institutions entirely. I’d love to see my friends in England find a way to make a break from those institutions too (as brilliantly set out here on sparkling blog A Thousand Flowers). But they don’t seem to be making much progress, and I don’t want to wait another thousand years for reform or revolution to fix what’s wrong with the British state. I’d rather Scotland had a chance, nothing more than that, to be a progressive beacon on a hill to inspire the rUK left.

In short, therefore, although I am a signatory to the Business for Scotland pledge (being in business and in favour of independence), I strongly disagree with this post on their site. It’s a small-c conservative position, as one might expect from a business organisation. What we’re offered by the SNP isn’t very inspiring, but if separation from all the institutions of the British state had indeed been on the ballot next year, that might just have lit a spark.

What is The Question?

May 31

Posted by Aidan in Constitution, Holyrood | 4 Comments

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As I prepare for the final exam of my degree I can hear the voices of  my high school English and Modern Studies teachers echoing through my head from the distant past: “remember to answer the question”. Physics and Computing were a bit more straightforward to approach and my chances at Higher Maths had been slightly scuppered by my teacher deciding to go off and manage Berwick Rangers. Alongside not really getting to grips with it, having scraped a 2 in Standard Grade. Mostly the latter if I’m entirely honest. Anyway.

Which isn’t to say they were demanding a simple “yes” or “no”, one of the skills of those kind of exams is to figure out what the question is really asking. In those cases it’s normally prompting at a quick explanation of the issues and then some argument about them. Seems pretty straightforward from a relaxed perspective but, hyped up on a mix of Irn Bru, Roxette and the prospect of getting out of small town Midlothian for the bright lights dark clubs of Glasgow and University figuring out what the question meant in the few minutes available wasn’t always the easier task.

For the referendum, of course, we know the question ahead of time: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

The answers are more Standard Grade multi-guess, we can pick Yes or No and that’s it. No hour to write a justification, just one of two boxes.

That doesn’t mean that it’s not worth considering what the question is actually asking though. You can choose to interpret it a number of ways.

You could, for instance, choose to to interpret it as asking if it means you prefer David Cameron or Alex Salmond to lead the country. I’m not sure that stands up but it’s how the SNP part of Yes sometimes presents itself.

You could also choose to interpret it as asking if you’d prefer Patrick Harvie and Alison Johnstone to either Alex Salmond or David Cameron as the Green part of Yes sometimes presents itself. That stands up even less.

Then there’s interpreting the question as asking if you’d rather the sky fell in and we were given nothing but sackcloth to wear. Not that likely really.

Me? I think the question should be interpreted as asking “Will independence maximise the political freedom of Scottish people in determining their own future?”

Even then that’s a more complicated question than it appears. On an initial glance it’s tempting to answer Yes because smaller political units mean more freedom. Don’t they? Well.. no. Not always. Otherwise what’s the point of government at all? Some times pooling sovereignty with others increases the number of things you can do, provided you get collective agreement to do them. This is something which arguments for withdrawing from the Union but not the European Union implicitly accept, as does the proposal for a currency union post-independence.

There’s obviously some freedoms to be gained from independence, but there would be trade offs as well. The question is really about the balance between those two.

To rephrase the question as a more open ended “please discuss”, it could be framed as “what policy decisions would be opened up and which closed off  by independence?”

That’s a question I’d like to see answers to from both sides. I’ve given it some thought and I think I know what the answers are but you never know, I could be wrong.

Two bald men fighting over a comb

May 16

Posted by James in Constitution, Energy | 5 Comments

Scotland has endured forty years of debate about North Sea oil – who owns it, how much is there, what is it worth, can we afford to burn it, can we afford not to, and so on. It’s been a totemic issue for the SNP, with their early successes in the 1970s built in no small part on the slogan “It’s Scotland’s Oil“. Some on the fringes even believe the marine border between Scotland and the rUK was changed prior to devolution to diminish the proportion that would indeed be Scottish in the event of independence (pro-tip: negotiations over independence won’t be trumped by a Westminster statutory instrument).

More recently, though, there’s been a flurry of excitement from the nationalist side about the reserves that remain and the value of them to a future independent Scotland. There are three problems with this.

First, the argument on increased value is based primarily on a massive (and entirely plausible) projected increase in the cost of oil. The stuff is, after all, finite and globally the more readily accessible portion of it has indeed been used. However, not only do all those revenues not just accrue to Scotland, given we don’t have a nationalised oil industry, as a nation we also use a substantial amount of it. As Chris Skrebowski of the Energy Institute put it in 2008:

Alex Salmond’s predictions are simply wrong. Even with optimistic assumptions about future North Sea oil production, and even if Scotland was allocated all of that production, an independent Scotland would be likely to be a net importer of oil by 2015 or 2016. By that stage, given the global decline in output which has already begun, we will have to buy oil on the open market for two or three times the current price. It’s completely fraudulent to suggest that Scotland can just live off its oil wealth now.

The extent to which high prices benefit us while we remain a net exporter can be debated (i.e. how much of the benefit accrues to the Treasury or a future Scottish exchequer), but as soon as we’re a net importer high prices only hurt us.

oil chartSecond, although Chris’s dates there may be a bit pessimistic, the trends on output are clear. I asked a friend in the oil industry for the 1980-2020 output figures, and the graph to the left shows them for both oil and gas in kboe/day (red is oil, green is gas). The projected rise and fall again between 2012 and 2020 is down to a few factors, notably a couple of new developments plus the closure of Schiehallion during 2014 and 2015 while they replace their FPSO, effectively postponing production there for two years.

The baseline for that graph is zero, too. You’ll hear a lot over the next few years about a boom as oil output goes up from 888kb/d last year to a projected 1,429kb/d in 2016. But it’s just a blip.

The bottom line is this – the glory days of North Sea oil are over, and there is no prospect of anything like the 1999 peak in output being repeated. Last year’s figure is less than a third of that peak, and the long-term trend is down.

The third problem is this. We can’t afford to burn it all, because of a little thing called climate change which the unGreen parties are broadly ignoring, and any valuation of the reserves that assumes we can afford to burn it risks another bubble and crash.

Scotland can afford to be independent, and we are energy-rich, but our true lasting assets are the wind, the wave and the tides, not the dinosaur wine. Arguments with Westminster about who should own the latter are an embarrassing distraction. Even the climate change sceptics should realise that the raw economics make it time to plan for a post-oil economy, to invest in public transport not endless new motorways, to turn planning around so local communities come before commuting, and to switch to supporting low-carbon industries.

Bearding the Tavish in his den

May 11

Posted by James in Constitution | 1 Comment

Last night a debate took place on Shetland. In one corner for The Rumble In The Northern Isles was Tavish Scott, constituency MSP since Holyrood was established, former Minister for Motorways, and a man so supposedly central to the political life of Shetland that when he suggests the Isles might not stay in an independent Scotland, it gets reported as if the rocks themselves had spoken.

On the other side, my friend Ross Greer,18, with experience in the Scottish Youth Parliament, of working hard on some committees of the Scottish Greens, and junior fixer at Yes Scotland. Barely out of nappies when Tavish first campaigned for Parliament.

One might assume it would go like that time I watched Michael Forsyth crush a young Lib Dem for tripping up over his words.

Surely Tavish would sway the waverers with the force of his arguments, his authority, his personality?

But apparently not. Fortunately, a count was taken before and after. At the start, four supported independence, ten opposed, six unsure. By the end, Ross’s side had won round five of the waverers, and Tavish just one: nine in favour and eleven against.

So, no knockout blow. And to be fair, Ross had support from an SNP activist too, so Tavish was outnumbered. Not a majority for independence in the end, either, and tiny numbers, of course, but could this be a straw in the wind as to what happens when a non-nationalist case for independence is made?

Because that’s what Ross appears to have done. Put Tavish on the ropes with rock hard information about Westminster’s practical and policy failings and kept him there with passion for the opportunities an independent Scotland would bring for those who want a fairer and greener country. Read and enjoy the whole thing here on Shetland News.

Oh, and don’t tell Ross I posted this. He’ll be furious with me for not managing expectations downward. #pro

Questions for Better Together

May 9

Posted by Guest Blog in Constitution | 7 Comments

A guest today from Keir Liddle on those infamous 500 questions, as lovingly parodied on Twitter. He read them all, which might save you a lot of time. Thanks Keir!

No CampaignThe state of discourse in Scottish politics is often remarked on poorly. From the bright beginnings of the politics of consensus at Holyrood it was relatively free from the tribalism and point scoring that haunts Westminster spectacles such as Prime Minister’s Questions. Sadly, attitudes have changed, and, as parties contest votes each dearly believes is theirs by right, tribalism and point scoring has become the order of the day.

Though this criticism, as far as I know, does not generally extend to formal critiques of the rhetoric used. With that in mind I thought I would have a wee swatch at the Better Together campaign’s latest offering: “500 Questions”.

Around 2,700 odd words later – and with a general failure to meet my high minded intentions – the sheer weight of the 500 questions, though there are actually quite a lot fewer, caused me to collapse in a frustrated singularity of thwarted academic ambition. So you see before you my second attempt.

I specifically want to look at Better Together’s 500 questions through the lens of the Cooperative Principle. Plundered from the mind of Paul Grice (the philosopher, not Parliament’s Chief Executive) and used in the social sciences generally and linguistics specifically, this principle describes how people interact with one another. It is composed of four maxims (Grice’s Maxims), as follows:

Maxim of Quality: Be Truthful
Do not say what you believe to be false.
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of Quantity : Quantity of Information
Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Maxim of Relation: Relevance
Be relevant.

Maxim of Manner: Be Clear
Avoid obscurity of expression.
Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
Be orderly.

These maxims vary culturally but luckily we inhabit a culture where they, for the most part, are adhered to. Right off the bat you can probably guess that the maxim of quantity is going to be relevant to the 500 Questions document. Asking such a volume of questions in one go breaches this maxim, and, as such, hints that the purpose of the Better Together document may not actually be to seek answers but rather to inexpertly attempt to sow doubt about the case for independence.

Put simply, it is nigh on impossible to take in the sheer volume of information offered in the 500 Questions leaflet. It took me a Herculean effort to parse and process them all earlier today and I had to give up reading the document on at least three separate occasions due to reading fatigue. In this sense arguably the document also breaches the maxim of manner in respect to its prolixity (or if I am to obey the maxim of manner – its tedious length). This fatigue is made worse given much of the information is needless repetition or the breaking down of questions in to unnecessary sub-questions.

So I now put it to Better Together that any pretence that this was a genuine attempt at gathering information or seeking answers for the Scottish electorate was naught but a thinly veiled ruse (and one that plays to the long term electoral strategy of the Labour Party in Scotland by casting doubt on Salmond and the SNP to boot).

There are a couple of questions that assume answers to questions asked previously in the 500 Questions document. A notable example are the questions relating to embassies:

“How many embassies and consuls would and independent Scotland have around the globe?”
The next two questions continue this theme: interestingly though, they note that their question has been answered and has been answered to the best of the current ability of the Scottish Government. This would seem to indicate that the question did not need asked in the first place:

“The Deputy First Minister has said than an independent Scotland would have 100 embassies and consuls compared with 2070 the UK currently has. In what countries would an independent Scotland set up embassies and consuls?”
“How long would it take before those 100 embassies and consuls of an independent Scotland were operational?”

Another point worthy of note is that in this example, and indeed in many, many more littered throughout the document, the two separate questions here could easily have been compounded into one single question. This would have saved Better Together some space and allowed them to ask many more of the burning questions they have about independence (unless of course they don’t actually have any and were getting a bit desperate to hit 500). The most egregious examples of Better Together “getting their money’s worth” from a question are undoubtedly when they ask what will happen with the Scottish military and the Post Office.

In considering the Post Office, Better Together abandon the pretence that their repeated or component questions are separate questions altogether, except in their numbering scheme, by asking:
356. Will a separate Scotland have a Universal Service Obligation (USO) which guarantees:
357. At least one delivery of letters every Monday to Saturday to every address in the UK?
358. At least one collection of letters every Monday to Saturday from every access point in the UK that is used to receive letters and postal packets for onward transmission?
359. Postal services at an affordable, uniform tariff across the UK?
360. A registered items service at an affordable public tariff?
361. An insured items service at an affordable public tariff?
362. A free-of-charge postal service to blind or partially sighted people?
363. And free carriage of legislative petitions and addresses?

Even the least eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that this is one multipoint question, at best, and numbering 356 as a question in its own right, or indeed all that follow from it, as separate questions is either bad proof-reading, terrible grammar or downright dishonesty to reach that magic number 500.

The defence, security and foreign affairs section appears to contain 44 questions, but in reality it contains far fewer: for example, questions 30 to 35 are basically all subtle variations on question 29:

“An independent Scotland would no longer be protected by the British Armed Forces, would new Scottish Armed forces units be created?”

The following five questions are simply variations on this theme asking exactly which new units would be created (a similar trick is attempted towards the end of the document referring to military intelligence and other specialist services). It’s fair enough to labour the point, I suppose, but it does make you wonder what questions Better Together deemed less important than asking the same question six times in a row?

The questions following that appear to want the Yes Campaign or Scottish Government (you get the impression that the two are being treated as one and the same as is Unionist tradition) to produce in detail its entire defence budget and deployment plans. Now that only sounds reasonable if you fail to consider that this budget and the subsequent deployment plans are largely contingent on the result of negotiations between a newly formed independent Scotland and the rUK.

As such I would suggest that this question, and again many, many more like it in the document, break the maxim of relevance. Not because it is irrelevant to ask these questions but because they are being asked to the wrong people, or at best they are not being directed at all the right people.

To answer this question on defence (and indeed most if not all of the following questions: 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 44, 48, 51, 95, 96, 138, 98, 99, 112, 113, 116, 137, 138, 139, 430, 437, 438, 440, 441, 468, 469, 470, 471, 472, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477 – this list is likely not to be comprehensive) the Yes Campaign need to know the likely results of negotiations following a yes vote. The only way to determine that is to enter into pre-negotiation with Westminster over these issues. This is something polls seem to indicate the Scottish people would welcome but understandably it doesn’t appear to be a risk Westminster wants to take. Regardless, it poses an interesting question for Better Together:

“Will Better Together lobby for UK Ministers to sit down with Scottish Ministers and negotiate their position on the issues referenced by the questions above and answer their questions?”

There are a number of questions which indicate that Better Together seems to think such discussions or pre-negotiations should already have taken place, most notably in the pensions section where they, a political campaign backed by both the parties of government at Westminster, ask what discussions have already taken place. However there are many more questions that ask the Yes Campaign, the Scottish Government or the SNP to detail what their stance is on the membership of many and various international and European organisations and this prompts me to ask:

“Do Better Together now support allowing the Scottish Government to approach Europe and seek answers on these issues?”

Would Better together lobby the Westminster government to seek answers on the Scottish Government’s behalf should the EU be unwilling to negotiate? Taking the document at face value, and assuming that Grice’s maxims have been followed, the answer to all of the above three questions (I am being far more charitable to any Better Together readers than they were to anyone who downloaded and read theirs!) must assuredly be “Yes”. Which is a bold move and an interesting gamble, but one that does appear to capture the mood of the Scottish electorate.

As such I think all sides should not just consider this to be a poor piece of ill-thought out spin, a desperate, tiresome and tedious exercise in continuing a massively negative campaign because they couldn’t think of 500 reasons to stay in the union, but rather consider this to be Better Together “grasping the thistle” and demanding answers, not just of the SNP, Scottish government and Yes campaign, but of Westminster, of Europe and of many international organisations.

A bit of a gamble for them, all told. But good on them for this genuine attempt to get Holyrood and Westminster around the same table and to work out just exactly what we will be voting for next year.

(PS. For those in Gretna worried about an international border interfering with their weekly shop – the 79 apparently stops outside the Tesco in Annan and takes about 29 minutes. Failing that it seems to be less than a half hour drive to the superstore in Dumfries)