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Why the SNP should consider pushing the referendum back to 2015

Mar 7

Posted by Jeff in Constitution | 23 Comments

One school of thought surrounding the SNP’s scheduling of an Autumn 2014 independence referendum is that the haunting spectre of another five years of Tory Government after the 2015 General Election will veer Scots towards a Yes vote. The current problem with this strategy of course is that Labour are currently 13% up in the polls.

This inconvenience should not have come as a surprise to anyone within Yes Scotland. Incumbent political parties that go on to win handsome election victories often lag far behind in the midterm polls.
The SNP trailed Labour by double digits nine months shy of the 2011 Holyrood elections, Michael Howard’s Tories kept pace with Labour for over a year before being thumped by the irrepressible Tony Blair in 2005 while John Major famously snatched victory from Kinnock’s jowls of defeat in 1997, contrary to what the polls had been saying. Even political rock’n’roll star Barack Obama trailed the Republicans for most of his first term, ultimately winning a second with relative ease late last year.

The clue as to who will win the next election often lies with leaders’ personal approval ratings. Gray never struck the necessary chord with the Scottish public, Brits agreed that Howard had something of the night about him and Kinnock never went beyond being ‘alright’ in the public’s minds. All were electorally eviscerated accordingly, despite the commanding poll leads their parties had enjoyed.

Ed Miliband appears to be very much a similar pretender to that longed for throne. Labour’s 13% poll lead is not mirrored in the party leader’s ratings given Miliband is less popular than Cameron right across the country, except for a very slender lead in Scotland (29% approval to Cameron’s 26%). For a Labour leader to be jostling for popularity with a Conservative leader north of the border is practically unheard of.

In a referendum context, these somewhat contradictory statistics are bad news for Yes Scotland and good news for Labour. It is fair to say that the public broadly do not understand the nuances of political polls and would largely expect a Labour majority in 2015, and vote in Autumn 2014 accordingly.

And if the threat of a Tory Government was a reason to vote Yes, then the promise of a Labour Government must surely be a reason to vote No.

Many Nats, in their best Charge of the Light Brigade fashion, will argue that nothing can be done, that the die has been cast and that the Autumn 2014 date is immovable. Not so.

The Holyrood term runs from 2011 to 2016 with the Westminster terms from 2010 to 2015 and 2015 to 2020. The Scottish Government could therefore decide to hold the referendum in the Autumn of 2015, still within its current term but quite possibly several months into a Tory Government’s new term.

It’s a gamble; and there are downsides, of course:

The SNP has set its stall out for an 18 month handover between the referendum date and Scotland’s first post-independence elections in Spring 2016. A new timetable would push this back a year into 2017 with the thorny question being whether devolved Holyrood elections would be required when the current term runs out. An SNP victory would be likely in such an event but a devolved Labour Government being tasked with thrashing out a deal with the UK Government would be unpalatable. Issues surrounding a mandate for the treatment of Trident is one obvious can of worms.

A further concern would be the quite reasonable headlines suggesting that Yes Scotland is running scared, that it is already beginning the ‘neverendum’ process of delay and dither to suit its purposes. These headlines would be short lived but potentially damaging nonetheless.

However, the overriding objective for Yes Scotland is getting to 50% and a post-2015 Tory Government with few (if any) Scottish MPs may well be deemed a better environment in which to reach this threshold than the false sense of security of Labour surging misleadingly in the polls.

The SNP gambling on the general election outcome and holding the independence referendum in Autumn 2015 is therefore surely worthy of consideration. Scotland won’t be hosting the Commonwealth Games or the Ryder Cup that year, but it will host the Orienteering Championships, and appositely so for a Yes camp who may require to know their bearings more accurately come then.

Walk The Solidarity Talk

Feb 21

Posted by Natalie in Constitution, Democracy, Equality, Europe, Governance, Holyrood, Westminster | 5 Comments

boots

At Glasgow City Council Full Council today one of the issues debated- and finding a rare moment of relative harmony between bitter Labour and SNP factions – was that of the Bedroom Tax;  with the Labour Party and the SNP agreeing to an amendment asking Nicola Sturgeon to consider using Scottish Government powers to offset the worst effects of it.

All admirable sentiments, and worthwhile doing – after all it is the role of the Scottish Government to act in the best interests of the Scottish people – but can the Scottish Government always be expected to legislate to mitigate the worst effects of policy decisions taken at Westminster?

Evidently I am absolutely in favour of the Scottish Government intervening to protect the most vulnerable in Scottish society, and in fact I have some suggestions based on a huge amount of research I have been taking on the Bedroom Tax in my employed capacity. There are actions that the Scottish Government can take, and I am sure that all SNP MSPs and councillors will be pressing them to explore any and all suggested options.

In the first instance, Govan Law Centre has made suggestions about the reclassification of housing debt as a civil debt and treated as such in the same manner as any other civil debt; like council tax arrears, or utilities debt meaning that courts will not be forced to evict for non-payment as a first option. There are a number of problems with this suggestion; indeed as there are with many others, not least the fact that the most vulnerable in society will still be accumulating unmanageable debts, and that Housing Associations, and Councils as Social Landlords will be subject to huge gaps in funding and revenue stream. It is simply unacceptable to pass the problem on to Housing Associations and Councils without trying too to mitigate their funding gaps too.

That said, it is a mitigation which requires due consideration. Perhaps there are ways in which to make it workable with agreement between the Scottish Government, Councils and Housing Associations. It is only one of a few suggested options.

So whilst I fundamentally agree and urge the Scottish Government to do all it can, and further, I am not averse to utilising some existing but unused powers to do so, I have my concerns about the expectation that the Scottish Government is the line of last defence when the UK Government takes decisions which we deem unpopular, socially unjust or morally reprehensible.

That the Welfare Reform Act fits all of the above descriptions, and more, does not offset the fact that the Westminster Government is a democratically elected beast. We can quibble about the Tories going in to coalition with the Liberal Democrats not being the settled will of the United Kingdom voters until the cows come home, but, in my opinion, that is wholly disingenuous. Allow me the right to despise the Liberal Democrats the choice to enter a coalition which contravenes so many values which Liberal Democrats should hold dear whilst respecting their right to do so.

I support a reform of the First Past the Post system, and by dint, support a form of proportional representation. By their very definition, PR elections create the need for parties to negotiate coalitions.  This means compromise; and yes, if chosen, some parties will sell their souls to do so.  The Liberal Democrats did in the first Scottish Parliament where they abandoned their principles on free tuition fees – sound familiar? – To enter coalition with the Labour Party. However, many of those same voices clamouring for the same electoral change that I desire are prepared to criticise a coalition formed to govern because they dislike the hue of the parties who entered it. That, to me, is hypocrisy at best.  We either support coalition government as a compromise which is more inclusive of societal views, or we don’t. Perhaps I over simplify, but there it is.  This is a blog post, not a thesis.

The UK government has taken on the mantle of welfare reform which began under the previous Labour administration and is taking the decision to implement changes which, again in my opinion, undermine enshrined ECHR Article 8 on right to family life. Clearly by implementing the Bedroom Tax, the state is interfering with this right by preventing respite for carers, overnight access for parents with shared custody rights etc. But The United Kingdom electorate gave them the power to do so.

I have been to a number of the University of Glasgow Independence debates, and I obviously pay attention to social media and messaging which is coming from the “Better Together” camp and its partners in the Labour Party. A now constant refrain seems to be that asserting the right to independence is a betrayal of solidarity with fellow Brits in Salford, or Brixton, or Bradford who are also suffering from austerity measures. Indeed, as I sit here typing at the last of the University of Glasgow independence debates, I am listening to Willie Bain attempt to articulate the same point – very confusedly, as it happens.

It is beyond me that a constitutional settlement means that we cannot share solidarity with fellow human beings across the United Kingdom as we do those fellow world citizens across the globe. A point was made by a member of the audience last night that solidarity respects no borders. Choosing independence is asserting the right to self-determination; it is not an abandonment of humanity.

Another argument seems to be predicated on the basis that by choosing independence we consign England and Wales to eternal Conservative domination. This is as ridiculous as certain factions of the Yes campaign who believe that voting Yes means no more Tories.  It could be argued that a small c conservative party would have a small renaissance in an independent country, and that is not necessarily a bad thing, as the state, and the Left, needs to have checks and balance.

These shouldn’t be arguments which are made by either side. They are lazy and crass and entirely without empirical evidence. Blair’s landslide Labour Governments would have been elected regardless of the Scottish block voting. It England wants to vote Labour, it can and will. If England wants to vote Conservative, it can and will and we do not have the right to usurp their will. Staying in a union to subvert the voting will of the English people is entirely nonsensical and presumptuous and fundamentally undemocratic.

That the Labour party is simultaneously using the issue of solidarity with fellow Brits as a reason to vote no in the referendum whilst urging the Scottish Government to act in mitigation of the choices of the United Kingdom Government to offset a degree of the worst effects for the Scottish people only, smacks of double standards. That the powers retained by the United Kingdom include all legislative powers over Welfare should not be forgotten, and whilst the Calman Commission was an opportunity for the pro-Union parties to make suggestions about this, they failed to make any substantive points which would change the impact of Welfare Reform.  That they also failed to advocate a second question on the ballot paper with powers over welfare is again indicative of their inability to practice what they preach.

The “Better Together” Campaign has made no concrete suggestions which would entrust power of welfare to the Scottish Parliament, yet they want and expect the Scottish Government to mitigate any decisions made under that retained power when they disagree with them. Surely the UK under their premise, which retains the power, should make UK wide welfare decisions, or they shouldn’t. The only way they shouldn’t or couldn’t is if welfare is devolved. And whilst the pro-Union parties hid from any concrete proposals for a second question on the Independence Referendum ballot paper, there is only one option on the table whereby Scottish voters have the opportunity to help build a welfare system that they believe in and shares their values of fairness. And that isn’t the status quo.

So, yes, the Scottish Government should take any and all actions it can to help the Scottish people it serves, but we should remember, by choosing to remain in the UK, we choose to retain UK wide welfare reform, and long-term, it is not feasible, practical or affordable for a parliament which survives on a set, and shrinking, block grant to continue to play the role of mitigator. And consequently ,Scottish tax payers taking on the burden of reduced public expenditure on other vital public services to correct the folly of the coalition.

 

 

 

Stuff your management buyout

Feb 3

Posted by James in Constitution, Economy | 17 Comments

MonacoThe longer this referendum goes on, the clearer it becomes that both sides have limited internal common ground. I don’t hold with the SNP attack on Labour’s position – the argument that they’re obviously Tories in disguise because they’re campaigning together on this issue. Were the SSP basically just Tories because they campaigned against the Edinburgh congestion charge with them? No, just misguided.

As discussed before, if both sides are internally indistinguishable, it would also make me essentially Jim McColl, because he’s in favour of independence too. And I could hardly respect him less. In evidence to a Holyrood committee, he said Scotland should cut corporation tax to Irish levels, an approach that suits rich men like him and which plays beggar-your-neighbour with other European countries’ tax bases.

He’s also personally based in Monaco and in the same meeting admitted not paying full UK income tax. His startling reasoning there was as follows: “if you look at the wealth created here by me and my team, it puts into insignificance anything that I might pay if I was a full-time resident here“. Of course, the actual wealth is created by his workforce, not him, and they presumably do pay their full UK taxes. The logic is stark: the richer you are and the bigger the business you own the less important it is for you to pay taxes. Taxes are for the little people.

It’s all quite petty too. My guess is that he’d still be pretty rich if he paid his full taxes here, which should be the minimum requirement before pontificating about Scotland’s future.

His contribution today is consistent with his extraordinarily unpleasant vision for Scotland (if you look beyond the empty guff about compassion and renewables). Independence would, he says, be a “management buyout”. Don’t be led astray: this is not a metaphor, it’s literally what he wants. The thing about a management buyout is you’re left with the same people in charge, but they’re personally doing much better because less of the revenue gets passed elsewhere. Jim McColl and those like him are already the “management”, they are already Scotland’s establishment, and he wants a Scotland where that doesn’t change. In fact, he wants a Scotland even more closely recast in line with his kind of selfish tax-dodging capitalism.

The historic left opposition to independence, which was dominant until the formation of the SSP and its precursors, ran roughly like this. The purpose of independence and nationalism is to divide the working class and to let local capitalist elites carve out more for themselves without interference from the imperial centre. You don’t have to be a Trotskyist to see that’s precisely what Jim McColl wants to see from independence.

Fortunately, though, if we win it won’t just be up to him to shape Scotland, especially if the current SNP leadership don’t get to run that post-independence administration. It’ll be up to the people of Scotland to decide whether they want a Scotland where business pays its fair share, or whether they think Jim’s spot on and the Tories ought to have bent over even further towards the interests of business. Jim McColl may be working for a management buyout, but there’ll be plenty more of us pushing in the other direction, towards a more co-operative Scotland.

Hollow lies the head that wears a weightless Crown

Jan 21

Posted by Aidan in Constitution, Democracy, Governance, Holyrood, Ideology, Westminster | 17 Comments

One of the long standing arguments against British Republicanism (and, by extension, Scottish Republicanism in a post-Independence Scotland on the current prospectus) is that the monarch has no actual power.

To quickly deal with a few other arguments:

  • Nobody actually comes to the UK to see the Queen, she isn’t publicly accessible at Buckingham Palace. We could use it for other things, like housing the homeless.
  • Yes, it will mean that we need to come to an accommodation about the current Crown estates and other assets. That’s ok. They didn’t earn them. Those assets were acquired illegitimately through violently undemocratic means. There’s a national debt somebody mentioned we have to deal with and surely it’s better to appropriate unearned wealth that should be held for the nation from the ultra-rich rather than punish the least well off and ruin the economy?
  • The head of state being head of an established national church  is clearly problematic in a multi-religious nation, never mind the rise of secularism, agnosticism and atheism .
  • Yes, the Queen is very old and does a lot of public engagements. So what?

Leaving aside those and other arguments against a constitutional monarchy, such as the inherent injustice and preservation of unearned privilege, the absence of real power has always been one of the central arguments on the pro-monarchy side. It is an argument which is now demonstrably false. A series of stories in the Guardian have exposed that, far from the legally inert and ceremonial role the Queen and her heirs and successors are said to enjoy since  the mid 70’s (between the Australian constitutional crisis and the rather murky goings on around Alec Douglas-Home she played a role in appointing the executive up until then), the monarchy has clearly continued to play some sort of active part in government legislation and policy up until… errr… now.

The “oh, but they don’t really do anything, it’s purely ceremonial” argument prioritises the admittedly useful political and legal fiction of the dignified part of government over the varied and often unclear, vague and nebulous alternatives presented. Admittedly most of the alternatives have drawbacks: an effective President either elected or selected by lot undermines the supposed legitimacy of the Prime Minister (those of an avowedly Nationalist bent can substitute First there and carry on regardless);  a Prime/First Minister accountable to no one save the legislature they control by definition may grow over mighty; a ceremonial President changes little in practice except the abolition of the hereditary principle although I’d argue that this would be worth the candle in and of itself.

The fact the monarchy does do things, and apparently does so with notable frequency and vigour, rather torpedoes that argument for inertia.

However, the current situation has by and large served us well. An elected President, on either the Franco-American or German-Italian models, would fundamentally change the way the country works. One selected by lot, while appealing to my Erisian sensibilities, doesn’t really change much. And it is actually quite useful to have a Crown which, in the idealistic conception advanced by constitutional monarchists, acts as a proxy for the best interests of the people.

Those who protect us from threats mundanely domestic and exotically foreign do so in the name of Her Majesty. The civil servants and elected members who write the laws and the police officers, tax inspectors, lawyers, judges and prison officers who enforce them serve the Crown. They do these things not in the name of the government of the day, although obviously they are accountable to them to a greater or lesser extent.

One of the things that being a programmer has taught me is that when you have a functioning system, and you don’t want to disrupt your existing users unnecessarily, small incremental improvements are better than rewriting from scratch. Given that the Royalist argument that the monarchy doesn’t actually play a role in the government is clearly untrue (and disregarding the counter argument that who cares, they theoretically could and that’s not ok) but removing them would mean unpicking some fairly useful conventions a simple solution occurs to me.

Keep the crown, dispense with the wearer.

If the monarchy doesn’t play a (fundamentally undemocratic) part in government that won’t affect things. If she does play an undemocratic part in government removing her is a clear win. She does, her heirs and successors will. Time to be rid.

A constitutional: two steps forward and one to the side

Jan 17

Posted by James in Constitution | 21 Comments

Curate's EggThe question of an independent Scotland’s constitution is being finally discussed by the SNP – as opposed merely to the “constitutional question”, i.e. simply whether we should choose independence. The First Minister, in a speech yesterday, even noted that “since no single party or individual has a monopoly on good ideas; all parties, and all individuals, will be encouraged to contribute“. This is major progress on the previous position, which was that the dire constitution written by the late Professor McCormick for the SNP would be what we’d use.

A better constitution is one of the key reasons for independence, for me. Westminster’s uncodified structures lack many key protections for individuals, they’re opaque and impossible for anyone outside Parliament itself to modify, and they say nothing about any aspirations or values that ideally should be associated with the British state. And the nature of that Scottish constitution is vital. It’s not enough merely to be an independent state: it’s time to be a better state as well as a better nation. Crucially, as the First Minister accepts, such a constitution “should enshrine the people’s sovereignty“, not Parliament’s.

Although this is a very welcome shift, there are still two key problems with it.

First, some of the content he proposes is policy. This is a category mistake: constitutions should be the rules for governing a state and protections for individuals and groups against majoritarianism. Like Salmond, I am against illegal wars, nuclear weapons, homelessness, and access to education being based on means rather than ability. But those are policy positions that should be determined by the voters in post-indy general elections, not enshrined into a constitution as sacrosanct. The Tories (and presumably Labour and the Lib Dems, if the latter still exist by then) will go into any 2016 election for an independent Scottish parliament backing the retention of Trident. I think they’re wrong, but if a majority of Scots agree with them, the weapons should stay. We can’t write a document that makes a legitimate position like that unconstitutional. I note here that Green policy also supports this position on nukes, incidentally, in case anyone thinks I always just parrot the party line.

Second, the timing. The Scottish public still won’t know anything about that constitution before they vote in October 2014. Will they genuinely be sovereign in that new Scotland? It’s not clear. And it doesn’t need to be like that. Two years before the 1997 referendum, the Scottish Constitutional Convention had, through a pretty open process, agreed what a devolved Holyrood would look like. The contents of the poke were clear. Over the next 21 months the entire Yes campaign could be transformed by a similar process. Meetings around the country, debates about vision and democracy and values, not just endless sniping about the economic costs and benefits of the process (which are broadly unknowable anyway).

The alternative to such a process is not only unreliable and uninspiring, it’s also deeply problematic. On what basis would the institutions of an independent Scotland operate during the long hiatus between a putative Yes vote and the ratification of a proper constitution? What bad habits might become ingrained? Do we really want a second referendum once it’s written rather than one clear vote on a particular model of independence? (there are advantages to a second process, I accept, not least that a menu of options could be more easily offered, Icelandic-style)

Still, without wishing to sound like the curate above, this speech remains substantial progress. The actual constitution is on the table, and there’s still time for the Yes campaign to take the next essential step. Put the people in charge, and then let the people decide.