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Should the handmaiden of independence not be a woman?

May 10

Posted by Jeff in Constitution, Parties | 63 Comments

The Greek and French elections have served to remind us that change remains the norm across Europe during these tough economic times. The majority of change across Scotland at last week’s council elections typically went from SNP to Labour, despite the winning tallies being in the Nats’ favour: Labour calling the shots at Edinburgh Council, Labour making council formation difficult in Aberdeenshire and Labour preventing change at Glasgow Council.

And, with the SNP losing a quarter of their voters from last year’s Scottish Parliament elections, Scots are certainly at least changeable.

With two and a bit long years until the referendum on independence, and mid-term European elections to be held between now and then, there are good reasons why the SNP should pre-empt change before the electorate rejects out of hand the constitutional change that a male and potentially stale SNP leadership is offering:

Salmond’s tenure
– It was David Torrance’s Sunday Mail article that provided the eye-popping statistic. I knew that Salmond had served the SNP considerably longer than the five years that he has been First Minister but 18 years as the leader of a party is a remarkable length of time. Putting it into perspective, that is as many years as John Smith, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown led the Labour party put together. Many years at the top does not, in itself, mean that it is time to go, but it does significantly increase the chances that people have stopped listening to what you have to say. We’re not at that stage yet of course with a majority Government still fresh in the memory, but did Salmond win that election or did Subway-sheltering Iain Gray lose it? And can the SNP really take a chance that a party leader of twenty years can still sound fresh and inspiring with so much at stake?

Reaching out to West coast Scotland
– Linked to the above point, and the council election results bear this out, there are parts of Scotland that the SNP still can’t reach as convincingly as they would like to. Swathes of Glasgow and the West of Scotland voting No to independence in their droves leaves a relatively small part of Scotland that would need a good 70%+ Yes result, or higher, to see the SNP over the line. With an adopted home of Banff & Buchan for so long in his career, Salmond could not be perceived to be much further from the old Strathclyde region that Labour has done well to wrap its arms around. Nicola Sturgeon studied at Glasgow University, worked in Drumchapel Law Centre and is the MSP for Govan. The DFM could win more of Labour’s heartlands into considering independence while still keeping the existing Yes camp intact.

Father of the Nation
– Freeing Alex Salmond from the binds of being First Minister would allow the SNP’s greatest asset to take on a more avuncular, roving role. This would effectively elevate each senior SNP Minister up one position while still keeping the presence and gravity of Salmond himself. This softening of Salmond has been attempted with varying degrees of success before but, while the man has pulled the SNP up into the 30%-45% electoral mark, his marmite tendencies may well be the single reason why the pro-union voteshare will always be 50%+ if left unattended. Many Scots intend to vote No because they don’t take to or trust FM Salmond. There’s an easy way to rectify that, while still keeping Alex in the game.

Gender balance
– The gender of a political leader shouldn’t be an issue but if the SNP wants to paint itself as far removed from the London coalition, having a female leader would be an easy way to do that. Theresa May is the only high-profile female member of the UK Government and if recent form continues apace, she may have joined Liam Fox on the backbenches by the time 2014 comes around. Rich Oxbridge English men directing Scotland’s future and controlling Scotland’s wellbeing provides political leverage for the SNP and the unsatisfactory gender balance across both Parliaments could make Nicola’s position as party leader particularly, persuasively, propitiously progressive.

More open leadership
– Alex Salmond does well to hide his temper, he is a bit like Sir Alex Ferguson that way. His style of leadership has gradually permeated down and throughout the SNP such that even MSPs can be knee-knocking lambs refusing to step out of line for fear of incurring the FM’s considerable wrath. Nicola Sturgeon’s style of leadership is known to be more open, more consensual and considerably less intense. Creating a new country is much more enticing with such a person at the helm, creating a participative environment rather than an obedient one.

All of the above isn’t to say that Salmond is, nor should be, under any pressure to be leaving Bute House today, tomorrow, this year or next, but it won’t be long before he has to pull rabbits from hats in order to keep his leadership fresh and vigorous. Obstinate poll ratings on independence may lead to difficult decisions, including stepping aside to allow internal renewal.

While the SNP has successfully avoided the ‘game of drones’ leadership changes that Labour and the Lib Dems have endured of late, there is as much risk in a successful leader staying on too long as leaving too early. There may come a point where the SNP will need to speak up against an increasingly underdressed Emperor Salmond and bring forward change.

And no-one embodies change amongst the party’s leadership contenders more than Nicola Sturgeon.

What next for the SNP when they win the referendum?

Apr 19

Posted by James in Constitution, Parties | 60 Comments

I’m feeling sunny and optimistic. Let’s assume the question doesn’t get bogged down by the courts or by politics, that the Yes campaign is genuinely cross-party and no-party, that the public will get a chance to write the first constitution for an independent Scotland at some point, and that the referendum succeeds by a clear margin.

The SNP will, on this happy day, have achieved their objective. Admittedly it’s in some ways a simpler objective than any other party – Scotland is either independent or not – but it’d be an extraordinary achievement for a party which in 2003 looked a long way from government, and as recently as the 1980s looked a whole lot further away still.

So what happens next, both for the SNP and for individual SNP members and politicians? Here are some options.

Retire happy. At least one of the SNP’s younger MSPs I know will take this route. Job done. It baffles me that anyone wouldn’t have other political priorities, but it’s consistent. And it certainly makes sense for the older generation. Salmond’s not old by political standards – he’ll turn sixty just after the vote – but it would be a strong point to choose to stand down, and one way to disprove the adage that all political careers end in failure.

Attempt to become Scotland’s answer to the ANC. Sure, the ANC’s struggle was harder to say the least – the Maximum Eck never spent a day in Saughton for political crimes – but parties that fulfil their purpose and deliver radical constitutional change do sometimes try to stay together and stay in power thereafter. The game here is to become the new establishment, but, typically, this way corruption lies.

Join other parties. It’s not hard to see how this might work. The SNP span more or less the whole political spectrum at Holyrood, and they’re held together by a love of winning (no bad thing in a party) plus their primary purpose. Once independence has proved itself to be the settled will of the Scottish people, those who want to stay in politics would surely want to find more consistent ideological bedfellows. This could only happen once the three pro-union parties accept the result and move on. So at that point why wouldn’t Fergus Ewing, John Mason or even John Swinney join a Murdo-esque post-Tory Tories? Might Marco Biagi or Linda Fabiani go Green? Would the soft left of the SNP really not want to work with the Labour types they tend to agree with on non-constitutional matters? If a Lib Dem party still exists at that point, perhaps Michael Russell could lead it? (no offence Michael)  edit: I can see now I was wrong about this one 😉

Split into new parties. Obviously this can be combined with the option above. Across Europe party mergers, divorces, and realignments are ten-a-penny. It may not be clear what the empty space looks like, ideologically, but why might we not see something new here?

The membership is another matter. We certainly get plenty of comments here on Better Nation that start “I’m an SNP member now, but post independence I’ll be a.. ” and which typically end “Green” or “Socialist”. Many SNP activists see the party and the government as a means to this single end: they may campaign to elect a local MSP who they rate, but the purpose of that MSP is to vote for the referendum legislation, so that an independent Scotland can be more (insert other objectives here). Do they stay, or if not, where do they go?

The other most interesting question about the SNP’s post-referendum future is where do the brightest and best of the younger generation go, notably future FM candidates like Nicola and Humza? My guess is that both will want to hold the party together and hold onto office, but the membership and leadership have divergent ideologies which could well make that hard. Still, it’s not a bad dilemma to have. And I look forward to a politics where the debates are primarily about an independent Scotland’s economy, social policy, civil liberties and environment, not the constitution. That will be progress.

Non-nationalists for independence

Apr 11

Posted by James in Constitution, Holyrood, Westminster | 46 Comments

The Jolly Roger flyingDuring a recent discussion thread one of the commenters admitted to not knowing what the difference is between a nationalist and someone that supports independence. Given it was Jeff, I promised to explain my position, which is, as the title suggests, in favour of independence but against nationalism.

Crudely, there are romantic arguments for particular territorial boundaries, and there are pragmatic ones. The arguments for and against independence can both be divided in this way. If someone believes that larger nation-states carry more clout on the world stage, that the costs of implementing Scottish independence outweigh the benefits, and that the Westminster system is the most efficient form of democracy ever devised, for example, they are certainly a unionist but not necessarily a nationalist of any flavour. Those are pragmatic positions, and their merits can be debated.

If, however, they believe that Britain has a splendid history, that Britishness is important to their identity, and that we therefore belong together, they are a British nationalist. It sounds unpleasant, because of the association with the British National Party, but it’s really no more logical nor any less savoury than Scottish nationalism. Nationalists believe in flags and anthems and symbols of collective identity. Unless it’s the Jolly Roger, I’m broadly against flags. Any form of nationalism is like a faith position, and it is hard to debate sensibly with a person who adheres to one of them.

Similarly, Scottish nationalism has independence as an end in itself, an emotional objective irrespective of any other political changes. Patrick and I once took a drink with an SNP MSP who shall remain nameless. Patrick asked what their campaign priorities would be after independence, and got the memorable reply: “what do you mean?” Another round of pressing still failed to elicit any secondary policy objectives, like perhaps tackling poverty, or even apparently an understanding of the question. Eventually the answer came that they’d leave politics – job done. That’s nationalism in its purest form, and it frankly baffles me.

Personally, I came to support independence as a pragmatic position, entirely devoid of any nationalist sentiment – only the 90 minute version has any effect on me. I look at Westminster politics and despair. I no longer think it likely that we will in my lifetime see an end to corporate politics there, or a fair electoral system, or a party of government opposed to privatisation, or a government prepared to make a positive case for immigration and honouring our asylum commitments. Obviously Labour started small, and the Greens couldn’t have a better bridgehead in the Commons than Caroline Lucas, but the inertia (at best) and copycat neo-liberal politics seen at a UK level is frankly beyond depressing.

So I don’t want to be offered an independent Scotland which would reproduce Westminster at Holyrood, something where the constitution won’t be written by the people, without a choice over an elected or a hereditary head of state, or where money politics still rules. I want to see independence for something, for a purpose. I want to see a fairer Scotland, one that relies on wind and wave, not oil and gas, one where money stops being wasted on motorways and is diverted instead into public transport, and one where politics is cleaned up and opened up. The list is enormous, and in general it’s what you’d see if you merged the last Green manifestos for Holyrood and for Westminster. Only a referendum on a truly democratic independent Scotland gives me any hope that I’ll live in a country like that.

The irony with this, of course, is that plenty of people who get called nationalists – SNP members, or even SNP MSPs – are not nationalists by this definition, or not just nationalists at least. Like me, they want independence for a purpose: some to deliver a version of social democracy, others to continue down a neo-liberal path. The leadership recognise the ideological and emotional strands in the pro-independence camp too, and so they use rhetoric that mixes nationalism and pragmatism, designed to have a broad appeal beyond the flag-wavers.

Another example further from home provides a footnote. Consider the 18th century American campaign for independence and the colonists’ famous slogan “no taxation without representation”. This was not a nationalist position, although it was part of the ideological foundation for a war for independence. It’s a pragmatic political position, and if George III had had any sense he’d have offered them representation. Who knows how that would have turned out? Similarly, if the unionists had been smarter and hadn’t blocked the assembly plans in 1979, who knows whether independence would seem so essential now?

Consulting Detective

Apr 2

Posted by Kirsty in Constitution, Democracy, Holyrood | 96 Comments

Over the weekend the Scottish Government has been under accusation of attempting to rig its independence referendum consultation through accepting anonymous submissions, with Labour demanding a “proper” consultation.

According to Scottish Labour Deputy Leader Anas Sarwar, “Everyone knows that Alex Salmond desperately wants a second question on the ballot and now he has left the door open for his army of Cyber-Nats [sic] to deliver the response he wants.”

The Scottish Government has now announced that anonymous submissions towards the independence ballot rules will be excluded. But this rules out only 414 anonymous responses out of the total of 11,986. I suspect it’s very unlikely this 3.5% has in any way been transformative of the consultation findings through some sinister cybernat diktat.

James Maxwell has an excellent piece up on today’s Staggers, discussing the fallacy of the unionist parties continuing to accuse the SNP of “civic chauvinism”. But the tendency to denigrate the nationalists as foaming-mouthed, petty-minded little Scotlanders, not worthy of higher political debate amongst the elite, is not only a mistake in terms of perception of the SNP’s identity. It is also symptomatic of the laziness in which the other political parties, but especially Labour, constantly attack the Scottish Government on the first sliver of a perceived wrong, instead of providing a proper opposition.

Instead of trying to work out exactly what failings in ideology, message, narrative and policy have led Labour to be at this abysmal state in Scottish politics, it’s far easier to attack the SNP for being anti-English, neo-fascist, crazy… Absolutely none of these accusations tally with the party and people that make up Scotland’s party of government, but it’s too simple and straightforward a soundbite for Labour politicians to resist. Too stupid as well.

I don’t think anonymous submissions to consultations are a great idea. But by attacking the SNP on this Labour have again focused on the facile, and not the fundamentals. Dissing how the consultation is run is far easier than engaging with a consultation with a sizeable number of respondents. And again Labour have attacked on the first sliver of perceived wrongness. To jump up and down demanding parliamentary recall on an issue resolved by one simple decision by the Scottish Government again makes the SNP look measured and in control, and Labour hysterical.

One simple change to the acceptance of consultation responses turns Labour’s agitation into tomorrow’s chip paper, and reinforces the SNP’s strength and competency on the Scottish political sphere.

Is the SNP’s fiercest opposition coming from Northern Ireland?

Mar 24

Posted by Jeff in Constitution, International | 56 Comments

David Trimble has waded into Scotland’s constitutional discussion this weekend with an impassioned plea for Scots to reject the SNP’s “separatism” and “driving Scotland out” by remaining a part of the UK. It is possibly the boldest, most daring language we have had from the unionist side of the debate since the starting gun was unofficially fired on the campaign at the start of the year.

In seemingly barely disguised language, the winner of the Peace Prize for his work in the Northern Ireland peace process said:

“I have to say to the Scottish nationalists, by moving through a programme of separatism, by saying we want to drive Scotland out, you are doing violence to the identity of every Scot because there is a British component in the identity of every Scotsman.”

‘Doing violence’ is an interesting, and I would certainly argue misplaced, way of putting the pro-independence, civic nationalism that is at the forefront of Scottish politics. For too many, the referendum is being positioned as a question of whether you are Scottish or whether you are British, as if the two are mutually exclusive and as if either position will change after 2014. Are Swedes not both Swedish and Scandinavian? Indeed, David Cameron himself insisted that “Scotland is better off in Britain”. It is such an amateurish mistake to stupidly suggest that Scotland WON’T be inside Britain even after independence. Noone is suggesting that our nation’s geography is up for grabs here.

I am no expert on Northern Irish politics but I do wonder what the motivation for David Trimble’s strong remarks above are. There is no question that Scotland going its own way could reopen old Irish wounds, or even make it “an explosive issue once again”, so much so that I wonder if the deepest opposition to Scottish independence is actually across the Irish Sea.

After all, Crispin Black has it that Scotland is “a country (sic) revelling in the sort of menacing and rancid anti-English sentiment more suited to the H Blocks than a modern European democracy”. Em, really?

Lord Empey is similarly off-kilter, saying the following to peers during a debate over the Scotland Bill: “We (Northern Ireland) would end up like West Pakistan. We are all hewn from the same rock. Just imagine the situation we would be placed in.”

This is not simply the Union diminishing for those in Northern Ireland that happen to oppose it; it is arguably an intrinsic part of their identity that is, in their eyes, slipping away. As numerous Saltire-splattered murals in NI show, there is no doubt that a shared patriotism between Northern Ireland and Scotland within unionist quarters exists. That is not in question here. What is in question is why that shared celebration of two nations, and often one shared history, cannot continue to be celebrated if Scotland is independent?

One could argue that for certain communities in NI, Scotland is ‘the’ link to the Union, and if we left then they would really struggle to connect with the rest of the UK, bar the overt and at times worrying love for the monarchy and the armed forces. Is there the same love for Yorkshire and East Sussex? Not that I have seen.

As the quotes above suggest, to me at least, the mere consideration of Scotland leaving the UK results in a lashing out against it, and an assumption that it’s some sneaky, underhand figure doing this. Lord Empey, in the aforementioned debate, compares Alex Salmond to the leaders of Cuba and North Korea and suggests that, without Westminster approval, any referendum would simply be “the most expensive opinion poll in history”.

Of course, it is easy for me to gloss over peoples’ experiences during the Troubles, I wasn’t there for any of it and was only a child for most of it. It is not lightly though that I ask whether those experiences breed an irrational fear that an independent Scotland would begin the breakup of the rest of the UK (Welsh independence, Irish unity) and make the pain and suffering over the last 40 years for nothing.

For me, the SNP’s peaceful and peaceable slow march towards independence does not deserve to have comparisons drawn with the Irish approach to separation from the UK. That may or may not be what David Trimble was alluding to this weekend when he talked of the SNP’s “violence”, but a politician of David’s experience and standing should know to choose his words more carefully.

Northern Ireland’s hopefully historic problems are not Scotland’s problems and there is no need to commute our nation’s ambitions for fear of indirectly unsettling our neighbours.