Ah Europe, that sprawling land mass that can always be relied upon to split the Tories. The leader believes he has to stay in Europe to win elections, the right of the party howl in protest at the idea of ‘Brussels’ running anything for Britain. 

We may however be veering closer to a situation where David Cameron doesn’t have to lean Doverwards to be on the side of the majority of the electorate. An Opinium/Guardian poll found that 56% of the UK is in favour of leaving the European Union – 69% of Tory voters, 44% of Labour voters and even 39% of Lib Dem voters, the cheese eating, sandal wearing surrender monkeys, for want of a better description. 

It’s enough to make out-of-the-closet Europhiles like myself throw my hands up in disgust. Infact I’m going to do it…. There. Can’t say I feel any better for it, but the people on this bus think I’m a bit weird. Maybe they’ll think I’m European, I do after all have a strikingly colourful’ shirt tie combo on.

Europe doesn’t help itself at all well, I get that of course. That the accounts haven’t been signed off for donkey’s years shows that if it was any other business it’d be shut down by now. The Euro mess needs no further criticism, the lack of interest in our MEPs speaks volumes and the proposed budget increases for 2014-2020 have not been sold at all well. Why should fat Eurocrats cream it in while everyone else is making cuts? Je ne sais pas.

So, back to that 56%, because as disheartened as I am by it as one signed up to the European project, I did sense an opportunity for a pro-independence perspective. 

I have long believed that Europe offers Alex Salmond one of his best routes to winning the referendum in 2014. With Tories riven over Europe and England clearly on their way to pulling out of the EU, a distinctly pro-EU would see that the only way to keep a seat at the table would be to make it a solely Scottish seat after breaking away from the UK. The cross border differences over a relationship with Europe would be symbolic for the many different political outlooks between Scotland and England. 

However, does the polling evidence bear this out? Well, sadly not as much as I would have expected to be honest as te following poll question from the Opinium poll shows:

If a referendum were held on the UK’s membership of the European Union with the options being to remain a member or withdraw, how do you think you would vote?

Vote to Leave/Vote to Stay

UK: 56%/29%

Scotland: 49%/31%

A 18% gap between leavers and stayers in Scotland is certainly better than the 27% gap above, but I  wouldn’t look at those answers and automatically think the two countries should separate.  The gap for London incidentally is also 18% and for Yorkshire and Humberside it is a curious 14%. Scotland is that dreaded thing for Nats, just another region in a UK poll. 

Looking closer at the figures does give me more heart. Of the UK’s 56%, that is split 34% “definitely” vote to leave the EU and 22% “probably” vote to leave. Scotland’s breakdown is a less certain 26%/23%, the 26% of definites being the lowest of any region. It is a similar story for those saying they’d vote to stay in the EU, Scotland’s share of definites is 14%, along with London the highest of any region, so there are strong arguments to say that Scotland is the most pro-EU part of the United Kingdom and I am clinging onto my theory, but only just. 

Perhaps the rest of the poll is where those that are pro-Indy should really take heart. Ed Miliband has no higher approval ratings in Scotland than the rest of the UK, David Cameron remains deeply unpopular and Nick Clegg even more so than the Prime Minister.

Half of Scotland may want out of the EU, but more still are unimpressed with our UK leaders. That can’t be bad news for Salmond who is still surfing a remarkably long wave of popularity, and it can’t be bad for independence either.

Bill Clinton asked earlier this week: ‘Can you be Scottish and British?’, as he gently attacked what he called ‘identity politics’. I don’t know if a question can be rhetorical when it has such a blindingly obvious answer (Yes, in this case) but perhaps he was just partly telling his London audience what they wanted to hear. How else could a former President make the rookie mistake of not realising that being Scottish and British are forever intertwined?

Many Brits outside of Scotland are very much set against the idea of Scottish independence. There are good reasons of course for holding this position, although there may be a nagging fear eating away at some Brits that they may not have even realised yet, though Clinton may have helped jogged these thoughts on, as they did for me this week….

After independence, what nationality will everyone on these islands be?

Scots will be Scottish, of course, and the Irish will continue to be Irish (in a strictly passport context at least) but what about those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland? Will they be British? How can they be, when Scots are also British? They won’t be English, Welsh or Northern Irish either for obvious reasons. Those in Northern Ireland can currently hold an Irish or a British passport (or even both) but with Scottish independence are we forcing them down the Irish route?

I guess the problem is that ‘British’, as we are lablled currently on our passports, has been a misnomer for decades. Perhaps even centuries. There is no country called Britain, it is a geographical term. Even Great Britain is just the largest island of the British Isles (so excludes Northern Ireland). We really should be ‘UKers’ or ‘United Kingdomish’. They both sound silly so it’s little wonder that some bright spark back in the day decided to just go with British and put the problem off for another day.

Well, that other day might be in a couple of years’ time and, as far as I’m aware, there doesn’t seem to be any answer to the following question.

What nationality will those who are currently British in England, Wales and Northern Ireland be if they can no longer be British and aren’t Scottish?

Maybe Bill was right after all, it’s British or Scottish after 2014 if it’s a Yes vote, at least from a passport perspective in any case.

Neil Findlay MSP has proposed a bill to regulate lobbying, and Better Nation is hosting the debate.

On one side, we have Willie Sullivan, director of the Electoral Reform Society, a former public affairs consultant (or lobbyist) who now campaigns for a fairer distribution of power. On the other, Alastair Ross, secretary of ASPA (the Association for Scottish Public Affairs – the trade body for the public affairs industry in Scotland). 

Let’s start with Willie’s case for.

For those of us who grew up in a house where the lobby was the bit you kept your wellies lobbying seems a strange verb. The provenance of the meaning is not straightforward. It may arise from loitering in the lobby of Parliament in order to convince members and government that a particular decision will be a good one, or it may have first been used to describe political wheelers and dealers who hung around in the lobby of the Willard Hotel in Washington in order to persuade then President Ulysses S Grant to make some decision or other, usually by buying him several drinks. Both of these origins probably assisted the arrival at the modern meaning, a meaning that is richer because of this.

The act of lobbying today still involves presenting arguments to those with power to try and ensure a policy, decision or legislation is made in a way that is beneficial to the agency (or its interests) making the argument.

So whether it’s bankers hoping to keep retail banking and investment banking closely linked, or if it’s Greenpeace asking for more taxes on carbon, they all want to have the opportunity to give the facts, figures, reasons and evidence to do something, or to point out the dangers and consequences of inaction, to those who have the power to make decisions and to those who advise them. This persuasion is not always a simple art. It involves all sorts of psychology and mythology, short term techniques, and long term strategies. Some companies spend millions of pounds paying experts to tell them how to go about it. There are global businesses that specialise in this work, some of whom have offices in Scotland. Many organisations have in-house ‘Public Affairs’ staff. Some focus on causes and campaigns, others stay strictly within the business sector. Often both personnel and companies will have had experience of working for good causes and for commercial interests. The divide is not as obvious as one might presume. The profession is the skills not the cause.

This is not to say that lobbying per se is wrong. It is in fact a fundamental part of our democracy. Interest groups and campaigns must have the opportunity to put forward their case and politicians need to know the arguments from as many perspectives as possible.  The problem is that some viewpoints can clearly dominate. Some of those voices can be many times louder than others. The resource that can be deployed, expertise purchased, the networks and relationships exploited, are very different for a multi-national than they are for a small community group or individual voter. Perhaps in the past we thought this was not something to worry about. If the legislative and regulatory conditions meant that banks could prosper, then surely we all benefitted? If Rupert Murdoch’s lobbyist could secretly text the Secretary of State’s advisor, might it be good for the freedom of the press?

Those times are long gone. People don’t trust politicians, they don’t trust big business, they don’t trust the media. We have a crisis of our democracy.

Neil Findlay MSP’s member’s bill on Lobbying Transparency won’t solve these big problems of inequality of power or the misbehaviour of feral elites. What it will do is quite simply allow us to know which organisation is lobbying who and why, and how much money they are spending on that particular campaign of persuasion, through a simple register and database. The big question is why would you not want the public to know that? The fact that some people don’t want us to know this is itself the best argument for why we should.

It’s certain we won’t hear anybody saying that providing this information is not in the public interest. As any good lobbyist will realise, this argument is just not going to ring true. Equally, as any good lobbyist knows, the arguments mustered against change will not be that this might make life more difficult for big business or corporate interests, but that it will place overly onerous burdens on community groups or worthwhile charities.

That is why the proposed bill should define thresholds for inclusion, will not require small voluntary groups or community organisations to register, and why the burden of time in completing the register is very small. Unlock Democracy, an organisation of 14 staff who spend a fair amount of their time lobbying Westminster have been trialling the proposed forms. It took them 20 mins to complete the registration form.

This register on its own won’t meet  the huge challenges that face politics described above. It is a very small step forward . However if we cant even take  this step then there seems little hope for progress.

The proposed Lobbying Transparency (Scotland) Bill will go through many changes before it can be enacted. If there are genuine problems, then let’s fix them, after all, why would you not do this?

And now for Alastair’s case against.

Do we honestly need lobbying regulation in Scotland?

I’m not being rhetorical – it’s a serious question to which I’ve yet to hear an answer that makes the argument for a new law.

“Lobbying needs to be regulated” – why? What has happened which shows there is a real problem here? One newspaper sting from 1999 simply isn’t enough justification for me.

“It’s undermining democracy” – how exactly? What’s the evidence that Ministers or MSPs have had their minds changed and passed bad laws as a result of “professional lobbying”?

“The potential for scandals will grow” – on what basis? Watch out for that terrible thing that could happen despite the lack of evidence that it actually will?

“Lobbying is done in secret” – actually I think in Scotland it’s done pretty publicly under a good level of scrutiny, although sometimes privately for good reasons.

Most importantly of all – what is passing a law to regulate lobbying going to achieve?

The lobbying that goes on in Scotland isn’t the £2bn per annum sharp-suited money-go-round as some people would have you believe. Go to Holyrood or St Andrew’s House and you’ll see “professional lobbyists” standing in line with everyone else, enjoying no special treatment, and engaging with politicians and public officials in exactly the same way everyone else does – by talking to them and telling them how things work. It’s that simple – there really is no mystique or secrecy about it.

Are we really saying Ministers, their officials and MSPs are so naïve and easily-persuaded that they cannot be trusted to talk to the real world beyond the insulated Holyrood building without swooning before every vested interest? Are they such delicate flowers in need of protection by law? Don’t think so.

Look at some of the landmark legislation passed since 1999 – the smoking ban, land reform, minimum alcohol pricing, the ban on hunting with dogs and the repeal of clause 2A – all delivered by a Scottish Parliament that did not bend in the face of “professional lobbying” from opponents of those Bills.

All were the results of campaigners, charities or good causes, and representative bodies making their case and working with Ministers and officials to change the law. Dare I say some of these democratic champions even invested in professional lobbying themselves and certainly influenced Government thinking, so where does that leave us?

The reason organisations – private, public or third sector – use lobbyists is because the people delivering services or managing them don’t have the time, resources or specialist knowledge to do it themselves on a day to day basis. What’s wrong with recognising you don’t have the right skillset for getting your message across to Government or Parliament and paying someone else to do it?

What would we gain from registration of lobbyists and disclosure of meetings? Like the publication of MSP expenses it could be good sport to go through it with the proverbial fine tooth comb to flush out nuggets of entertaining detail but to what end? The first few sets of MSPs published expenses showed us who was pound-foolish on taxis and who was penny-wise on staff essentials like milk and loo rolls. Now MSPs are astute enough not to claim public money for them or at least not to record them in detail, so who’s the winner in this particular transparency exercise?

What will a list of who met who and when they met usefully tell us? Neil Findlay’s Bill consultation doesn’t shed any light on that and while it might be fun to join the lobbying dots or add two and two to make five, that’s confusing the issue rather than clarifying it.

I don’t see how disclosing the amount of money spent will help measure lobbying activity either. Just because you spend a lot of money on something doesn’t make it bad, just as hardly spending a penny makes you a paragon of virtue.

I do agree Scottish Government business could be more open – ironically by looking to the Westminster system. UK Government departments publish (eventually) details of Ministerial meetings on a quarterly basis. No reason why Scottish Ministers and their senior officials shouldn’t follow suit, but that’s an administrative change that doesn’t need statute – just go ahead and do it.

No reason to stop at Ministers either – why not update the MSP code of conduct to publish MSPs diaries or work schedules? That will show who’s been meeting who and the level of lobbying by charities, good causes, and public bodies as well as those “professional lobbyists”. Again, you don’t need a law to do this, just a Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments committee.

I’ve tried to avoid the oft-used line that legislating on lobbying is a solution in search of a problem but I can’t any longer. Evidence of the real problems in Scottish life is all around, so let’s concentrate on tackling those instead of this.