Scotland, Europe, referenda and independence

Scotland, Europe, referenda and independence are strands in a piece of knitting that is, at the same time, looser and tighter than it should be.

The SNP administration in Scotland has stitched its raison d’etre of independence for Scotland on the twin needles of an independence referendum and membership of the European Union, independent of the UK.

The first of these relates to the necessary mandate from the Scottish electorate to establish Scotland as a separate nation or not.

The second is an image to conjure the potential reality of an independent Scotland – at the high table, speaking for itself, subordinate to no one – offering an aspirational emblem of nationhood.

Referenda

Whatever the weaknesses of referenda, they are the irrefutable expression of the democratic will of the people at the point of the referendum in question.

With digital communications currently in regular use, all governmental motions could be decided by referenda. Politicians do not like that idea and the argument advanced against it is that ‘we’ would not understand the issues as well as ‘they’ do, or exercise as refined a judgment as ‘they’ do.

Quite how this argument stacks up against the three line whipping system and the absence of almost all MPs from the chamber during almost all debates on almost all issues is something of a conundrum.

Quite how the same argument stacks up in the face of a population that has never been so well informed, so confident and – on evidence – so distrusting of politicians is a question that compounds the conundrum.

The principal of the referendum is for the people to speak on an issue of substance that bears upon them all – although this does not mean that we can rely on having such a vote on such issues (Iraq?) – or that, where we do, that vote will be binding upon our government.

The UK government made it clear days ago that if it lost the motion on holding a referendum on Britain’ staying in the EU, they would not regard the outcome of such a referendum as binding.

The Westminster vote

In that House of Commons vote, the six SNP MPs abstained. The reason given for this was that the matter would be of no relevance to Scotland because this country would be independent before any action from such a referendum was enacted.

Setting aside the presumption, this action of the SNP MPs helped to deny a referendum to a nation that could not more clearly wish to speak on this issue.

This denial sits oddly in a party in Scotland whose First Minister has repeatedly berated the unionist parties for their refusal to support an independence referendum. The recurring question was what was wrong with letting the people speak?

That same question now turns against the SNP. The current Deputy Leader and would-be demolition leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland, Murdo Fraser, has not been slow to accuse the SNP of hypocrisy.
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If the SNP itself is prepared to play politics in witholding support for the use of referenda, it can no longer hurl accusations of anti-democratic values at parties who oppose a referendum on Scottish independence.

Why would the SNP not support a motion to let the people – including the Scots – speak on the matter of membership of the EU?

Europe

The answer is, of course, just that. The referendum constituency would have included Scots. What would it have looked like to our would-be European masters if a referendum vote had shown that the majority of Scots wanted none of it? Do they? Would they? We have no idea but the hypothetical possibility would be a discomfort to the First Minister.

This may have been the inspiration for the six abstentions at Westminster on Monday night – an action that has damaged the credibility of their party’s political philosophy.

The larger question is why and whether membership of the EU is central to an independent Scotland.

The EU today is not the proposition that it may have seemed back in 2007 before the roof fell in.

There is no evidence that the SNP has revised its analysis in the light of the EU as it is now – or that it had fully considered its nature and operation from the outset.

The main attraction of independent membership of the EU seems to be little more than the public reinforcement of Scotland’s independence from England that it would bring.

The crisis in the Eurozone is very real. There are fears that the financial crisis in Greece could spread to Italy and Spain, with Italy a serious concern through a heavy debt burden sitting alongside a low growth performance.

It is worth noting that, with the collapse of the Euro a far from unrealistic possibility, there is support in Sweden for the alternative construction of a Nordic Union. This is seen as offering the possibility of greater resilience in the case of a global financial crisis.

The five countries being proposed as potential members of this union are the three Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, with Finland and Iceland.
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We will shortly be publishing an article on the EU and the options open to Scotland were it independent and looking at whether it should seek full membership.