Disunion and disarray, or is Cameron just too sly for his own good?

One of the most remarkable result of the British General Election on Thursday was what happened in Scotland.

The Scottish National Party or SNP won 56 of the total of 59 seats in the UK parliament. The Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats have precisely one seat each. Whoever had formed the government in Westminster – as it happens, it’ll be the Tories – they would come from a party practically unrepresented in Scotland.

This state of affairs is far from unprecedented, even in these islands. To see where it’s likely to lead, it’s worth looking at what has happened before. Let’s start with a foreign case.

In 1971, Pakistan was still formed of two wings. In East Pakistan, today’s Bangladesh, the more populous component of the country, a protest movement had been building for decades, led above all by a nationalist party, the Awami League.

In that year’s elections, the League won all but two of the 169 seats in the Eastern Wing – and not a single seat in the West. On the other hand, the 169 seats it held gave it a majority in the 307-seat parliament of the whole country, entitling it to form the next government – rather as if the SNP were now in a position to form the government of the UK.

Mujibur Rahman:
iconic figure who achieved Bangladesh's Independence
and was promptly murdered

The West Pakistanis, used to controlling most of the wealth and all of the power – particularly the military – weren’t going to wear that. So war broke out – and, with help from India, East Pakistan won. Pakistan broke up into its two separate wings and Bangladesh was born.

Now let’s return to Britain, but a little further back in the past.

At the 1918 General Election, immediately following the First World War, Ireland, still a part of the United Kingdom, elected 73 Sinn Féin MPs. They were committed to full independence from Britain. They replaced the Irish Parliamentary Party, down from 67 to 5 MPs – shades of the what happened to the Liberal Democrats last Thursday – which had been campaigning for a much more limited programme of Home Rule. The Unionist tendency, favouring maintenance of the existing relationship with Britain, won only 26 seats.

The Sinn Féin MPs refused to take up their seats at Westminster and instead met separately in what came to be known as the Dáil Éireann or Assembly of Ireland. It proclaimed the formation of a Republic of Ireland, which achieved independence four years later, with a great deal of bloodshed and ugly violence in between.

Michael Collins
Iconic figure who helped achieve Irish Independence
and was promptly murdered

Don’t these precedents rather suggest that, when component nations of a larger state, elect dominant blocs of politicians actively campaigning for independence, it is only a matter of time before they achieve it? The best that can be said for the situation in Scotland is that it unlikely we shall face the violence that poisoned independence in Bangladesh and Ireland.

Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, stated before the election that it was not about a new referendum on independence. Since the election, she has made it clear that she intends to stick to her commitment. Consequently, her party’s victory, however extensive it was, did not deliver a mandate for another referendum.

The SNP has, however, also stated that a significant event might trigger a campaign for an independence referendum again. It’s fairly clear that a decision by Britain to withdraw from the European Union would be such an event. And David Cameron, in one of his many attempts to be sly, specifically to draw the sting of the Eurosceptics in his own party and in UKIP, committed himself to there being a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the EU before the end of 2017. He’s repeated that commitment since his re-election.

So imagine this scenario. Britain votes for withdrawal from the EU, because a substantial majority chooses that option in England. But Scotland votes to stay in. As a result, the SNP campaigns again for independence, this time achieving it. That seems pretty likely anyway, but on this scenario it would happen much earlier than it might otherwise.

Cameron, and Tories generally, like to big up Britain and its role on the world stage. It’s one of the reasons they want to hang on to Trident nuclear weapons (another view opposed by the SNP), in the hope that the international community will take them more seriously as a result.

In this scenario, however, Cameron would have presided over the United Kingdom’s isolation from the rest of Europe – and then the loss of its second biggest constituent nation, with over 8% of its population. On his watch, his nation would have been severely reduced in stature around the world. He might have to wonder whether he’d really been so sly after all, and many of those who voted for him would have to ask themselves whether they had really taken the most judicious of decisions.

A conundrum for him. Particularly as he still has to mollify his Eurosceptics. He must be hoping against hope that he can persuade the electorate to vote against leaving the EU – without actually campaigning openly for that outcome.

Scots: pleased you gave us English another chance?

Two months ago today, voters in Scotland rejected a proposal for independence.

The British government, which had done nothing for two years to persuade the Scots to stay in the United Kingdom, had woken up a few weeks earlier to the fact that they might actually leave. David Cameron, who has all the energy of a sloth with none of the charm, at least had enough self-awareness not to travel to Scotland himself – he knew that would only strengthen the “Yes” campaign.

Instead, he turned to his much-maligned and beaten opponent of 2010, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and had him revitalise a fairly moribund “better together” campaign previously led without inspiration by Brown’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling. To the surprise of those of us who had despaired over his lacklustre election drive four years ago, Brown managed to put some fire into the anti-independence cause.

He also managed to extract a promise from all the main leaders in the Westminster Parliament to grant more autonomy to Scotland, in the event of a “No” vote. This was published by the Labour-leaning Daily Record, which called it a “vow”, a name that stuck.

The “No’ camp ultimately won the vote, by a healthy but not conclusive margin of 55-45%.

Two months on, where do we stand?

Recent polls suggest that if the referendum were held now, the Scots would go. This seems far from unrelated to the fact that since 18 September, the English have done next to nothing about fulfilling the “vow”. With the immediate danger of Scottish secession fading, England has lost interest in the question, and moved on to consider other things, of more importance to it.

Hadrian's Wall is just a historic monument
But is it time to rebuild it as a frontier?

Among other matters, this includes its own secession from the European Union. David Cameron has promised a referendum by 2017 on EU membership, and it’s perfectly possible that the Scots, having stayed in the Union with England, may be forced out of the Union with Europe by the overwhelming power of English votes. It needs to be remembered that the great problem in the UK isn’t Scottish, Welsh or even Irish nationalism, it’s the English variety: it’s English nationalism that poisons relations with the other nations of the UK, it’s English nationalism that poisons relations with the other nations of the EU.

Leaders at Westminster were exercised by the Scottish questions for all of several days after the referendum. David Cameron, who has all the leadership qualities of a lemming with none of the winsomeness, decided that more autonomy for Scotland could only come at the cost of preventing MPs for Scottish seats voting on English questions. Coincidentally, one might say by sheer fortunate happenstance, that would deprive Labour of any hope of a majority in Westminster for a long time to come.

It may not come as a shock to discover that Ed Miliband, for the Labour Party, didn’t agree. 

The discussion ran into the sands. Since then, Cameron, who has the attention span of a moth with none of the elegance, has done nothing to revive the debate. So the bad feeling festers, the Scots become more restive, and the anti-Union feelings grow.

If nothing is done to meet Scots aspirations and, in addition, if the UK comes out of the EU, the pressure for a new referendum in Scotland will become irresistible.

In September, I was on the side of the “No” vote, for preserving the Union. But if England treats the Scots that badly, if we let them down again after that last minute appeal to trust us and give us one last chance, next time I’ll have to back independence. After the last chance, you don’t deserve another. 

Then we might discover how inconclusive a 55-45 margin really is. We might be forced to watch the Scots heading for the door. And I, for one, will have to admit they’re right to go.

To be honest, I’ll probably not be far behind myself.

The United Kingdom saved but not preserved

So in the end it wasn’t even close.

Yes to Scottish Independence
But this time at least it was No to ending the Union

Scotland voted to stay in the United Kingdom by a wide margin – 55.3% to 44.7%. A substantial difference. Nothing like as wide as the 20-point leads the ‘No’ campaign was notching up in polls two years ago, but still decisive, and nothing like the close result the polls predicted last week. Why, a couple of polls even put ‘Yes’ ahead.

Had the ‘No’ campaign failed, David Cameron might have found his position untenable. As it happens, Alex Salmond, after a long and highly successful career as Scotland’s First Minister, has decided to resign. Odd. It was a bad defeat but it was only one defeat, and no-one has been a more outspoken champion of Scotland. Surely his commitment would have been just what was needed for the next round of the debate.

For a next round there’s certainly going to be. David Cameron wasted the two years of the campaign, when he could have prepared proposals for increased Scottish autonomy. There might have been a Constitutional Convention, involving all parties. That would have put Alex Salmond on the back foot. He could have taken part, and looked as though he was hedging his bets on independence, or stayed out, and looked petty.

Such a Constitutional Convention would have prepared proposals to lay before the Scottish electorate as an alternative to independence. But it would have required effort from David Cameron, who’s shown himself no great friend of hard work. Instead, he waited until a poll showed the ‘Yes’ campaign ahead two weeks ago and then rushed around, stitching ideas together in a panic.

Suddenly, out of the shadows, stepped a figure from the past. Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister, emerged as the only champion of the United Kingdom to produce coherent, well-argued proposals for transferring more power to Scotland, his home country. He was a transformed character. My wife, watching him speaking passionately to a campaign meeting, said “why couldn’t he be like that when he was in Downing Street?” I was amused to notice next morning’s Guardian asking the same question.

Brown brought together the leaders of the three main UK parties, David Cameron for the Conservatives, his Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats, and Ed Miliband for the Opposition Labour Party. They published a ‘Vow’ to hand over powers to Scotland in the event of a ‘No’ vote, while maintaining the current net transfer of public funds to Scotland.

On the front page of the Daily Record
The vow all three party leaders now have to honour

Now that vow has to be kept. Partly because to break it would be to lose all credibility. Even more because we remember the lesson of the two independence referendums in Quebec: the 1980 vote saw independence rejected by nearly 20 percent; a triumphalist response in Ontario and no concessions to the nationalists, meant a new referendum in 1995 where secession was defeated by only just over a single percentage point. 

To avoid that fate, the UK has to grant substantially more autonomy to Scotland. But that’s not without its own difficulties. Voices are being raised in Wales about whether the other nations of the UK can expect the same enhanced powers as Scotland. And in England an old question is being asked again: should Scots MPs in Westminster vote on English issues, since English MPs have no say on the same issues in Scotland, now handled by the Edinburgh Parliament?

Equally, voices are being raised to ask just why the rest of the UK should continue to fund significantly higher public spending per head in Scotland than anywhere else.

The worst problem is that we don’t all, in England, give the same answers. Should some issues in the Westminster Parliament be regarded as purely English with only English MPs entitled to vote on them? Or should there be a specifically English Parliament just as there is a Scottish parliament, a Welsh Assembly and a Northern Ireland Assembly? Or is it tolerable to leave Scots with a say over English education, social security and healthcare, while the English have no say over theirs?

Personally, I like the idea of an English Parliament in principle, but not at all in practice: it would have an entrenched Conservative majority for a long time to come.

As for the extra public spending in Scotland, is it reasonable since the whole of the UK has benefited from the North Sea oil found off the Scottish coast? Or is it money taken from England, Wales and Northern Ireland and handed, without justification, to the Scots?

Tough questions with no easy answers. And we have only a few months to find a response. We’ve just emerged from a tough campaign, only to go into some tough negotiations.

I was asked this morning whether I was celebrating last night’s results. The answer is ‘no’. What I feel is relief that the Scots aren’t leaving us. But celebration can only start once we’ve solved the difficult questions we’re facing, and come up with a new constitutional settlement that meets the aspirations of all four nations in this newly reunited Kingdom.

No hope, by the way, of stopping it being a Kingdom any time soon.

Better together. For us, certainly. Perhaps even for you.

Driving northwards, towards Scotland, for a few minutes from that fine historic town, Berwick-upon-Tweed, will bring you to the sign welcoming you to Scotland. And thereby hangs a tale: for Berwick was a Scottish town for a long time. Every time I drive into Scotland from Berwick, as I just have, the town’s capture by England strikes me as emblematic of the history of the two nations: England has always grabbed more than it was entitled to, in its long history of battles, or negotiations, with Scotland.

Always a great welcome.
Though resentment would be understandable

So I can understand the sentiments of the campaigners for a Yes vote in next month’s referendum on Scottish independence. England’s never really treated Scotland fairly; why maintain a relationship in which the same injustice is likely to occur again?

An even stronger argument is voiced by many Yes campaigners: there is just one Conservative MP from Scotland, and yet Scotland groans under a Tory government like the rest of us.

It’s that “rest of us” which make me sympathetic to the argument, but also leaves me hoping that Scotland will vote No on 18 September. Because I didn’t vote for Cameron either, but got him anyway. A lot us in England are as keen as anyone in Scotland to see the back of him. And the departure of Scotland, with its 41 Labour MPs at Westminster, will make it all the harder.

Which puts me in this difficult position of feeling that, while Scottish independence is a perfectly comprehensible aspiration for the Scots, it will make life a lot tougher for us in England.

As it happens, I don’t really understand what kind of independence the Scots are looking for. They’re talking about keeping the pound as their currency. But by leaving the union, they would lose all say over how it’s managed. Why would they want to do that? And what kind of independence is it they’ll get, with their currency still managed by England?

So, while I couldn’t help feeling a surge of sympathy for the Scots as I drove past that sign 4 km on the Scottish side of Berwick, I take some relief at the apparently widening lead for the No vote in the polls.

“Better together” is the official name of the No campaign. I’m sure we in England would be far better off together. And, given the kind of independence on offer to the Scots, I’d like to say to them – you might be better off too.

Happy Independence Day. For some at least

Independence: everyone seems to be talking about it these days.

That’s a reflection that feels particularly apt today, the fourth of July, anniversary of the day the American colonists declared their separation from the Mother Country. My country, as it happens. Not that I blame them, as I think you’ll understand from what I say below.

Jefferson,
with his draft Declaration of Independence

Today, the Iraqi Kurds have decided to go looking for independence, presumably so they can stop being Iraqi Kurds and become Kurdish Kurds. The troubles in Ukraine are being fomented by people who want independence of the Eastern areas of the country (though possibly only to move swiftly on to absorption into that fine nation of regional and human rights, Russia).

And, of course, in Britain the Scots – some of them at least – are looking for their independence from, basically, England. It’s true that technically they’re seeking independence from the United Kingdom, but I doubt they have much of a quarrel with Wales or Northern Ireland.

In passing, I loved it that David Cameron, our less than inspired (or inspiring) Prime Minister, announced in Scotland today that it would break his heart if the Scots voted for independence. As if that would put anyone off voting in favour. I suspect his statement will, if anything, boost the Yes vote.

Getting away from England is a desire with a long history to it. The Welsh were driven into the union by military force; if the northern part of Ireland is still within the United Kingdom, that’s only because the English colonised it with good solid Protestants, ironically from Scotland, who owed their position in the province to the London government and could therefore be counted on to remain loyal to it. Why, even the Yanks, when they decided to break free were much more concerned with England and above all London, its capital, than with Scotland or Wales.

Nor is it only the Scots who want to get away from us. It’s my suspicion that the rest of the EU is beginning to find its patience running thin. Why, leading figures in Poland were recently secretly taped describing David Cameron as stupid, a sentiment I suspect might well be repeated in the corridors of power of other Continental nations, even though their leaders aren’t stupid enough to be taped expressing it.

It’s amusing to think that this tendency to look askance at England may be a response to the antics of the so-called United Kingdom Independence Party, vile enough in itself, but more baleful in its effects when the intellectually challenged Cameron and his Conservative Party decide the best way to beat UKIP is to ape its posturing.

“You want independence from us?” a lot of European leaders may be beginning to say, “well, go then. Sorry to lose you but maybe it’s time to cut our losses.”

A bit like a quarrelling couple who decide that the kids might actually suffer less if they divorced than if they stayed together: a painful decision, but probably less damaging in the long run.

So, on US Independence Day, I invite my compatriots to ponder a moment on the question of independence. Specifically, why so many people want to be independent of us. Could it be something we’ve done rather than something wrong with them?

Once we’ve answered that question, we might take a look at the Camerons and the UKIPs of our world and at how heavily they weigh in our national discourse. If we could marginalise them a little, might we not find we had more friends abroad? And perhaps a great deal less pain at home?

Has this Salmond been caught on his own hook?

It seems that opinion in Scotland is running against independence by a margin of 18% in one recent poll, by 25% in another.

Thumbs up for Alex Salmond? Not if the polls are to be believed

Personally, I find that gratifying. Flattering, really. After all, I can fully understand that a Scot might want England off his or her back (and let’s not kid ourselves: the ‘rest of the UK’ is basically England: 53 million out of 59): after all, if nothing else, with England out of the way, no Scot would ever have to live under a Tory government again. And the so-called United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP, is nowhere to be seen up there.

Why, I’d be seriously tempted to vote for independence myself if I lived in Scotland. But I don’t. I live in England, and I’m English. And the idea of losing the Scots fills me with dread. If only because we’d probably be stuck with Tory governments for the foreseeable future, and one in five of my countrymen is apparently unable to tell the difference between principled politics and the brand practised by UKIP.

Which is like a Ukrainian taking Vladimir Putin for a friend.

So given the obvious advantages to the Scots of independence, I have to take some encouragement by their pretty solid opposition to it. It feels like they actually like us enough to want to stick around and help us out of the predicament we’ve made for ourselves. Very kind of them.

On the other hand, the reason may be somewhat less flattering to us Sassenachs, as they charmingly call us. It may not be so much their fondness for us, as the fact that they actually don’t particularly like the brand of independence on offer. 

Which, strangely enough, has more than a few disturbing aspects in common with the kind of independence Putin would like Ukraine to enjoy.

First of all, the idea is that the Scots would keep the Royal Family. Well, I appreciate the family’s a bit of an irrelevance these days, but why would anyone want to hang on to it when they’ve got the opportunity to wave goodbye? Hang on to Prince Philip? Prince Andrew? Prince Harry? And this is supposed to help win support for the idea?

Secondly, and far more significant, they want to hang on to the pound.

Now, one of the reasons Alex Salmond, the Scottish first minister, gives for wanting independence is to get control over taxation. But the biggest factor determining the value of a currency is the fiscal policy pursued by the government that controls it.

So Salmond wants a ‘independent’ Scotland to use a currency whose value is determined by the taxation policies of the very country from which he wants to get away? 

Where on Earth’s the mileage in that?

The odd thing is that Salmond’s always truck me as a particularly astute politician. When his party emerged as the biggest single group in the Scottish parliament, but without an overall majority, he stepped up and formed a minority administration, negotiating with the other parties to put together a majority on each measure in turn. That was more than David Cameron had the guts to do in London in 2010, preferring instead to talk the Liberal Democrats into the pact with the devil that the ConDem coalition has turned into.

Salmond did such a good job as head of a minority government that he went on to win a healthy majority at the next election.

Pretty smart, one has to say. So where did he dream up the idea of a referendum to give Scotland independence on everything but its money?

Has Salmond turned out to be less of a smart Alex than I used to think?