IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS, we will not be seeing another referendum in Scotland. The UK government don’t want one, the SNP don’t want one (not really), the people don’t want one, and the case that was unpersuasive in 2014 is even worse just now.
In practical terms, the COVID pandemic is still burning around the world, and it will in all probability take a decade or more until we have come to terms with the many repercussions of that. We will however see the campaign for independence intensify, and we can already see how that is going to shape up. That campaign is already started, with significant political and media energy being devoted to it. They can talk of nothing else. In truth, that campaign has never really stopped.
One of the elements of the campaign ahead of us will be a rolling, patronising, offensive and degrading lecture about what democracy is all about, orchestrated by independence-supporting politicians with poor memories and lacking in any sense of self awareness.
The 2014 vote was a great democratic event, the most significant in our recent history. I admit to enjoying it, but I only took part on the understanding that it would deal with the issue. We had a signed agreement that political leadership on both sides would respect the outcome, but we now know that the “Edinburgh Agreement” was just a gimmick. It was portrayed as being historic at the time, but it doesn’t suit the narrative today, and the chances are we will never hear of it again. It will never be mentioned in any history books if the SNP is allowed to write them.
But let’s talk about democracy and what it means.
2014 and all that
When Alex Salmond resigned as First Minister, less than 10 hours after the vote was declared, he said “The campaign will go on, and the dream will never die…….”. The second part of this statement is often quoted, but not so much the first. Salmond didn’t even let it sit for a day, not even half a day. The democratic voice of Scotland was disrespected right away.
Over the following few weeks, over 100,000 people joined the SNP and 20,000 joined the Scottish Greens, all with the objective of campaigning again for independence, despite the majority of their peers voting against this. Some of these people are those now claiming to represent us today. They disrespected the vote as well. Salmond was far from being the only one. To steal a line from Anas Sarwar, many of these people only want to represent half the country.
In the aftermath of the vote, all parties in the Scottish parliament got together to negotiate new powers for Scotland, all of which were then delivered by the Westminster parliament. And we should be clear about this. Those parties agreed a new devolved settlement under the Smith Commission that they could all sign up to. So, not only do we now have a situation where a majority of people in Scotland voted to maintain the union, we also have a package of powers that 100 percent of people in Scotland can support. This is what should have put an end to the argument, the thing that brought us together. This is actually the most persuasive democratic argument of all, but it is never articulated. When that nice Mr Swinney signed the Smith agreement, and then disregarded it moments later, he was not only being undemocratic but dishonourable as well. He in particular cannot lecture us on democracy now.
All of this was 20 months before Brexit. The SNP say that leaving the EU was a democratic affront, but they had turned their backs on democracy long before that.
The Brexit Argument
When you vote to stay part of a larger union, you accept votes taken at that level. That is democracy as well, the rules you have signed up to, but the SNP didn’t accept that result, just as they didn’t accept the result in 2014.
So, this is where the patronising lecture breaks down. If the SNP did not accept the result of either vote, would they accept the result of another one if that went against them too? The evidence is that they would not. And if we know this in advance, then why should those who disagree with them participate in any future vote, and why should they accept the result if it went ahead and the SNP got their way? At best the country would be heading for a damaging stalemate, at worst we would be looking at angry and deeply unsettling anarchy. That will harm all of us. If you believe in democracy, you cannot opt out each time you don’t get your way, because that just leads to greater and greater fragmentation.
Brexit has been a big thing, but there have been other big changes since 2014 as well. The new powers for the Scottish parliament, most of which are never used, should satisfy those asking for more autonomy in 2014, and as noted above, all our politicians signed up to that. That should be respected. The economic argument, already tenuous in 2014, has moved further away from reality, and that will become more apparent in the decade ahead. So, if we are going to talk about material change in circumstances, we need to mention them all.
The principle of having a referendum
There are other principles of democracy that we need to be aware of as well. A referendum is a mechanism where the government asks the permission of the people to move from their current constitutional position to some other position that needs to be defined. If it is not defined, the people cannot be informed properly. You can’t vote on the principle of doing something. This implies that you either need two before and after votes or you agree to negotiate in advance, and then vote on the outcome of what you negotiate. This is important because if you can’t negotiate what you promise people, then the public does not get what they voted for, and following SNP logic, that would be a serious change in material circumstances, and the public would be within their rights to ask that the result be reversed.
We know how democracy works in our everyday lives, and we know how to ma3ke sure that contentious issues do not result in damaging stalemates. The smallest town hall committee knows to put a provision in its constitution that requires a two-thirds majority to effect a constitutional change. The SNP itself requires a two thirds majority to effect constitutional change. Why would we allow the SNP to make one rule for themselves and another for us? If Alex Salmond thinks a super majority is necessary to decisively take forward change, then why should we not be asking for a super majority on this, as any other organisation would require? The EU, which the SNP supposedly thinks so much of, requires unanimity to take important issues forwards. 50 percent plus one is a disaster for everyone.
The current narrative
On the first day of election coverage, BBC presenter Kirsty Wark was salivating at the prospect of the intrigue of another referendum, even before any results were declared. They ran stories of an elected MSP having to buy some milk to take home to his wife, a nice and convenient (probably orchestrated) story to show us just how ordinary and just like us they are. This is now the risk. The political and media establishment in Scotland will get drawn in by the intrigue and planted stories, and indulge themselves in the spectacle for another five years if we let them. Every tiny incremental change in the narrative will be regarded as headline news, every word that people say will be analysed.
In the real world, we have a worldwide pandemic going on that is still accelerating in many areas. It will take us a decade to get out of that completely. Politicians should be concentrated completely on that, but the issue we cannot get away from in Scotland will be the distraction that undermines all this, and the button to hit when the Scottish Government gets in to trouble – on any other problem. The need for a constitutional squirrel to divert our attention will be greater than ever.
Democracy or the law
Commentators have been asking during the election analysis whether democracy or the rule of law is most important in taking things forwards. No doubt SNP spin doctors have dreamt up this line knowing that any legal challenge to any referendum bill will clarify that it is illegal.
The important thing to understand in this is that the UK Government has a duty to uphold the law. The SNP, even though it is primarily a campaign group, has an obligation to operate within that same law. Citizens would expect any government to behave within the law, and any one of us has the democratic right to challenge it if it does not. The rule of law is central to preserving order in the country in which we live. To suggest that this is not important puts us all on a very slippery slope. With no rule of law, or a convenient disregard for it when it suits, we have no democracy, and any decisions made without it are always going to be suspect. The future of any new country will be undermined from the start.
People also ask what the democratic route to independence is if a referendum cannot be achieved – but equally, what is the democratic means of maintaining our position in the union against a political party who will always try to undermine that, irrespective of what the population has decided in the past, especially when that government is only elected by less than half of those voting, and only a third of the overall electorate?
The answer is to respect the 2014 vote, and to wait for that generation to expire. No-one will begrudge people another choice at that point, but there is no democratic or moral case for re- running a campaign that has already decided the matter, and for which there is still no clear evidence to say that this has changed. The country is split 50:50 (if not 45:55 for the union). Everything tells us that. If these divisions are cultivated to raise the heat on this issue, then things will not end well for anyone.
If you appreciated this article please share and follow us on Twitter here – and like and comment on facebook here.
