Watching the Tory leader candidates it hasn’t been easy to get much past single phrase justifications for why they’d continue blocking of Scottish democratic processes when they take over. The soundbites between 4 and 8 words long about respecting the No vote in 2014, but no vote since then.
‘It was a once in a generation vote’ is their new ‘Brexit means Brexit‘. Contemptuously brief because a longer discussion might involve having to acknowledge circumstances have indeed changed dramatically, as the Nats argue and everyone knows. So we get a disrespectfully lazy-brained figleaf justification to cover up the real spectacle of UK power dynamics rather than a convincing logic. Tories aren’t trying to persuade people – not even their own party members, since they already agree – so much as they just need to say something, anything, in reply before it’s ‘next subject, please’.
It was good, then, to see that Times Columnist Alex Massie is now also a blogger and has written a fleshed-out more thoughtful piece on this issue of sovereignty. And it’s not behind a pesky paywall. And, genuine credit to Massie: he doesn’t use the word ‘generation’ once.
In his post ‘The Debatable Land #23: Nicola Sturgeon concedes defeat (for now)’ Massie says there won’t be a referendum next year, that Nicola Sturgeon has ‘abandoned her promise’ and has no plans for how to fulfill it. He writes:
Sturgeon insists secession must be lawful and – as a consequence of that – recognised by the international community. That means a referendum must have the consent of, in order of priority, the Scottish people and the British government. Neither branch of consent is available at present, though the second is contingent upon the first. The polling on this is very clear: no more than three in ten voters support a referendum next October. (By contrast, there is a soft majority in favour of the vague proposition there ought to be a referendum at some point in the next five or more years.)
This is a curious analysis of the situation for a few reasons. Firstly – while it’s very possible, maybe likely, there won’t be a referendum on her timescale – as it’s not the FM who’s standing in the way of a vote, how is she ‘abandoning’ her promise? That seems a bit of a mischievous claim to make about a woman who has asked publicly for a section 30 a few times now. Secondly, demonstrably, there are plans, plural, to confront the Tory intransigence. But we’ll get to that.
And thirdly, there’s the unhelpful reality that people have actually voted for a referendum. A few times.
Mandate
‘Mandate’ is another word notable for its absence in Massie’s piece. By any normal understanding of a party-based representative democracy, the latest mandate the government has won is a significantly large one as these things go. Bigger than in 2011 for 2014. Bigger than the Tories gained in 2015 to hold a Brexit referendum. Bigger than Labour had in ’97 for devolution. And I would say multiple times bigger than the Tory mandate for refusing to grant the section 30 order but there is no zero times table. So I can’t.
This is why Massie avoids the m-word. But, just as they’re content to go without a winning argument, Tories are not relying on winning elections in Scotland either. Their party can ask for votes to stop the referendum and then – when they don’t get many – just ignore the result. Unsuccessful election candidates can be popped into the House of Lords to pontificate about what’s good and not good for Scots. Recent elections can be ignored, Massie argues, if we just concentrate on some polls instead. And even then, only certain parts of certain, agreeable, polls.
Given the obvious, creaking, weakness of that position, it would be surprising if an intelligent person like Massie feels entirely comfortable when writing that polling, where people list their priorities or their views on timing, is somehow more important than actual votes in national elections. See the expressions of distaste from full-on Unionists like Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford (as with his predecessor)and Massie’s Spectator colleague, Fraser Nelson, this week.
Massie reassures us that UK gov consent would follow public demand. Yet Boris, his predecessor, and his replacement have all turned a Nelson’s eye to election results in Scotland. Another UK government of a different colour perhaps? Nope, Labour and the LD’s would also block it. So that’s that then, everyone agrees. Unity at last… Anything but.
Polls
Of course, for most right thinking people, polls aren’t more important than votes, but if they’re really so important to the Unionist argument we should get some more out for inspection. Firstly, as Massie himself admits, polls show people do want a referendum. The latest Yes/No poll, atow, has Yes ahead again. Then there were the unanimous 22 in a row for Yes in 2020/21 (archived here) and I definitely can’t remember Massie arguing for a referendum then, in fact, he dismissed them.
Polls also consistently show people believe Holyrood should decide on these matters and Westminster shouldn’t interfere and have done for a number of years. And polling shows people believe the government has a mandate. The minority who say it doesn’t, either don’t understand the concept or are effectively using their answer as a preemptive, protest, No vote.
We say no, and we are the state
Massie is right to say the FM wants legality and recognition. It could hardly be otherwise. And he’s right about this being a problem for her government, as it thus follows that the Tories, know they’ve Holyrood in a bind. That they can effortlessly halt the democratic process simply by refusing to go along with a subordinate government that wants to go through the correct steps. The Tory ‘no’ is given its power by the chilling threat of an international cold shoulder. No Westminster recognition of a referendum means no state recognition. No state recognition – no international recognition for the result.
In 1989 it was – “‘We say no – and we are the state’. Well, we say yes – and we are the people.” In 2022 it is – “Okay, well it’s still no, and if you people go ahead anyway we’ll tell everyone you acted illegally and they’ll all just ignore you.” The only circumstances where the Unionist troll tweeting about Spain vetoing membership of the EU would suddenly be telling the truth. Coercion, in other words. A far cry from the ‘don’t leave us, lead us’ patter we were treated to in 2014. So much for JK Rowling’s envisaged, post no vote, Scotland ‘dictating terms’.
Plans
The question of what the government can and should do to get around this (and when) is complicated. Happily for the Tories, differences over strategy has led to splits in the Yes movement as some people misdirect their frustration. It has been argued at length and even now remains essentially unanswered. The government has asked for all important section 30 and has again been denied. So, as they wait for a change of mind, they petition the UK Supreme Court for a judgment on whether it’s needed.
That’s Plan A.1 and A.2. Failing that, we have the First Minister’s general election as a referendum Plan B. Will it work? Massie thinks not and perhaps it could unravel in the complexity of tribal party politics or be ruled illegal somehow or be ignored still. But it is a plan B designed to maintain progress and steady pressure, where it belongs, on anti-democratic Westminster. Unionists have always labeled the SNP as a one-issue party, ironic then that they’re about to turn it into one for real.
Plan B for Barcelona?
What kind of Plan B was Massie expecting or perhaps hoping for? Something foolishly reckless and likely to set independence back? A messy unsanctioned Catalan-style referendum? A UDI?
Even if international recognition wasn’t a huge issue, we’ve all seen what happened in Barcelona, First Ministers included. Can we be so sure that the Conservative & Unionist Party doesn’t fantasise about apeing Spain’s Partido Popular when they bussed in some state violence from Madrid and imprisoned elected politicians for organising a vote?
Certainly, while the rest of us watched blooded Catalan voters being clubbed, with horror and disgust, it seems some were taking inspiration. The UK government sided strongly with Madrid and its fascistic thuggery.
“The referendum is a matter for the Spanish Government and people. We want to see Spanish law and the Spanish constitution respected and the rule of law upheld. Spain is a close ally and a good friend, whose strength and unity matters to us.” – UK Foreign Office, after the State violence in Catalonia.
The First Minister called that response “shamefully weak”. Adding “A true friend of Spain would tell them today’s actions wrong and damaging.” She called on the Spanish government to “Let people vote peacefully.”
Despite voting Yes, Catalonia is no nearer to independence and despite concern and sympathy from abroad, they are told there’s no route towards that goal more firmly than ever.
What would constitute an effective Plan B for Massie? Tellingly, he doesn’t give even the tiniest of clues. It’s not his job to, of course, but claims about the FM’s plans would carry a lot more weight if he explained what it is he thinks she should be doing instead. What genius scheme does he think she has missed? A similarly critical Wings over Scotland is calling for an immediate dissolution of Parliament and a Holyrood election-as-referendum, rather than a wait for a Westminster one, for instance.
Another hint that Massie doubts the strength of his position is his retention of a paragraph about a John Swinney radio interview, kept even though he knows it’s completely erroneous, with only an update underneath explaining that it’s a bogus point. Would you really be doing that if you were full of great arguments?
The FM’s Plan B makes sense and makes progress. It might be slow progress but by keeping the pressure on Westminster to defend its behaviour, it’s advancing the case as much as anyone really can in the constitutional trench warfare against a backdrop of domestic and worldwide grimness and uncertainty.
Unionism’s fall
Perhaps worried about how the Scottish media would react, Theresa May gave a nervous, timid, ‘now is not the time’ back in, post-Brexit vote, 2016. She needn’t have been concerned as the kilted editions of the British press, of course, went along with it. That NINTT hardened under the heavier bulk of the self-declared Minister for the Union, Boris Johnson, to a confident, even glibly amused, ‘No’ and is now delivered with an ‘oh do be quiet, Scotland’ body language by whichever Tory minister is being asked. Those senior Scottish Tories who had until recently defended the rights of voters are all back in line.
The first minister accuses her opponents of “denying democracy” and frustrating “self-determination” but this might equally be said of her own position. She declines to accept that 2014 was an act of self-determination which must have some meaning; she denies the agency of voters then and it is she who implicitly argues the SNP has the unilateral right to ask the same question again and again until such time as a weary people give her the answer she desires.
In what is probably the weakest part of his argument, Massie says the No voters in 2014 should be respected (the SNP didn’t declare independence and it wasn’t in the manifesto till Brexit came along) but is much less concerned about the times when voters were genuinely ignored. Like Brexit when Scotland was the only part of the UK to not get what it voted for and the three times Westminster has blocked referendums despite the mandates so far.
Despite the narrative, Unionists don’t have a monopoly on concern about division, it’s hardly ideal to be stuck at 50-50 on an issue that stirs the passions. But that division is here, now, and the unpopular Tory Party’s approach of incessantly lamenting about divisiveness while acting to make things worse is a solution to nothing. Better together didn’t tell people the U.K. government would block a future referendum if people voted for one. The post-no-vote, cross-party, Smith Commission was clear that nothing stood in the way of Scotland’s right to choose its future. No caveats. Yet here we are.
Still, this is a long, long game. If the SNP keep winning elections – a probability as matters currently stand – then at some point the “Now is not the time” argument runs out of juice. That moment is not yet upon us but it takes little imagination to see how it could be pretty soon and certainly by the end of the decade.
Despite the claymore-rattling the real battle is not in the Supreme Court and not at the next British general election either. It will come in 2026 at the next Scottish parliamentary elections. An SNP (or SNP-Green) victory then, combined with the unavoidable passage of time, would make life awfully tricky for Unionists. We are not there yet, however.
Of course, there’s a chance, this arbitrary Unionist goalpost moving and timewasting only delays an inevitability it’s actually helping to manufacture. Whereas allowing the vote next year would probably see the No campaign start as favourites to win, their Union looks like it will be swept away by demographics over time.
We’ve come a long way from the Unionist country that voted Tory in the 1950s as the SNP continues to dominate. As Massie knows, blocking another referendum won’t be sustainable forever, if it’s sustainable now, and he seems to be acknowledging that Unionism is now reduced to hoping for a deus ex machina while kicking the can as far down the road as possible. That clearly starts by answering every question about democracy with an ultra brief ‘it was a once-in-a-generation vote’.
Last, depressing, words to Massie:
Sturgeon is on firmer ground when she asks what the democratic route towards independence would be. A good question, but not one without an answer. For the legal route is as it was in 2014: when the British government agrees a referendum is reasonable.
