Many thanks to all of those who commented on my last lengthy post, whether in agreement or not. Your thoughts were very valuable to me as I struggle to cut my way through the tangled undergrowth of conflicting emotions, desperately seeking a clearing where I can gather my thoughts and put my grief to rest. Today Id like to address one of the points made, particularly by some of the people who disagreed with the general tone and thrust of my thinking. I respect your difference with me over this, and I accept your view as being equal to mine. Im actually glad that so many of you are passionate about the cause of independence first. The waving flags inspire me, please dont stop waving them! I think we should think very carefully about the circumstances under which the SNP might make a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (or UDI). In effect, we have already attempted this with the independence referendum, albeit we had a consensus with the UK government (in the form of the Edinburgh Agreement) about how the thing would work. Still, the principle of popular sovereignty was at the heart of it, and the Edinburgh Agreement was simply a negotiated insurance to offset some of the known problems of UDI. To be clear, no country that declares UDI without a democratic mandate to do so can expect anything but a very rough time from the international community, but in Scotlands case there are actually three useable routes to UDI (setting aside for the moment the impact of a UK referendum on Europe).. The first (a referendum), weve already tried, and we could return to it at some point. However, in the short to medium term the prospect of revisiting the referendum mechanism seems remote, given recent events. Much depends on what Westminster comes up with in the form of further powers, and how punitive they are in pushing their program of austerity. If full devo-max is delivered (everything but defence and foreign affairs) then UDI is off the agenda, probably forever, so no prospect of a referendum. The weaker the powers gifted by Westminster, the better the chances of UDI eventually becoming a possibility, whether by referendum or one of the other means. If we factor in the potentially devastating double whammy of reduced funding for Scotland and the application of tax raising powers, then we are in the topsy-turvy situation where the worse the Scottish people feel about being in the Union, the better the chances of Scotland holding its own referendum and simply getting out. The second mechanism is the Westminster General Election. There is an idea going around that if the 45% stick together and either back the SNP directly, or back an electoral pact between the SNP and other independence friendly parties, then Labour will be finished as an effective political force in Scotland. If the SNP won the majority of the Scottish vote in the Westminster General Election on the ticket of declaring UDI, then I believe it would be possible for them (already being the incumbent Scottish Government) to declare UDI. But there are significant problems with that. There would have to be an almost unimaginable increase in the SNP vote. To get more than 50% of the seats in the First Past the Post system the SNP would have to be running at something like 45-50% of the vote. But even with that share of the vote the unionists would point out (quite validly) that there were still as many or more voting against, and therefore the mandate is compromised. Without the equivalent of an Edinburgh Agreement in place Scotland might find itself isolated by more than just rUK, to say nothing of the potential for domestic unrest. Also, the prospect of support for such an independence focussed campaign passing the 50% barrier seems unlikely given that all the same arguments that we’ve just been through would be replayed, and it is possible the Unionist vote would solidify rather than weaken. But as I said previously, much would depend upon how mean Westminster is towards Scotland between now and the General Election next year. The third way for UDI to appear back on the agenda is through the Scottish Parliamentary Election in 2016. If the SNP were to stand on a UDI ticket for that election they could use victory as the platform for a declaration, but again they would have to get more than 50% of the vote to deal with accusations of the declaration being anti-democratic. The significant danger here is that if the SNP was to fail to achieve a majority of the vote, even if they had the majority of seats in Hollyrood, they might never recover, and Scotland might eventually be condemned to Unionist rule thereafter. High stakes stuff! By now you may be thinking that Im against the idea of UDI, but Im not. Ultimately its a choice between UDI or a slow osmosis towards independence through gradually accumulated powers, and I really do think a clean break with a good majority behind it is by far the better option. But there is a significant part of the puzzle missing, which is simply that we are all focussed on achieving a constitutional settlement when there is no constitutional solution in evidence. I hope to deal with this in more detail in my next post (if you arent already fed up with me wittering on!) but for now let me point out that there are many groups out there working on this very problem, and what we need to do as a movement is get the SNP (and anyone else who will help) to engage NOW with the process of creating a consensual broad based movement towards figuring out what we want a future Scotland to look like, and we must do that as a matter of urgency so that before we ask the people of Scotland to vote again on independence we can place before them a properly thought out, non-partisan CONSTITUTION that removes ambiguity and makes it absolutely clear whats on offer and whats at stake. We shouldnt settle for 51%. We need 100%.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 21:27:32 +0000
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