Not since 1745 has the union been in such danger. It now seems certain that there’ll either be a referendum on Scotland leaving the union in 2014 or that Westminster will have to resort to using the Supreme Court to stop Holyrood holding the vote, handing the Nationalists a huge propaganda victory.
Support for independence in Scotland may stand at about a third, having not moved much over the years. But the campaign for it will be led by the most able politician in Scotland, the tactical equal of any politician in Britain, who runs the best campaign machine in the British Isles. No one should underestimate Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party.
David Cameron decided to act, I understand, after learning that Salmond was on manoeuvres. His aides had heard that Salmond would use the Hugo Young lecture later this month to announce that there would be a referendum in 2014, the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. Crucially, it was thought that the First Minister was planning a three-option vote: independence, the status quo and ‘Devo Max’, a system by which everything apart from foreign affairs and defence would be devolved to Scotland.
This was, in a way, an admission from Salmond that he can’t yet win an independence referendum. Polls show that when the three questions are asked the halfway house is the most popular option. A three-question vote would suit Salmond only if he thought he’d lose on independence, but win some kind of consolation prize. He could spin a defeat for independence as a victory. The Scottish parliament would have more powers than before, the country would be a step closer to independence and his own reputation would be enhanced. One Downing Street source says that they couldn’t let the Scottish National Party hold a three-question referendum ‘as it is so rigged in their favour’.
This would give Salmond room to make all kinds of new mischief. Imagine, for instance, if there were another Iraq-style intervention — which Salmond opposed. The Scottish First Minister could simply announce that he would withhold Scotland’s contribution to the United Kingdom’s foreign and defence budget if the country went to war. This would leave the British Prime Minister in an impossible position. Any attempt to extract the money would present the SNP with the ideal circumstances in which to call a referendum on independence.
David Cameron’s government is therefore determined that the referendum should be a simple in-or-out vote. The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats all believe that this is their best chance of breaking Salmond’s stranglehold on Scottish politics: it forces a vote on the one issue where he is on the wrong side of Scottish public opinion.
These parties also see political advantage for them in a straight independence referendum. For instance, the Tories believe the vote will break the alliance between business and the SNP, presenting them with a chance to win back the support of this essential voting bloc. But the Tories know they cannot win a referendum on their own: their support in Scotland is now well below what it was even during the Thatcher years. The Lib Dems are polling even lower. The key to a Unionist victory will be Labour, the one national party listened to north of the border. And it has a vested interest. Labour has 41 Scottish seats, the Tories have one. Take away Scotland and it becomes much more difficult for Labour to gain a majority in Westminster.
For this reason, Labour is prepared to put everything into the campaign to defeat independence. There’ll be no attempt to embarrass David Cameron or the coalition over the matter. The Tories are fighting this simply from a desire to save the union. Labour is fighting because, without Scotland, it has almost no hope of winning the next election.
The Scotland Office is one of the best-appointed, grandest buildings in Whitehall. But the battle for Britain is being run out of the Treasury, which is home to the two parties’ chief electoral strategists. George Osborne and Danny Alexander, a Scot himself, have decided that the referendum is too important a matter to be left to the Scottish Office and the Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore. He has taken his sidelining with ‘quite good cheer’, according to one Downing Street source. It’s hard to see why: he has been stripped of the most important and interesting part of his job.
Alexander has become the government’s resident expert on Scottish politics — effectively acting as Osborne’s special adviser. As one Tory insider puts it, ‘Danny’s presence in the setup gives George the confidence that he’s got it all sussed.’ But Osborne knows better than to tour the television studios talking about the issue. Downing Street is keen to keep English voices off the air.
At the moment, the Tories think that the campaign should be all about the economics. Senior Conservatives are prizing Scottish Office research suggesting that even if all North Sea oil and gas revenues are allocated to Scotland (which would never happen, given the location of the fields), the country would still have been running deficits for 18 years. The Tories also believe that the currency question is a potent one. Why, it is asked, is Salmond so sure that Westminster would carry on letting Scotland use the pound after independence? Then, there’s the issue of whether Scotland would have to join the euro if it wanted to become a member of the European Union in its own right.
This is just the start of the questions that will be fired at advocates of independence. They’ll be pressed on how many jobs will be lost when Trident moves south, how much Scotland will contribute to the International Monetary Fund, and whether its economy will be at the mercy of wildly fluctuating oil prices. Does it really make sense to swap rule from London for rule by Opec?
But the killer question is who would have bailed out Scotland’s banks – and here, Alistair Darling’s willingness to be involved in the campaign is crucial. Having organised the rescue of the financial system, Darling would be believed when he told Scots that they would be as broke as Ireland if it had to bail out the banks themselves.
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