The thing about politics is that it is, you know, political. One of the consequences of Labour’s Scottish immolation is that Conservative ministers no longer feel the need to consult Labour grandees about what to do with Scotland. Gordon Brown’s advice is no longer required; the voices of Douglas Alexander and Alistair Darling need no longer be heard. The government, even with its slender majority, can do as it wishes. If those wishes involve a measure of mischief-making then so much the better.
That is part of the context within which the government’s decision to amend the Scotland bill to permit Holyrood to legislate on abortion rights should be understood. It is, if you will forgive the expression, a poison pill.
Granted, as David Mundell, the Secretary of State for Scotland, has said there is no logical reason why abortion should not be devolved. Holyrood already has responsibility for health and if it can legislate for assisted suicide then why shouldn’t it also be permitted to deal with abortion? As a matter of constitutional politics, there’s no reason why Holyrood cannot be, if you will, a womb-to-coffin legislature.
The principle has, in any case, already been conceded. There is no unitary abortion law in the United Kingdom since Northern Ireland is already granted special dispensations. You might not agree with the more restrictive legislative regime applied in Northern Ireland but once an exception has been established it is difficult to mount a coherent argument justifying why it should not be extended.
That’s all very well and good and all very philosophical, of course, but what really matters is the politics. The devolution of responsibility for abortion was only pulled from the Smith Commission’s recommendations at the last minute. It was removed, largely though not wholly, because Labour were appalled by the prospect. Harriet Harman, for instance, was enraged by the possibility abortion laws might be devolved.
But though the issue was parked – and it is worth noting the SNP did not make a fuss about this – it was not abandoned. The possibility of bringing it back via an amendment to the Scotland bill was always there.
Kezia Dugdale, Labour’s Scottish leader, tweeted yesterday that Ministers behind closed doors have decided to devolve abortion. Did anyone stop to ask Scotland’s women? Lack of consultation fuels fears.
And there’s the rub. Retaining abortion at Westminster ensures that there will be no change in the abortion law; devolving it permits the possibility that Scotland might take a different approach. For the Greens, who pressed the Smith Commission to devolve abortion, that means a more permissive abortion law but everyone knows that’s not what ‘fuels fears’.
No, the vague but obvious concern is that the Roman Catholic church might organise a campaign lobbying ministers and MSPs to pass a more restrictive abortion law in Scotland. Not to put to fine a point on it, secular, progressive, right-on Scotland has a little bit of a problem with the Catholic church. It distrusts the church and it fears it just a little too. (It remains the case that a startling number of people really hate Catholic schools, for instance.) The church is presumed – without much supporting evidence – to exert some dark, malign, influence.
Just as importantly, however, Catholic voters are considered a key electoral demographic. A hefty chunk of the SNP’s gains at Labour’s expense have come in heavily-Catholic parts of Scotland. The once impregnable Labour stronghold of Coatbridge, for instance, is now an SNP fortress. The SNP’s long-wooing of the Catholic hierarchy, aimed at detaching Scottish Catholics from their ancestral Labour loyalty, has paid off. That too, is a testament to how the SNP has changed, being no longer a party tinged with Orangeism. Scottish Catholics no longer, on the whole, fear that an SNP-dominated or independent Scotland would be a cold house for Catholics. (This, it should be said, is a Good Thing and a credit to the SNP).
Still, the politics is clear. Nicola Sturgeon has made it clear that she, unlike some in her party who would rather not have to deal with this kind of hot-button issue, welcomes the devolution of abortion powers even as she also insists that she’ll not seek to change the abortion law in Scotland. That’s entirely consistent with her worldview and political sympathies.
But the devolution of greater responsibilities to Edinburgh – notably on income tax and some welfare powers – is, like the devolution of abortion law, designed to make Holyrood a real – or more real – parliament for the first time. It means forcing the Scottish government to make choices and, more importantly, choices that must create losers as well as winners. This, the theory goes, will in time weaken enthusiasm for the SNP.
Of course, not doing something is also a choice. But it will, again in theory, become harder for ministers to say Well, we’d love to do something about this but we just don’t have the tools to do the job. It’s not our fault. Tax, obviously, falls into this category but so, assuming the government’s amendment passes, will abortion. Doing nothing, even if for the best of reasons, will disappoint some voters. (Doing nothing, of course, is Scottish Labour’s default position.)
That might be low politics but where do you think we live?Plato’s Republic?
Moreover, the broader, longer-term picture requires coming to terms with the realignment of Scottish politics. There has been a great sorting. For a long time, remember, independence was often more popular than the SNP. That is no longer the case. With the exception of the Greens and a collection of Trotsykist eccentrics, almost everyone who voted Yes last September is now within the SNP tent. Support for the SNP and for independence are now more closely and accurately correlated than ever before.
From this stems the theory that chipping away at the SNP vote might, if this theory is correct, also now chip away at support for independence. There is no guarantee this will prove the case and, at least in the short-term, the SNP’s supremacy seems nigh-on indestructible. But politics is not just a question of short-term expediency. The long-game matters too (as Nicola Sturgeon knows full well).
Which is why devolving responsibility for flammable subjects matters too. Like many ostensibly clever strategies this might prove too clever for its own good. Nevertheless, it is the best theory Unionists have right now. If the SNP are to fail, they must first disappoint the people. That means creating losers as well as winners. It means making choices and wrestling with real and often difficult problems and controversies. It means, if you like, giving the Scottish government sufficient rope with which to hang itself. That’s the theory, at any rate, even if there remains the possibility the SNP government might use that rope for something else.
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