The Tories & A Third Way: Real Home Rule for Scotland

How brave are the Scottish Tories? Brave enough to appreciate that they might have to risk the Union to save it? Bold enough to recognise that much greater powers for Holyrood are in their interest just as much as such additional powers are something the SNP craves? Because how can there be a right-of-centre revival while Holyrood is charged with spending but is not expected (or allowed) to do the dirty work of raising its own revenue? And, mark this, Scottish politics needs a centre-right party that is credible and capable of offering an alternative to the smug consensus that otherwise too often dominates Scottish politics. Holyrood is unbalanced at present, both in terms of its responsibilities and the range of views heard within its walls.

So what can fix that? Well, some variant of “devo max” can solve the responsibility problem. And doing so might also be the one thing that can help revive the centre-right in Scotland. Are Scots really keen on paying more tax than their English brethren? I have my doubts that the country is quite as left-wing as election results sometimes indicate. (Of course, I may be mistaken but this is a risk worth taking!)

Tax is one key issue. Another is being able to keep and share “the proceeds of growth” within Scotland. Incentives matter. Which is also why I argue in this week’s edition of the magazine* that the Scottish Conservatives should embrace the third way, campaign for a second question in the referendum and support devo-max:

Fiscal autonomy (of one degree or another) might usefully be renamed ‘fiscal accountability’. It binds voters closer to their government and makes their government more responsive to the electorate’s concerns. A Conservative party truly enthused by localism and financial discipline would embrace measures promoting these goals.

One of the ironies of devolution is that the system was designed to protect Scotland from change, not to act as its catalyst. Nor were the SNP the principle target; that honour was reserved for the Scottish Conservatives. As far as Labour (and the Liberal Democrats) were concerned the SNP was to the Conservatives as Japan was to Germany in the second world war: a vile foe but not the primary enemy…The Conservatives have since kept quiet, fretting that anything they said would only remind Scots why they hated these leprous Tories in the first place.

That fear can no longer be allowed to dictate the Conservatives’ position. Ever since the party abandoned Alec Douglas-Home’s 1979 promise to introduce a better devolution bill, the Tories have been saying ‘no, no, no’ to Scotland. It is time to say yes, for once and at last. Opposition to devolution was brave but doomed since that battle was lost long ago. There is no need to refill these ditches with yet more noble Tory dead simply to satisfy some outdated unionist sense of honour.

It does not hurt that greater fiscal autonomy within the union is a popular measure, satisfying Scottish desires for greater self-government without sacrificing the union entirely. Edinburgh is already, in terms of political psychology, semi-detached from London; fiscal autonomy would make it three-quarters detached. This would not necessarily be a step towards divorce. On the contrary, it could be nationalist enough for most nationalists and unionist enough for most unionists.

Better still, ending the reliance on the block grant and Barnett Formula but allowing Edinburgh to keep the proceeds of growth (including a geographic share of oil revenues) could help create the conditions for a revival of centre-right politics in Scotland. It is hard to see what else, short of actual independence, can do so.

Whole thing here. Will Ruth Davidson be this bold? Alas, I fear not. Would it work? Perhaps not. But separatist movements in Quebec, Catalonia and the Basque Country have largely been satisfied by enhanced devolotion. Real Home Rule for Scotland (surely a better title than devo-max!) might do the same. Holyrood isn’t working at the moment and Calman won’t fix that either. At long last the Tories have a chance to be out in front of the field campaigning for something that people actually want. While one can appreciate that this would be nose-bleed stuff for the party this is also an opportunity they should seize. But will they?