What is the most patronising response to Scottish nationalism? Received wisdom among the political, media and academic establishments north and south of the border says it is Unionism. Or rather, the sort of Unionism that says the constitution is reserved, Westminster should keep refusing another referendum, and perhaps should even legislate to inhibit or prohibit secession.
I disagree. That sort of Unionism is the only one that respects nationalism. It listens to what the SNP has to say, takes its articles of faith at face value and, being of the opposite point of view, works to defeat the nationalists’ objectives. It is honourable intellectual combat.
No, the most condescending response to the SNP comes from a particular kind of devolutionism. This strain of devolutionism, which originates in Labour but has been partially absorbed by the Conservatives, answers every call for independence with a fresh proposal for constitutional reform. In the corridors of Whitehall and among the London commentariat and wonkocracy, devolution is still thought of as a means of staving off independence. This affords neither independence nor devolution much respect. It treats the former as a silly phase that will eventually be grown out of, like stanning BTS or overusing the word ‘vibes’. It relegates devolution to the status of a constitutional bollard, to be raised or lowered as required to stop the SNP in its tracks.
Labour and Tory devolutionists are convinced that the solution to the SNP’s demand for 100 per cent independence is to transfer one per cent at a time until an unspecified threshold is reached. Whatever the question, the answer is always more powers for Holyrood. This is the Father Derek Beeching approach to the Union: ‘Is there anything to be said for another Scotland Act?’
The SNP does not want to improve the governance of the United Kingdom, it wants to end the United Kingdom
The Beeching tendency is typically — but not always — removed from the day-to-day experience of Scottish politics. Devolutionists have not grasped just how thoroughly it has gutted the Union. They do not appreciate how expert the Scottish government is at turning every power devolved, even the most dry and technical, into a weapon against the Union. They cannot imagine how their terribly clever constitutional reforms, which other terribly clever people agree are terribly clever, would play into the hands of Scottish nationalism.
The constitutional conversation at Westminster is stuck in the zombie devolutionism of the Blair-Cameron era. In Scotland, things have moved on, at least among nationalists and Unionists. Only devolutionists are still holed up in 1998 with an unhealthy attachment to the Scottish Constitutional Convention.
Anyone who thinks additional powers for Holyrood would stem the tide of nationalism should read Nicola Sturgeon’s latest speech on independence. In it, she says ‘the democratic deficit cannot be fixed within a system founded on the principle of Westminster sovereignty’. That there is ‘no constitutional reform in the UK that cannot be overturned or undermined on the whim of a Westminster majority’. She rejects ‘pledges of more devolution’, including a recent proposal from Labour, as ‘pathetically flimsy’. While the Beeching tendency scurries about, throwing together proposals for yet more devolution, Sturgeon is telling them where they can stuff it.
The tendency might take succour from Sturgeon’s complaints about a lack of ‘constitutional safeguards’ and Westminster’s refusal to pursue ‘the fundamental, UK-wide reform required to guarantee self-government for Scotland within the UK’. Surely she’s talking about federalism, the holy grail for ultra-devolutionists. Yet read her words. Independence is ‘not just the best route’ but ‘the only credible route’ to ‘renewing and ensuring democracy in Scotland. Why? Because no reform so far proposed would deviate from the concept that ‘ultimate power is retained by Westminster’. That is, sovereignty. Unless the UK parliament agrees to surrender its sovereignty, Sturgeon isn’t interested. Other federations pool sovereignty, of course, but they also, like the United States and Germany, make secession constitutionally impermissible.
No federal structure that permits secession can form the basis of a stable UK state and no structure that prohibits it will satisfy Sturgeon. Truth be told, if you put Sturgeon herself in charge of devising a federal UK, she would still be unhappy with the outcome. Go federal tomorrow and Sturgeon would resume her campaign for independence the day after.
Nor is endless constitutional tinkering out of favour only on the nationalist side. After almost a quarter-century of devolution, just 50 per cent of Scottish voters believe the Scottish government is ‘best-placed to make political decisions that affect your community’. This figure plummets to 15 per cent among Tory supporters and 27 per cent among Lib Dems. In fact, one in five Scots wants to scrap the Scottish parliament altogether. Among Tory voters, it is 59 per cent but even 20 per cent of Scottish Labour and 25 per cent of Scottish Lib Dem voters would abolish Holyrood. If an abolition referendum were held tomorrow, less than two-thirds would vote to retain a parliament that almost three-quarters of Scots voted to set up in 1997.
The constitutional debate in Scotland is not between independence and ever-weaker Union but between these two positions and a third that, at a minimum, wants no more referendums and no more powers devolved. Two sizeable constituencies (independence supporters and devosceptics) have no faith in the devolution settlement, wishing either to overthrow it in favour of a separate state or to roll it back (or at least rein it in). Neither of the main parties wishes to confront this problem because doing so would require an admission that Labour erred in how it designed devolution (or perhaps in introducing it at all) while the Conservatives erred in radically expanding Holyrood’s powers. So instead we go through long bouts of neglect and sharp bursts of constitutional restlessness in which the big new idea for saving the Union is always the same old idea: give the SNP more of what it wants, but not quite everything.
It doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked. It will never work. The SNP was founded in 1934 and spent much of its history in the political wilderness, sustaining itself on the promise and justice of its cause. Take the SNP at its word when it says it wants independence, because independence is what it wants — all it wants. It won’t be fobbed off with devolution of immigration or corporation tax. It will not settle for federalism. It does not want to improve the governance of the United Kingdom, it wants to end the United Kingdom. It will bank every concession but no concession will ever be enough.
The next prime minister will have to face up to this. The sovereign integrity of the United Kingdom is at issue. There is no nifty fix, no scope for think-tanking our way around the problem. Westminster will either have to concede the need for devolution reform or it will have to accept that devolution is devolving into independence.
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