What’s the Gaelic for ‘Streisand effect’? I would guess buaidh Streisand but someone should ask Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch MSP Kate Forbes, who is experiencing first-hand what the ‘The Way We Were’ singer learnt the hard way two decades ago: attempts at censorship only bring attention to the material you wish to keep secret. The deputy first minister, it is claimed, told a meeting of her local SNP branch two months ago: ‘We must avoid publicly talking about currency. The priority is an element of stability, and then move to a Scottish currency.’ And so, naturally, the purported quote has been leaked to the Times, with the SNP declining to comment on ‘hearsay’ but not contesting the accuracy of the quotation.
Currency is one of the sticking points in the case for independence, with voters thought to be unsold on the prospect of having their wages paid in Monopoly money. The SNP’s stance is like one of those ‘choose your own adventure’ books. Depending on what day (or hour) you’re reading this, the position is a) sterlingisation; b) setting up a new currency; c) doing a) and then b); d) doing b) and then joining the euro; or e) a combination of all of the above. It’s not clear why Forbes feels the need to stifle this discussion. The more the SNP talks about its currency policy, the more impenetrable it becomes.
Forbes was the SNP’s best chance to hammer out a cogent blueprint for independence
The currency is in many ways the central fault line of the independence debate because it goes to questions of candour and commitment. Is the SNP prepared to be candid with the voters and tell them that, yes, Scotland can be a sovereign nation but that doesn’t mean it will be able to get everything it wants? That independence would not end interdependence with the UK, at least not for some time, and in the case of sterlingisation that would mean submitting to fiscal rules drawn up in London with the benefit of the UK alone in mind?
And what of the voters? Are they prepared to commit to an independence that, at least in its early years, would be contingent on British fiscal and monetary interests? Because if they are not, it’s difficult to see how they could be convinced to sign up to the other bitter pills secession would present us, such as unprecedented tax rises across all income levels and/or substantial funding cuts to core public services. Truth be told, what most Scots want is political independence plus fiscal transfers from the Treasury, and this arrangement is already in place under the branding of ‘devolution’.
There is an irony in all this: Kate Forbes is exactly the sort of nationalist who understands that independence means self-reliance and that Scotland could be sovereign, solvent and successful, but only by swallowing painful medicine in tax and spend policy. Unfortunately for them, though fortunately for opponents of independence, the SNP membership narrowly rejected the chance to have Forbes as their leader, preferring Humza Yousaf, amid a nasty campaign against Forbes for her Christian beliefs. Yousaf is the sort of nationalist who believes, or at least is prepared to say, that Scotland can be independent of the British state without having to suffer the consequences of independence from the British exchequer. Incidentally, this would be a miracle to put that loaves and fishes business into perspective.
Forbes is standing down at next May’s Holyrood elections. Who could blame her? She was their best chance to hammer out a cogent blueprint for independence, albeit one no doubt unloveable to starry-eyed nationalist dreamers, but a blueprint all the same. A plan of action workable in its compromises and honourable in its candour about the challenges ahead. A case for independence informed by substance and which opponents could respect even as they rejected it. The party membership decided otherwise and so no such case was built. Perhaps it never will be. Given the SNP’s unwillingness to be upfront with either the voters or itself about the difficulties involved in setting up a state, not least on the matter of currency, maybe Kate Forbes has a point. Maybe it would be better if they did just shut up.
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