Questions, questions. Just how many options does the SNP need?

 Er, just how many questions is that again?  Once upon a time independence was a simple matter - you just asked people whether or not they agreed that: “The Scottish Government should negotiate a settlement with the government of the UK so that Scotland becomes an independent state”. That’s how it was  in the original draft bill published by the SNP in 2007.   Now, anything goes.

   Today’s St Andrews Day surprise from the SNP government, we are told,  is that there are going to be four options presented in today’s White Paper.  There will be Independence (see above); ‘Devolution Max, or fiscal freedom short of independence; a Calman Commission option of shared income tax; and our old friend the Status Quo - whatever the hell that is.  

  But why stop there?  Why not have a full federal option, whereby there is a formal separation of powers with Westminster, as favoured by the Liberal Democrats?  What about an Iceland option, where you become independent but stay out of the European Union. Many people might favour a Republican question, whereby Scotland is no longer subject to the arbitrary influence of a constitutional monarch.  An Alaskan option might also be considered whereby Scotland remains in the union, as a federal state, but retains control of oil revenues and has diplomatic ties with Russia. Or a Ruritanian option where Scotland declares itself independent, and then does nothing at all except march up and down. 

 This is all getting a little silly. You can’t have a meaningful referendum with four options. The results would be so various that it could be almost impossible to achieve a consensus. Mike Russell, the Constitution Minister, insisted yesterday that there will not be four actual questions on the ballot paper,  which will not be published until next year.  But if there are four constitutionally valid options, I don’t see how you can avoid putting them all before the people. 

 

   The great virtue of the 1997 devolution referendum was that the questions were very clear and transparent.  You could see what you were voting for, and as a result there was an overwhelming affirmation of the favoured constitutional option: a Scottish Parliament with primary legislative powers.  That three to one majority in 1997 ended the constitutional debate for a generation.  Having four options would simply create a huge argument,  not so  much a national conversation as a national rammy.

  Presumably, this option-inflation is an attempt by the SNP to confuse the issue - to turn the debate into a kind of constitutional soup into which all the constitutional options dissolve, allowing the SNP to get along with governing under devolution which, until now, they had been doing very successfully.  The ‘multi-option’ option is a also a distraction from the inconvenient truth that Scots really don’t want to be bothered with constitutional change, at least not now.  The latest Ipsos/Mori poll suggests that support for independence is down to 25% and that only 20% of Scots want an early referendum. 

   This stands to reason.  Asking people in the middle of a recession whether they want to tinker with the constitution seems slightly  indecent - like asking an unemployed man whether he would prefer to be in an English or a Scottish dole queue.  There are more pressing matters - which doesn’t mean the issue has gone away.  In the Mori poll, 50% agreed with having a referendum “in a few years”  In present circumstances, with the SNP government in mid term difficulties, that’s not at all bad.  Maybe Alex should quite while he’s ahead; maybe that’s exactly what he is trying to do today. Lay the independence question to rest for a few years while they sort themselves out. 

  This St Andrews Day is turning into a bit of a nightmare for the SNP.  These disappointing polling returns follow defeats on key policies like minimum alcohol pricing and local income tax, Labour’s crushing majority in Glasgow North East by election, and an epic bust up with local authorities over class sizes.  Alex Salmond is beginning to look a little like Gordon Brown.  There’s even a nationalist sleaze scandal - Universality of Cheese-gate - where a nationalist aide to the Constitutional Affairs Minister, Mike Russell, has been caught spreading abusive and highly offensive hate mail over the internet.  Shades of Labour’s Damian MacBride and his vile smears from Number Ten. The rebarbative behaviour of the cyber-nats is hardly news, but it is a shock to discover that one of them was under the wing of Mike Russell, one of the most enlightened figures in the SNP.

    When things start to go wrong in government they all go wrong together. It will take extraordinary skill to get through the next six months with the government’s integrity intact.  Alex Salmond faces defeat of the referendum  bill in parliament, defeat at the general election and the disintegration of the “historic” concordat with Scottish local authorities.  Press commentators are poised to declare the beginning of the end for Alex Salmond and the end of the end for independence. We will no doubt be reading soon how Nicola Sturgeon - who performed with her usual effortless competence on Question Time last week - should be taking over from Shrek before the SNP lose the plot entirely.  But I wouldn’t write of the big man yet. 

   And we shouldn’t write off independence entirely yet either. Or rather we should, but for a reason. What we will see today, I believe, is the SNP coming to terms with reality - which is that formal independence is becoming increasingly marginal to Scottish constitutional politics.  Everyone knows that the referendum on independence isn’t going to happen.  The debate is now all about extending home rule - how far and how fast.   

  The Calman Report, for all its faults, is a tribute to the success of the SNP in office. All the unionist parties now support giving Holyrood, greater tax powers - something that would have been inconceivable only three years ago.  Whoever wins the next UK election, something like Calman is going to be introduced and this will require the active co-operation of the SNP government.   This will be an opportunity for the SNP to turn Calman into something workable: to convert devolution min to devolution max. 

  That’s if they remain in office - and that’s not looking at all certain any more, after this St Andrews Day nightmare.  Alex Salmond needs to get a grip, put aside multi option metaphysics and focus on winning the Scottish election in 2011.   

The St Andrews Day Cringe.

The world is dancing to a Scottish jig today, or so we're told. From the 12th Annual St Andrew's Ball in Baku; the Kirkin' o' the Tartan's Scottish gathering in Sydney; and on to Java where "a Scottish Ceilidh Band will stir all to their feet with the finest ceilidh music to be heard east of Krakatoa", according to Scotland.org.   Rock on. Oh – and there'll be a few events in Scotland as well.  Like synchronised smearing from cyber nats  like Mark McLachlan and his Unversality  of Cheese graters.

I always feel uncomfortable about St Andrews Day.  There always seems to be something slightly bogus about it. In Norway, Iceland Ireland they have no problem with celebrating their national day with a sense of collecive pride. But here it always seems to be polluted by politics – which I suppose given the constitutional DEBATE is inevitable. The SNP see it as a recruiting pageant and Labourites see it as nationalist propaganda exercise.

The Scottish National Party have  colonised St Andrews Day and used it this year not only as a climax to the “Year of Homecoming” but as the moment to pop the question on independence – or rather to publish their white paper for a referendum on separation to take place – inevitably – on St Andrews Day 2010. This has been roundly condemned by the Labour opposition as a waste of time and money and a needless distraction from the urgent task of hauling Scotland out of recession. Commentators think the SNP is on a loser because support for independence seems to be waning, in recent opinion polls, and that today will be a St Andrews Day damp squib which will confirm that the SNP's honeymoon is well and truly over.

The bill will certainly not get through the Scottish parliament as it stands because it is opposed by the a majority of MSPs. But that doesn't mean Alex Salmond is daft tabling it. I don't think anyone in the party seriously believes that the Labour leader, Iain Gray, will be so moved by Alex Salmond's oratory that he will tearfully assent to the ballot taking place on the SNP timetable, but the bill represents the honouring of an election pledge and sends a message, not least to the SNP rank and file that the SNP leadership has not forgotten about its historic mission. Then we can forget about it until after the next election.

But is the independence project still viable? Is it still on a roll? Well, it depends how you look at it,Yesterday’s Mori/Ipsos poll suggested that only 25% of Scots want to leave the UK. – but historically formal independence has rarely had the support of more than a third of the Scottish voters. That hasn't stopped the SNP being extraordinarily successful under Alex Salmond and moving Scotland in the direction of ever greater autonomy.

In a way, the Calman Commission report, and Labour's white paper last week, is a measure of the success of the SNP. For the first time in Scottish history, the three opposition parties – Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Tories have united behind a proposal to give the Scottish parliament extensive tax powers. That would never have happened had the SNP not won power in Holyrood in 2007 and forced the unionist parties to come up with a better offering than independence.

Now, I know that many people believe that Calman isn't worth the paper it's printed on, and that it's a unionist trap. The estimable Nicola McEwen of Edinburgh University has described it as “not so much devoluion max as devolution and a little bit”. The tax powers are incoherent and piecemeal, the borrowing powers are unworkable and it doesn't address qurestions like Scotland's right to a share of oil revenues. True. But I think we are missing the constitutional wood for the presentational trees.

Clearly, Calman is not a proposal for full fiscal autonomy, nor is it a fully worked out federal model, since it doesn't propose constitutional changes at the federal, ie Westminster, level. But just look what it does do: Calman establishes, for the first time, the principle of fiscal accountability, transparency – that the Scottish parliament should raise the money it spends. Calman not only proposes the partial repatriation of income tax, it also proposes that Scotland should have new taxes like stamp duty. It is quite remarkable that the unionist parties put their names to this report – especially the Tories.

Of course, George Osborne has distanced himself from last week’s Labour white paper, but importantly he has accepted the principle that the parliament should raise the money it spends. If the Tories are elected next May, I believe they will try to impose some system of fiscal accountability to Scotland, partly to address the complaints from Tory backbenchers and the London press about Scotland getting too much public money, and partly because they need to force through radical cuts in spending across the board. With a nationalist government in Holyrood, the surest way to achieve this would be through fiscal autonomy because as we all know, the amount raised by taxation in Scotland is considerably less than what is spent here.

If Labour win, then they will try to implement Calman. But they will have to do it with the active cooperation of the Scottish parliament. It couldn't just be handed down from on high because that would have zero legitimacy. This suggests to me that the Scottish government would be able to argue strongly for a better arrangement, if not right away, then in a few years time.

I believe this is why Alex Salmond has been willing to accept that 'third question' on the referendum ballot paper – the 'devo max' option, based on Calman. It may be a unionist proposal, but so was the Scottish parliament. People said that devolution was a trap, a half way house that would never work, a means of undermining independence. It was – but it was also a democratically elected legislature which has steadily drawn power to itself. Calman would be an important new stage in the evolution of Scottish democracy.

So, while the SNP may not be doing so well right now, the momentum is still towards Scottish autonomy. The truth is that independence is paradoxically, a goal that will never be reached because full separation is no longer possible. It isn't the destination that matters, but the journey.