Iain Macwhirter
BY Iain Macwhirter
They think it’s all over. The leaders of the unionist Better Together campaign are already congratulating themselves on victory in next year’s referendum. Indeed, the US statistician and election forecaster, Nate Silver, told the Edinburgh book festival last week that the yes campaign had “virtually no chance” of winning. But unionist triumphalism may be premature.
At this stage in the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections, the Scottish National party was more than 10 points behind in opinion polls, and pollsters gave it little chance of winning. Yet Alex Salmond went on to secure a landslide, delivering what most commentators — this one included — had said was impossible: an absolute majority of seats in a Scottish parliament elected on a form of proportional representation.
It has been a constant of Scottish politics for the last 20 years that only around a third of voters tell opinion polls that they want to leave the UK. The key to the referendum result lies in the majority — between 50 percent and 60 percent — who say they want a Scottish parliament with greatly enhanced economic powers. Supporters of what has been called “devolution max” or “devolution plus” have effectively been disenfranchised because there is no third option on the ballot paper.
The SNP first minister, Salmond, called for this third way to be included, but was rebuffed by Westminster. A significant proportion of undecideds could be persuaded to lend their votes to the yes campaign, not just because they have been denied the opportunity to vote for their preferred option, but because they fear the consequences of Scotland saying no. Scots have little confidence in the vague promises made by the unionists today of “more powers” for Holyrood if Scotland votes no in 2014. This is precisely what Thatcher promised before 1979, but abandoned on the grounds that there was “no consensus” on what a better devolution should look like.
The unionist campaign has been patronising, cynical and relentlessly negative, based on scares that Scotland would be ejected from the EU, Nato and other international bodies. That Scots would be denied the pound, pensions and mobile phone tariffs if they voted yes. This is not the way to win hearts and minds.
England is dismantling the traditional welfare state through marketisation of the NHS, welfare caps and free schools, while Scotland retains faith in the monolithic health service, social security and universal comprehensive education.
Scotland will likely evolve into a relatively high-tax, high-spend oil-rich Nordic state within the EU, emulating Denmark or Finland. England may seek its own form of independence, probably leaving the EU to become a finance-led market economy with low taxation and diminished social protections.
Eventually both sides will realise that these increasingly divergent political cultures should accept their differences and seek a new and looser constitutional arrangement. THE GUARDIAN
BY Iain Macwhirter
They think it’s all over. The leaders of the unionist Better Together campaign are already congratulating themselves on victory in next year’s referendum. Indeed, the US statistician and election forecaster, Nate Silver, told the Edinburgh book festival last week that the yes campaign had “virtually no chance” of winning. But unionist triumphalism may be premature.
At this stage in the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections, the Scottish National party was more than 10 points behind in opinion polls, and pollsters gave it little chance of winning. Yet Alex Salmond went on to secure a landslide, delivering what most commentators — this one included — had said was impossible: an absolute majority of seats in a Scottish parliament elected on a form of proportional representation.
It has been a constant of Scottish politics for the last 20 years that only around a third of voters tell opinion polls that they want to leave the UK. The key to the referendum result lies in the majority — between 50 percent and 60 percent — who say they want a Scottish parliament with greatly enhanced economic powers. Supporters of what has been called “devolution max” or “devolution plus” have effectively been disenfranchised because there is no third option on the ballot paper.
The SNP first minister, Salmond, called for this third way to be included, but was rebuffed by Westminster. A significant proportion of undecideds could be persuaded to lend their votes to the yes campaign, not just because they have been denied the opportunity to vote for their preferred option, but because they fear the consequences of Scotland saying no. Scots have little confidence in the vague promises made by the unionists today of “more powers” for Holyrood if Scotland votes no in 2014. This is precisely what Thatcher promised before 1979, but abandoned on the grounds that there was “no consensus” on what a better devolution should look like.
The unionist campaign has been patronising, cynical and relentlessly negative, based on scares that Scotland would be ejected from the EU, Nato and other international bodies. That Scots would be denied the pound, pensions and mobile phone tariffs if they voted yes. This is not the way to win hearts and minds.
England is dismantling the traditional welfare state through marketisation of the NHS, welfare caps and free schools, while Scotland retains faith in the monolithic health service, social security and universal comprehensive education.
Scotland will likely evolve into a relatively high-tax, high-spend oil-rich Nordic state within the EU, emulating Denmark or Finland. England may seek its own form of independence, probably leaving the EU to become a finance-led market economy with low taxation and diminished social protections.
Eventually both sides will realise that these increasingly divergent political cultures should accept their differences and seek a new and looser constitutional arrangement. THE GUARDIAN
