Scotland

The greatest single danger to this government is the state of the Union. Prime ministers can survive many things, but not the break-up of the country they lead. No. 10 has a plan to avoid this: it simply won’t allow a Scottish independence referendum this parliament. No legal referendum can take place without Westminster’s consent and it will be declined on the grounds that a generation has not elapsed since the ‘once in a generation vote’ in 2014. This approach, however, cannot change the fact that the Union is now in even graver danger than it was during that campaign. In recent weeks, the polls have consistently shown independence ahead. Scottish Unionists are downhearted.

One of the rare upsides of living in a country run by nationalists is that nationalists are not great at hiding their true feelings. When you’ve got a superiority complex, it’s hard to prevent it from bursting out, often at the most inopportune times. Efforts to explain to outsiders that the SNP isn’t actually a more left-wing version of Labour, but a strategically savvier version of Ukip may fall on deaf ears but, sooner or later, the subjects of your hand-wringing will just come out with it by themselves. On Saturday, a modest band of Scottish nationalists just came out with it in dramatic fashion on the border with England.

Nicola Sturgeon today released her ‘roadmap’ for easing the lockdown in Scotland, after the first minister decided to pursue a separate strategy to Boris Johnson when it comes to lifting restrictions on freedom of association and movement. In an announcement, the first minister said that Scotland would pursue a ‘four-phase’ route out of lockdown, with some restrictions lifted next week, such as allowing people to meet others from another household outside. But, rather unfortunately, the majority of the guidance was unavailable to read, as the Scottish government’s website helpfully crashed soon after Sturgeon’s announcement, with thousands of users unable to access the new guidance.

The new Hate Crime Bill proposed by the Scottish Government is a sweeping threat to freedom of speech and conscience. The draft law radically expands the power of the state to punish expression and expression-adjacent behaviour, such as possession of ‘inflammatory material’. It provides for the prosecution of ill-defined ‘organisations’ (and individuals within them) and could even see actors and directors prosecuted if a play they perform is considered to contain a hate crime.

The Scottish Government may have overreached for the first time in its response to Covid-19. Today MSPs will vote on the Coronavirus (Scotland) Bill, which grants Scottish Ministers emergency powers to tackle the outbreak and suspends or amends the legal status quo in some important areas. Physical attendance in court will no longer be required unless a judge specifically instructs it; instead, appearances will be made ‘by electronic means’. Ministers will be able to permit the release of prison inmates in the event of custodial transmission (lifers and those convicted of sex crimes will not be eligible).

Alex Salmond has been cleared of sexual assault following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh. The jury returned this afternoon and found the former First Minister not guilty of 12 charges and resorted to Scotland’s special not proven verdict on a 13th allegation. Salmond’s twin defences were that the claims against him were ‘exaggerations’ (he wasn’t perfect but he had never done anything criminal) or ‘deliberate fabrications for a political purpose’ (he was the victim of a conspiracy). In private, much of the Scottish political and media class already had him hanged, drawn and quartered and so this verdict is being met with a mixture of shock, horror and contempt. But the law is the law and the law says he didn’t do it.

Polls come and go and the YouGov survey showing support for Scottish independence at 51 per cent should be read with that in mind. The Nationalists have been ahead before and have fallen behind again. What Downing Street cannot take in its stride is this: five years since the Scottish referendum, and with the SNP government in Edinburgh plagued by crises in health and education, support for secession has not fallen away. The separatists still enjoy a solid base of support, around 45 per cent, which delivered them 47 of Scotland’s 59 seats in the general election. They lost the 2014 referendum 55 per cent to 45 per cent and have been inching forwards ever since.

Yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon unveiled a proposal to devolve certain aspects of our post-Brexit immigration policy to Scotland. Well, you might say, she would say that, wouldn’t she? But Sturgeon’s argument has some merit, for Scotland has a demographic problem that is not shared by the rest of the United Kingdom. A few thousand Scotland-only visas issued each year has the potential, assuming they proved sufficiently attractive, to address that. This is not just an SNP ploy, either. There is a widespread acceptance in Scotland that the country needs to be able to do more to attract more immigrants. On current trends, immigration is likely to be essential for the population growth Scotland is likely to need.

It was one of the defining moments of the 2014 Scottish referendum campaign. In that early August TV debate, Alistair Darling said any 8 year old could tell you what a country’s flag, capital and currency were but that Alex Salmond couldn’t say what currency an independent Scotland would use. Salmond’s floundering that night badly hurt the ‘Yes’ cause. This evening, when Andrew Neil pressed Nicola Sturgeon on what currency an independent Scotland would use, she replied the pound but without a monetary union. She indicated that this would be the case even if Brexit had happened. So, Sturgeon is saying that Scotland would be applying to join the EU while using a third country’s currency without a monetary union.

There was a fairytale quality to Nicola Sturgeon’s speech to the SNP conference this afternoon. On the one hand, she demanded a second referendum on independence next year; on the other, almost no-one in Scottish politics really believes there will be a referendum next year. In tandem with this rallying call for national liberation – an emancipation made ever more urgent by the looming Brexit fiasco – there ran another line of argument: conference delegates, like the wider nationalist movement, must be careful and canny and patient. Which is another way of saying that, whatever the headlines suggest, it’s probably not happening. At least not yet.

Scottish politics is stuck. As with Brexit across the wider United Kingdom, the 2014 independence referendum has permanently shifted attitudes of the majority of the population into Yes/No camps, with little room for compromise. The SNP government stumbles from one crisis of service delivery to another yet continues to consistently poll around 40 per cent. In first-past-the-post Westminster elections, this is sufficient to return a clear majority of MPs, and probably to still be returned as the largest party in the Scottish Parliament in the scheduled 2021 election. The problem for Scotland is that the SNP believe this to be a mandate to speak “for Scotland” in broader constitutional matters, like Brexit. Fair enough, you might say.