It would be interesting to pinpoint the exact moment the noun “Westminster” became shorthand for all that is wrong in the world.
As Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh observe in their recent study of the 2015 General Election, it’s “a way of linking expenses and corruption, a code for distance and remoteness, and, for some, a way of being rude about the English without having to be overt”.
Westminster, of course, has its echoes elsewhere in the world. In the US “Washington” has long been a byword for perceived American ills, while mention of “Brussels” is enough to get Eurosceptics foaming at the mouth.
And although that represents the views of a sizeable minority, an uncomfortable truth in Scottish and British politics is that unqualified Euro-enthusiasts are rather thin on the ground. Perhaps Shirley Williams – who late last week bade farewell to the House of Lords – might be an exception, but she belongs to a very different political generation.
For them, the European ideal was deeply felt, a constitutional prophylactic against another world war, while it also reflected post-war ideals such as solidarity and co-operation. In her valedictory speech, Baroness Williams dwelled on this at length, arguing the UK could only continue to play a leading role in the European Union “on the basis of a much larger body than our own Parliament, important and significant though that is”.
Today the remaining provisions of the European Union Referendum Act 2015 come into force, the means by which voters in the UK will decide whether or not to propagate the leadership of which Lady Williams spoke, or withdraw, an island race (or so the Outers would have it) once more.
A “deal”, however, remains up in the air. In the middle of last week, I joined a group of Scottish political journalists – the MSM on tour if you like – in Brussels and the European Commission, the Union’s executive arm, was anticipating a visit from David Cameron on Friday, keen to make progress with the other 27 Member States.
This, as reports continue to suggest, will be largely symbolic, a historical retread of Harold Wilson’s much-vaunted renegotiated membership terms more than 40 years ago. That included increased quotas for New Zealand butter and lamb; indeed even the Europhile Baroness Williams recently conceded a lot of it was “window dressing … played up for all it was worth”.
But then, as the SNP understands well, in politics presentation is everything. Wilson (the Alex Salmond of his day) was able to depict the new terms of membership as a political triumph and convinced voters to swing from moderate scepticism to moderate approval of the then European Community. Obviously, Mr Cameron hopes to repeat his predecessor’s referendum trick.
That said, if Eurosceptics have a bad habit of overstating the EU’s weaknesses then, equally, Europhiles have a tendency to understate them.
At least the Prime Minister is realistic – as indeed is the SNP leadership – frequently conceding that the EU is not perfect but, on balance, represents more pros than cons for the UK (and of course Scotland). Indeed, the previous government’s two-year long “Balance of Competences” review took the same view, 32 reports concluding that the UK got a good deal out of membership, just as the “Scotland Analysis” series concluded of Scotland in the UK.
But then facts, to paraphrase Burns, are no longer “chiels that winna ding”, notions that cannot be disputed, and it already seems clear the forthcoming European referendum will be fought, much like its Scottish antecedent, on mood, identity and aspiration rather then a dry cost-benefit analysis, which is exactly why both the In and Out campaigns currently appear so flat, so lifeless and low key.
At last autumn’s SNP conference, the First Minister said her party would “campaign positively for Scotland, and the UK, to stay in the European Union”, but in the months since there’s been no campaigning at all, merely complaints about the franchise and warnings about holding the referendum in June.
And as I noted in last week’s column, Nationalists continue to struggle to identify the right words with which to articulate this “positive” campaign. Recently Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Europe and External Affairs, had another go, describing the EU as “a union of solidarity, social protection and support”. Now it was a valiant effort, although it took considerable chutzpah to talk of “solidarity”.
For it is a curious sort of solidarity that ranks continuing co-operation with 27 nations (only one of which shares close linguistic and cultural ties with the UK) above solidarity with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The “social protection” claim also jars, for whatever the likely shape of the Welfare State in the years ahead it is likely to be more comprehensive than anything coming via Brussels. Finally, “support” must at least be qualified: did Greece receive “support” from the EU during its recent economic crisis? Or Ireland before that?
Also likely to make an appearance soon is what might be called the live/study/work argument, and a good one it is too: that the rights of all EU citizens to move freely around the Union represents a singular achievement, although of course one tempered by means and opportunities. But then a few years ago Unionists made similar arguments about the “opportunities” afforded to Scots in the wider UK and were generally dismissed by Nationalists as “scaremongers”. Those opportunities, they argued, would continue even after independence – but if that is true of Scotland then why not a UK outside the EU?
It speaks, of course, to continuing SNP confusion as to precisely why it is pro-EU. And although the veteran Nationalist Jim Sillars has held almost every conceivable position on the UK and EU over the past half century, at least his current Brexit stance is logically consistent when it comes to issues of sovereignty and left-wing policy aspirations.
Of course Scotland and Europe have changed considerably since the SNP committed to the oxymoronic aim of “independence in Europe”, and it is as pointless to expect consistency from politicians as it is to demand perfection of supranational or multinational organisations such as the EU and UK, although paradoxically Nationalists seem an awful lot more tolerant of the former’s (considerable) imperfections than they are of what a recent SNP broadcast called an “antiquated” parliament in London.
But it remains a no-brainer: just as the overwhelming weight of evidence pointed to Scotland being better off in the UK than out, the same is true of the UK and the EU. Any contrary argument has to rely upon identity and woolly aspiration rather than empirical fact.
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