A FEW weeks ago I was chatting to a former SNP adviser about his party’s upcoming conference and he predicted Nicola Sturgeon would either announce “another referendum” or “a fudge”.
Looking back on the past few days at the SECC, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that the First Minister opted for the latter. For, while the more easily-satisfied Nationalists managed to hear something that wasn’t actually said, what we’ve ended up with is an increasingly convoluted position.
Talk about trying to ride several horses at once. Not only are there at least two independence mares (one “highly likely” and the other not “rushing”), but also a “more powers” horse and, of course, the party-of-government horse that prioritises education above independence, which simultaneously “transcends” everything else.
Read more: Nicola Sturgeon to publish plan for Scotland to stay in single market after Brexit
As ever, it’s difficult to keep up but, of course, these mixed messages serve a wider purpose. Not only did the SNP leader keep the referendum threat high on the media agenda but, by entangling that prospect with the ongoing uncertainty caused by Brexit, she also diverted attention from the fact “Scoxit” would be just as catastrophic, if not more so in public spending terms.
So look beyond the usual clever framing and the idea the Scottish Government has any real idea of what it’s doing quickly falls apart. Even the much-lauded “substance” element of the First Minister’s second conference speech didn’t amount to much. The idea that stationing a few extra civil servants in Berlin is going to drive economic growth isn’t remotely credible but at least it looks like a plan.
And the SNP is no closer to addressing some fundamental weaknesses in its own strategy. Ms Sturgeon said she was “determined” Scotland should be able to “reconsider” the question of independence “before” the UK leaves the EU but the adoring masses drowned out the crucial caveat, that this would only happen if it proved “necessary to protect our country’s interests”.
But if the Scottish Government wishes to “protect” Scotland’s interests, and it makes a good case that that means remaining in the European Union as well as its single market, then it can only realistically do so by winning an independence referendum. Timing, therefore, becomes crucial, and the more Ms Sturgeon delays a second plebiscite (until, one assumes, polls suggest it can be won) then the closer Scotland comes to exiting the EU along with the rest of the UK.
Now let’s be generous and assume the independence process would take 18 months. In order to achieve a relatively seamless transition (that is, continued EU membership for Scotland) under that timescale, as Dr Kirsty Hughes has repeatedly pointed out, then a referendum would have to take place by this time next year.
Read more: Nicola Sturgeon to publish plan for Scotland to stay in single market after Brexit
Hold it any later and the SNP is de facto accepting that Scotland will end up outside the EU and single market for some indeterminate period. Sure, there’s vague talk of Brussels agreeing to put Scotland in some sort of constitutional “holding pen” but that’s all it is: vague talk.
And given that Theresa May ruled out a Scottish veto or any special arrangement in her own conference speech, this continual re-issuing of ultimatums is surely subject to the law of diminishing returns. On Thursday the First Minister valiantly tried to put the ball back in the UK Government’s court, but in truth it’s hovering over the Scottish side of the net. Mrs May has been relatively clear as to her position, Ms Sturgeon less so.
So the trouble with riding several horses at once is there’s an increasing danger you end up falling off, meaning that one possible route to another independence referendum might involve the First Minister involuntarily losing control of the situation. At conference, for example, she led her party even further up the hill, which will make it even harder to lead them down again, no matter how carefully she’s covered her back in rhetorical terms.
There were intriguing signs, meanwhile, of some dissent around the conference edges, although interestingly it seems to emanate more from the old guard rather than newer members, who, everyone assumed, would be more likely to cause trouble. For years I’ve been writing – to general derision – that the party isn’t as radical as it says it is and that the SNP risks turning into what it claims to despise: New Labour.
So it’s been fascinating to hear both these points echoed at or before the recent conference by former ministers (step forward Kenny MacAskill) and delegates no doubt frustrated at constantly being taken for granted at annual gatherings stage managed to the point of tedium. One of the most interesting dissenters was Alex Salmond’s former chief of staff Geoff Aberdein, who knows a thing or two about riding numerous political horses and is by no means hostile to the current leader.
He used a fringe appearance to warn Ms Sturgeon that the party’s popularity had already peaked. The laws of political gravity meant “what must go up must come down” and therefore he urged her to move sooner rather than later, a sentiment backed up by his old boss. “I hit the button for a referendum when support was 27 per cent,” said the former First Minister in his usual helpful way. “Why would she [Sturgeon] be reluctant on a much larger level than that?”
Read more: Nicola Sturgeon to publish plan for Scotland to stay in single market after Brexit
But, as is clear from the events of the past week, the present SNP leader is reluctant, or otherwise her two speeches and subsequent interviews would have been much less ambiguous. The party, as ever, is good at putting on a show but underneath the glitz it’s all getting a bit hackneyed, from John Swinney valiantly presenting technocratic reforms as “radical” to the new deputy leader Angus Robertson saying that independence is closer than ever before, which he and others have been claiming for as long as I can remember.
More to the point, independence has been talked up while the fundamental case (beyond the EU) hasn’t been updated. On Thursday the First Minister repeated that it would be a “new debate” and “not a rerun of 2014”, but then promptly undermined that by reiterating that the SNP stood for “a fairer, wealthier, outward-looking, progressive Scotland”, which, in a nutshell, was the proposition two years ago, while John Swinney indicated that the unrealistic “currency union” policy wouldn’t “necessarily” be changed.
Empirically, what’s in Scotland’s best “interests” is remaining in both the EU and UK single markets, but the SNP only wants one of those things and still hasn’t come up with a credible explanation for elevating one above the other. No doubt this game of three-dimensional chess will continue when Mrs May and Ms Sturgeon meet in London a week today, and I expect the whiff of constitutional fudge to linger for quite a while longer.
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