SHOCK! Horror! Theresa May “fears” there might soon be another independence referendum, according to the London newspapers. Nicola Sturgeon’s repeated warnings seem to have finally got through.
Scots should turn the local elections into a referendum on not having a referendum, according to the Prime Minister. “Bring it on,” says the SNP, which is confident of winning in May. But we’re told that Mrs May will only reluctantly consider a referendum after 2019, when Scotland is already out of the EU. This would force an independent Scotland to negotiate entry from outside the EU. Alex Salmond’s favoured date is September 2018 and the Scottish Parliament – if and when it is asked to vote on another referendum – will surely agree.
This has the makings of a grand old constitutional crisis if Westminster votes against a Section 30 order for an early referendum, probably with the support of Labour MPs given Jeremy Corbyn’s remarks at the weekend. The Lords of the Supreme Court may have to dust down their wigs once again. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I don’t believe Mrs May wants to provoke a second referendum. She saw what happened to David Cameron when he gambled on one he thought he couldn’t lose.
There are things she may do at the Scottish Tory conference to try to placate any sense of injustice, though offering Scotland continued membership of the single market won’t be one of them.
She’ll promise Scottish farmers won’t suffer when Brussels subsidies are removed. Since they’ve been getting around £500 million, 18 per cent of Britain’s CAP money, that cash cow can’t last indefinitely. In 1973, the UK Government saw the Scottish fishing industry as “expendable” in negotiations over entry to the EEC. Mrs May will have to give the loyal fisherfolk some kind of preferential rights in their own fishing grounds after Brexit.
That apart, she’ll promise that the Scottish Parliament will not lose any powers and will gain some on matters such as the environment (clean beaches and so on) and labour laws (why shouldn’t Scotland keep the EU Working Time Directive?). The big one will be immigration. Will Mrs May offer Holyrood concessions on migrant workers as Scotland apparently needs 24,000 a year just to stand still?
No. But the Prime Minister is expected to state soon that free movement will end from the moment Article 50 is announced next month. A new independent body will, reportedly, decide how many work visas should be allocated. Mrs May could ask the new visa czar to take account of Scottish needs.
Migrants will be allowed to stay for five years but may be denied in-work benefits. This is blatant discrimination against non-UK workers and will infuriate Brussels, not least because Britain is still supposedly under EU law until 2019 when we formally leave the EU. It also poses an immediate threat to the Scottish economy if EU migration is blocked forthwith.
But Mrs May could promise a Scottish representative on a migrant advisory committee (Mac), or whatever this Orwellian body is to be called. Scotland could be given concessions on a sectoral basis: more for fruit farms, the tourist industry and Edinburgh’s financial sector.
She could spin this as Holyrood’s Brexit bonus: more powers and more control. The objective will be to make it as difficult as possible for the SNP to justify a referendum on Brexit alone. Tories believe that Scottish voters are not all that keen on the EU or on mass immigration, come to that. With migrant grannies being sent packing 27 years after they first came, Nicola Sturgeon believes that the moral case against Brexit is unanswerable. Most Scots probably agree. But they’re yet to be convinced that Brexit is an unanswerable case for a second referendum.
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