Alison Rowat: Continuing referendum debate keeps us going

Many folk are able to live with referendum syndrome for years without suffering any ill-effects. They blithely carry on with their lives as though nothing is happening and Scotland exists in a bubble in which hardly anything has changed since 1979. Such simple souls are to be found mainly in London in charge of television politics coverage. They might send a doctor or two north if a flare up occurs, as happened in 2014, but otherwise they are content to be kept posted from afar.

Towards the other end of the spectrum are those who count themselves among the massed ranks of independence supporters. They can hail from several parties, but they tend to be found mostly in the SNP; and while the strength of opinion can differ, they, too, live an everyday life, content to put their views at the ballot box or in opinion polls, their support of independence co-existing benignly with other life choices such as football team, holiday destination or vinegar/sauce on chips.

To these two groups we now must add another, one that has seemingly come out of nowhere but is exhibiting the symptoms of Referendum Syndrome to a spectacular and alarming degree. Go on high-ranking members of Scottish Labour, give us a wave from your hospital bed.

A fair few of these patients have been referred since last Thursday’s Scottish Parliament elections, what ails them being largely aired in The Herald by our Political Correspondent Daniel Sanderson (able sort, could have been a junior doctor). First up was Alex Rowley, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader. Mr Rowley said he had been urging the party to back sweeping new powers for Holyrood, but those in charge of the campaign would not listen, preferring to put the case for forgetting about constitutional arguments and moving on.

Mr Rowley’s predecessor in the job, Anas Sarwar, came at the same matter from a slightly different angle. He believes Labour has to find a distinct cause with which it could be identified and generally get off the constitutional fence. “We are not comfortable unionists,” said the now newly elected MSP, “and we are not comfortable nationalists. We have got to sort that position out.”

Both those contributions were topped yesterday by one Henry McLeish, former Labour First Minister of this parish. Mr McLeish believes Scots are not fully attracted to the drip of powers from Westminster, or straight independence, and that there has to be a way through the middle. And Labour should claim it. He wants the party to construct a plan for radical devolution and put this option to the voter beside independence and the status quo. While he did not go into specifics about what this bold new model would involve, it sounded like he favoured a sort of devo-max with knobs on, or a souped-up Home Rule pledge. Pimp my Vow, if you like. What he was very clear about was that the party’s current position will not hold any longer. “We have got to accept that just saying no to independence is not a strategy or a solution."

What interesting times we are living in, grandma. Not that everyone sees this blossoming of a hundred flowers as a good thing. Tom Harris, the former Labour MP now firmly back in his old trade of journalism, is among the unconvinced. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Harris said that when a similar swell of opinion had arisen in Labour ranks after the 2014 referendum, he asked party leaders when Labour had ever supported new powers and benefited electorally. Answer came there none, he says. In his view, the opposite happened. “If voters are only focused on the constitution and more powers for Holyrood,” he argued, “they will vote for the SNP, not for pretendy nationalists wearing a red rose”. Pretendy nationalists. Ouch.

Alas, Mr Harris did not have the space to outline what Labour should be doing instead of revisiting the constitutional question. Perhaps the party’s Scottish leader, Kezia Dugdale, would like to start her own newspaper and ask him to write a column on precisely that topic. Let a hundred commissions bloom and all that. What is clear is that he was scunnered by the topic of the constitution and felt many others were of the same view. He is not alone in that. It has become commonplace to say Scotland has had it to the back teeth with talk of another independence referendum and, election over, the entire nation fancies a long lie down in a darkened room followed by a nice holiday somewhere sunny. You will hear this argument advanced most often by the Tories, whose leader was so sick of talk about another referendum she made it the subject of an address to the press the day after the election. Rule out another independence referendum? Who is Ruth Davidson kidding? What would she talk about otherwise - charging for prescriptions and university tuition? And how else will she build on Tory support in Scotland?

It is a very curious position, this “get thee behind us” approach to constitutional matters. It assumes no country has lived for a long time with such questions when we know, for example, that the likes of Canada and Denmark, among others, have done so. More than this, it also denies what might be called the bleedin’ obvious - that constitutional questions are now in with the bricks of Scottish political life and there is no going back. One might as well rail against the weather for always being with us as complain that there is too much talk of another referendum. The will may not be settled any time soon, and there has to be a way of accommodating that.

Here, also, is the news where we are. Scotland, and let us keep this to ourselves, people, rather enjoys this debate about our future. It floats our boat, gives us a sense of purpose, shows there is life in the old dog of democracy yet. If you doubt that, think back to the election campaign and consider those moments when it truly came alive – when talk turned to another referendum. For or agin, one thing it was nigh on impossible to be was uninterested. Scotland: never bored, never boring. Hardly a bad state to be in.