SCOTLAND: prepare to be love-bombed.
As the sound of jangling nerves rings across Whitehall at what could materialise in the May 6 Holyrood elections, the Minister for the Union, one Boris Johnson, is beefing up the Downing St Union Unit - or as it is now rather grandly named the Union Directorate - to help draw up a "love and reconciliation" strategy to save England’s 314-year-old marriage to Scotland from oblivion.
With 21 consecutive polls showing a pro-Yes lead, it is only now, three months before the Scottish election, that the PM has decided something must be done.
One could well understand how in recent months Mr Johnson and his colleagues have been distracted by the Covid crisis but the inaction of Whitehall in the face of a growing momentum towards Scottish independence has been building up not over weeks and months but years.
As a spectator it has been rather baffling to watch how a Conservative and Unionist government has willingly ceded so much media ground so meekly.
The number of times Nicola Sturgeon has been in London and actively engaged with HM Press following a Whitehall meeting only for her UK counterpart to issue a two-paragraph comment from behind closed doors has allowed the SNP to regularly grab the following day’s headlines in Scotland.
The cumulative effect is now plain for all to see.
David Cameron, having won the 2014 poll, showed by his post-vote Downing St doorstep that he had drawn a line under the Scottish question and was determined to look to England. Yet 45 per cent of Scots had hours earlier voted to ditch the Union. It was so foolish for him and other senior Unionists to clap their hands and believe the job was done for a generation.
The Brexit result that did for the former PM put rocket boosters under the independence campaign, whose leaders no doubt raised a glass when his fellow Old Etonian took charge of No 10 in 2019.
It now appears certain - as certain as things can be in politics - that barring a Salmond earthquake, the First Minister will get her pro-independence parliamentary majority at Holyrood in May.
It also appears equally certain that, having secured that Holyrood majority, an attempt by the Scottish Government through the Scottish Parliament to hold its own independence referendum will take place in the next 12 months; if the pandemic is behind us; that is, of course, a mightily big if.
While Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, suggested that the UK Government would not need to challenge a homemade Indyref2 in court because it would be self-evidently illegal, other Whitehall sources are not quite so sure.
Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, has made clear Unionists would simply boycott a Catalan-style “wildcat” poll.
But, politically, it seems the SNP’s high command has now removed its gloves and believes that all that is needed is to keep pummelling away at the Unionist body, so that eventually its resistance breaks.
This week, the political submarine that is Lord Dunlop surfaced briefly to call for a “Union of Co-operation,” stressing that the “right governing attitude and tone” from London was needed if the UK was to progress through the next 100 years as a strong and successful Union.
He referred to progressive Unionism, which the SNP’s Pete Wishart described as “cuddly” Unionism. Indeed, the seasoned Perth MP said a divide at the top of the Tory Party had emerged between the hawks and the doves on what to do about Scotland.
Boris Johnson and Alister “Union” Jack were among the hawks, representing a no-nonsense muscular Unionism, while Michael Gove and Lord Dunlop were among the doves, wanting a softer more consensual approach towards the likes of Nicola Sturgeon and Michael Russell. Of course, some might blanch at Mr Gove being regarded as cuddly.
This week, however, he and Mr Johnson moved to bolster the Union defences and in the coming weeks there will be more Whitehall activity to show Scots just how much they are loved and respected.
Sources suggest that while Vote Leave campaigner Oliver Lewis is heading the Union Directorate, there will be a more thoughtful approach to matters Scottish.
Lord Dunlop’s report on strengthening the Union looks set to be finally dusted down and published as a piece of progressive Unionism while Sir Peter Hendy is poised to air his interim report on Union Connectivity that could well point to all manner of infrastructure projects to help Scotland; not least, of course, the £20 billion plan, which Yes Minister's Sir Humphrey Appleby would doubtless describe as "brave and ambitious,"to put a road tunnel under the Irish Sea.
The economy is still regarded as the Union’s ace card in the battle against the “separatists” and Chancellor Rishi Sunak could well have a goody or two in his red box for Scotland come the March 3 Budget.
Perhaps in the short to mid-term, the one thing that could help the Union cause - fuelled by SNP division and dysfunction - is if, once the Covid clouds have receded, the promised post-Brexit sunlit uplands begin to emerge through the next year or so as Global Britain takes off.
But that is another mightily big if.
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