As the Scottish parliament resumes after its summer break,
Alex Salmond and his SNP party are setting out their legislative timetable for
the next year. There are a number of big ideas, but, predictably, the one that
generated the most discussion is the independence referendum.
The autumn of 2014, where the vote is estimated to take
place, is the final life or death decision for Scottish independence. Defeats
in referendums mean defeat for the policy in that generation at least. Nick
Clegg attempted electoral reform two years ago and crashed out, signalling the
end of any public debate on the issue, AV or not. If the SNP lose the debate,
and Scotland remains part of Britain, then Scotland will remain part of Britain
for the considerable future, irrespective of any future successes of the
nationalist party.
[Just a side note here: I believe that the SNP could survive the failure of its independence referendum. For one, the party has moved beyond the confines of being a single issue party devoted only to the idea of independence. It now inhabits the centre-left position once dominated by Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Labour are the archaic party associated with Westminster, and, like in England, the Lib Dems have lost any reputation they once had a ‘protest vote’. The SNP’s success is not rooted in a desire for an independent Scotland– look at any poll and you can see that SNP support far outstrips that of independence. They may need time to heal their wounds, perhaps even replace Alex Salmond, but the SNP would remain a major component of Scottish politics.]
The future of Scotland will be written in 2014. The debate
on the place of the country in the UK will come to an end, which makes it all
the worse that Salmond has declared his support for Independence-Lite. He wants
to retain the Queen as a head of state, keeping Britain within the
commonwealth. He wants Britain to remain part of NATO, the boy’s club designed
to combat the threat of communism in Europe. And recently the SNP have started
playing about with the idea that you can still be British even if you are not
technically part of Britain.
So if the Scottish people decide to stick with the UK, the
debate will end, but equally, if they choose independence, the debate will die
off as well, leaving Scotland in its post-referendum situation for the
foreseeable future. The tame
independence option (the rejection of the SNP of offering people a choice of a
non-nuclear republic) would leave Scotland stuck in a purgatory – no desire to
stay with Britain but no will to pull away. It is a frankly pointless situation
to be in – independence in name only.
The Queen represents Britain and British power. A few square miles in London holds all the influence over the rest of the country. The devices for financial, political, social power, all constrained within the mechanism of the British state, all constrained within the hands of the few. This situation is so ingrained into the Britain that reform will not budge it - only a violent revolution in England could shift the balance of power. Yet, it is with this referendum that Scotland has a chance to remove itself from this influence, without having to undergo a hugely destabilising revolution or civil war. The British parliament is hundreds of years old, as are the other governmental forces. In Scotland, which constructed its parliament in the last decade, this deep-seated concentration of power does not exist.
Independence Lite, however, will allow it to continue to exist, and the end of the discourse will allow the state of purgatory will be colonized by the ruling classes.
The drive towards a Scottish republic has already begun, but the most important part comes, not in 2014, but this year. Alex Salmond can choose to pursue the current option he has been trialing, and ensure Scotland never truely becomes independent in his lifetime. Or he can choose to offer people a real change, a real break away.
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