It’s not often that Scottish Conservatives get the opportunity to make a difference, but on Tuesday it happened – and they flunked it. For a party which is polling under ten per cent of the vote it was a serious misjudgement to ally themselves with Labour and the LibDems and to argue vociferously against the SNP proposal for a referendum on the Scottish constitutional settlement. First Minister Alex Salmond must have thought Christmas had come.
The white paper published by the SNP led coalition outlined three options for the future of Scotland - stick with the current devolved settlement, enhance devolution by extending the powers of the Scottish Parliament in specific areas or take the massive jump to full independence. Salmond wants the Scottish people to decide their own future, while the three other parties are determined not to give them the option. For parties to argue on the one hand for ‘localism’, more ‘direct democracy’ and an end to ‘top-down’ government, such a stance is risible. It’s what makes people lose patience with traditional politics.
For the Conservatives, in particular, it is a difficult stance to justify. On the face of it you could hardly expect a Unionist party to do anything else than oppose a referendum on independence, but that would be to take the easy way out. There is little doubt that if such a referendum were held the SNP would lose it by quite a substantial margin. It seems odd therefore that the unionist parties have decided to turn their faces against such a political opportunity. Instead, they have allowed Alex Salmond to claim the moral high ground.
For the Conservatives it is surely difficult to argue that the British people should decide on whether we sign up to a European Constitution, and then say that the Scots should be denied a referendum on their own long term constitutional futures. David Cameron is right to argue for consistency of policy and consistency of argument. Where’s the consistency here?
If one really believes in the long term future of the union the best way to protect it is to take the argument to those who wish to end it – to take part in a debate which ends with a referendum which is binding for a considerable time. The Conservatives argue that even if such a referendum was one by the unionist, it would only fuel the issue. They reckon that rather than putting Alex Salmond back in his box, it would give him added impetus. I think they are wrong, but even if they are not, by not acceding to a referendum they are giving him impetus anyway.
The truth of the matter is that if the Scottish Tories had come out and sided with the SNP on a referendum issue they would have been at the forefront of the debate. Instead, having jerked their knees alongside Labour and the LibDems they will be on the margins of it.
None of the three mainstream parties appear to recognize that a referendum was an SNP manifesto commitment and as the party in government they ought to be able to deliver on it. The others argue that they didn’t get a majority of the vote or seats, so such a commitment is meaningless. They ignore the fact that under the electoral system in Scotland, which was specifically designed to scupper the SNP, it is impossible to get a majority for anything. Using that weak logic, no Scottish government would ever fulfill a manifesto promise. While that might be convenient for politicians, it’s hardly something designed to encourage the electorate to believe anything politicians in Scotland say. There’s frankly little point in writing a manifesto if you know that whatever the outcome of the election you won’t be able to implement it.
There is a wider issue too. If the Conservatives had agreed to a Scottish referendum it would have open a pandora’s box in England. Those of us who support the concept of an English Parliament would have been in full cry, arguing that what’s good enough for Scotland is good enough for England, and can we have a referendum on an English Parliament too, please? The chances of David Cameron offering that are even longer than of Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Tory leader, becoming First Minister of Scotland, but like Scottish independence, it is not an issue which is going to disappear just because the Conservatives – and indeed the other parties – ignore it.
There is only one answer to these vexed questions and that is to hold a Constitutional Convention covering the whole of the United Kingdom. While Labour was right to address the thorny issue of constitutional reform, they should never have embarked on such reforms until they knew what the endgame was. Partial reforms satisfy no one. The Scottish Constitutional Convention of the late 1990s was a model which could easily be dusted down and used to good effect for the whole United Kingdom. It is a proposal which would meet with widespread agreement across the political spectrum and beyond. So how about it Mr Cameron?
