2020 is not 1985 or 1989
The implication, of course, is that we’re in a similar position now – we lost the first indyref in 2014, and the Tories have been in power since 2010, so we’re basically just halfway through purgatory, and all we need is a bit of patience, and then indyref2 and independence will be supported by two thirds of all Scots, the Tories won’t be able to stand in the way of the new consensus, and everybody will be happy and joyful as we transition gently to independence. And because Westminster will be supportive, too, it will be done completely without any conflicts or acrimony.
I’m probably exaggerating a wee bit, but I do think many people have thoughts along these lines, although they never spell it out in any great detail – in general, they just say we need a bigger majority and that we need to delay independence until people are ready. I also sense a degree of determinism amongst those who think like this – they’re often convinced people can only really move from No to Yes, and that young people are inherently pro-independence, so independence is bound to happen if we just wait long enough. It’s almost like a religious belief that makes them immune to doubt and suffering.
I disagree. I think this school of thought is dangerous and is likely to waste the best opportunity Scotland has ever had to become an independent country again.
I’m not saying history definitely won’t repeat itself, but there are a lot of differences between the 1980s and today.
Back then, devolution wasn’t an SNP project at all – in fact the SNP was torn between those who supported it and those who thought it was likely to be a dead end. Labour and the Lib Dems (the SDP-Liberal Alliance before 1988) wanted devolution for various reasons, but not least because they thought it would make independence and the SNP seem less attractive. Furthermore, both parties had quite a large percentage of Scottish MPs at Westminster at the time, so it was quite easy for the Scottish politicians to make the UK-wide parties supportive of devolution, too, not least when it was sold as a way to preserve political power in Scotland for a very long time.
The fact that Scots were increasingly in favour of devolution of course only helped, because it made Labour and the Lib Dems look like they were on the same side as the people, not like the Tories and parts of the SNP.
So basically, Labour and the Lib Dems thought devolution was a win-win project that would harm the Tories and the SNP, make themselves more popular, and give them a power base whenever the Tories were in power at Westminster.
On top of this, most of the Scottish media and lots of civic organisations also supported devolution, so it did indeed become an almost unstoppable force. It was basically just a case of waiting for Labour to win a general election, which they did in 1997, and the rest is history.
Today we’re in a fundamentally different place. The Scottish branches of Labour and the Lib Dems don’t want independence at all – they have lost almost everybody who was in favour of independence, so they’re now very Unionist. The UK-wide parties might be slightly more favourable to independence, but they’re not really all that interested, so they tend to follow the policy set by their branch offices north of the border.
If we’re waiting for Labour and the Lib Dems to join up with the SNP to demand independence, I think we’re in for a long wait. And of course mainstream media have almost disappeared in Scotland, and what’s left is controlled by London, so we won’t get any support from them, either.
Of course Labour might grant a second independence referendum if they win political power in the UK in 2024 or 2029, but I have my doubts – in politics, you don’t tend to do anything unless it’s in your own interest or you get something in return, and I fail to see how we can sell indyref2 to any UK Prime Minister, unless there’s a hung parliament. (And we’ve just had one of those, and the SNP didn’t get anything out of that.)
In politics (and in negotiations in general), it’s always useful to think about what’s in a deal for your opponent. In the 1980s, devolution was good for everybody (apart from the Tories). How will independence benefit the Tories? Labour? The Lib Dems? Politics isn’t about measuring mandates, or about deserving causes, but about power, self-interest and diplomacy.
The best thing we can do is probably to try to make the Scottish parties strongly pro-independence (and at least pro-referendum). They have very few members, so it should be entirely possible, simply by making some of their pro-independence voters join and make their voices heard.
Apart from that, I agree with Craig Dalȝell that the goal is to make the desire to govern Scotland more “painful” than the desire to let it go. (See this Twitter thread, discussing measures such as consultative referendums, mockery, civil disobedience and road signs.)
The period from 1979 to 1997 saw Labour and the Lib Dems campaigning for devolution because they thought it was in their own interest, not because they thought there was a mandate or because it morally was the right thing to do. If we simply lean back and wait for them to grant indyref2 out of the goodness of their hearts, my best guess is that we’ll be waiting until the last person who can remember 1997 has died.
I agree that gradualism is at most a massive risk to independence and to the freedom of our country . IMO we desperately NEED another indy party to reap the list votes and to stir the SNP to move , with this in mind PLEASE read this comment outlining the benefits of another indy party this was posted on WOS
Sean Swan says:
12 August, 2019 at 5:56 am
Hi my name is Sean Swan and I’m Irish. I hold a doctorate in politics from the University of Ulster and currently live in the US. I teach or have taught British Politics at both Gonzaga University and Whitworth University. I mention the fact that I’m a professor of politics only to indicate that I might just know how the AMS electoral system works.
AMS elections have two parts. First the constituency vote is counted and seats allocated, then the regional (aka ‘list’ or ‘second’) votes are counted. A party’s EFFECTIVE (as in what counts) vote in the regional vote is the number of votes it received divided by the number of seats it won plus one (usually expressed as Votes/Seats+1). If a party won no constituency seats and got 100,000 regional votes, its effective vote is 100,000 divided by the number of seats it already has (zero) plus one = 100,000. If a party won 9 constituency seats and got a regional vote of 100,000, its effective vote is 100,000 divided by the number of seats it won (nine) plus one = 10,000, So success at the constituency level is a handicap at regional level.
Take an example from the Glasgow region:
In the 2016 election in the Glasgow region, the SNP took all nine constituency seats. The results for the regional vote were:
SNP 111,101 – effective vote (111,101/10) = 11,110
Lab 59,151 – effective vote (59,151/1) = 59,151
Con 29,533 – effective vote (29,533/1) = 29,533
Green 23, 398 – effective vote (23,398/1) = 23, 398
Labour, with the largest effective vote, took the first seat, reducing its effective vote to 59, 151 divided by two = 29, 575. Labour still has the highest effective vote and takes the second seat, reducing its effective vote to 59,151 divided by three = 19,717. This leaves the Conservatives with the largest effective vote at this stage and they take the third seat, reducing their effective vote to 29, 553 divided by two = 14, 766. Labour now has the highest effective vote and takes the fourth seat, reducing their effective vote to 59, 151 divided by four = 14, 788. The Greens now have the highest effective vote and take the fifth seat, reducing their effective vote to 23,398 divided by two = 11,699. The sixth seat goes to Labour, reducing their effective vote to 59,151 divided by five = 11, 830. The final seat goes to the Conservatives on an effective vote of 14, 766.
Thus the final tally was SNP 0, Labour 4, Conservatives 2 and Greens 1. Despite the SNP having gained 44.8% of the vote, they end up with no seats, while the Greens, on 9,4% of the vote receive 1 seat. The 44.8% of the regional vote that went to the SNP at the regional level in Glasgow did not elect a single MSP because the SNP had won so many Constituency seats. It was, in effect, a wasted vote. Had the 44.8% gone instead to a party that had no constituency seats, call it the Indy List, it would have won 4 regional seats, labour would have won only 2 seats and the Tories only 1.
A credible ‘list only’ pro-indy party could do very well – especially if, as I half suspect might happen, a heavy weight like Salmond joined.
A Party does NOT need to stand any candidates at constituency level to take part in the regional election. The idea that a party must compete at both constituency and regional level is a total fallacy.
The AMS system can be hard for the ordinary voter to understand – so they need to take it on faith from people who DO understand it that giving the ‘second’ (regional) vote to a pro-indy party besides the SNP is likely to lead to more pro-indy MSPs getting elected.
I see some people have been moaning about the AMS system, but the reality is that, like it or lump it, it is the system you have to work with.
Sorry for jumping into this debate, but there were a lot of people commenting on here who just don’t understand how the AMS system works. Stuart Campbell’s idea is totally practical.
Great post, very clear! Thank you Sean. I particularly appreciate the clarification that you do not have to compete in the constituency seats but can compete for list seats only. That’s something James Kelly, for all his erudite Stu Campbell bashing, has never highlighted. This is the best news I’ve read in quite a while. You’ve made my evening!
“… they describe how bleak things were looking after the devolution referendum was lost in 1979, followed by 18 years of Tory rule, but how it LEAD to the emergence of a new consensus in Scotland that we needed a Scottish Parliament …”
It’s led, folks. OK? Led. Led. Led. That’s the past tense of the verb “to lead”. Now, I know this word is pronounced the same way as a completely different word, “lead”, a noun meaning a highly toxic metallic element used in the building and roofing trades.
But they are different words with different meanings! So please give a bit more thought to which one you want to use. “Lead piping in older houses is a danger to human health”. Or “Nicola Sturgeon led Scotland to independence in the year after Brexit.”
This is not a carping or finicky point, and I am not splitting grammatical hairs. It matters. I see this error all over the internet and in the printed press on a daily basis and it drives me nuts.
It used to be said (or sed?) that Scotland would never be free until the last minister was strangled with the last copy of the Sunday Post.
In my view, Scotland will never be independent until the present queen pops her clogs and the populace learn the difference between LEAD and LED.