Oh no, it is. Another referendum panto
The PT Barnums of Scotland, Sturgeon and Swinney, are back
CHRISTMAS may be over, but I regret to inform you that Pantomime season has been extended. There is a new show in town. Roll up to get your ticket to the latest performance of Nicola Sturgeon’s Indyref2 Wonderland.
Confirmed by the First Minister and her loyal deputy John Swinney earlier this week, the SNP Government is to announce within weeks its plans to press ahead with the fabled second referendum on independence. Maintaining a straight face, the pair insist that it will take place, apparently, by the end of next year. Mr Swinney and Miss Sturgeon — the PT Barnums of Scottish public life — are once again preparing to take their circus act on the road.
It’s important to set out some facts before the charade goes any further. As the SNP knows and is now clear to everybody, the average Scot is not, actually, on the barricades demanding another referendum and certainly not on the SNP’s timescale. Mario Gizzi, the owner of DiMaggio’s restaurant group spoke for the nation earlier this week. “Stabiity, that’s what we need,” he said. “We’ve gone through referendum, Brexit, pandemics, We just need to draw breath.” It is certainly true to say that the average Scot does not want to be told that they cannot have another referendum on independence by Westminster. But after a decade of turmoil — after Brexit, and after a pandemic — only nationalist activists want to load yet more insecurity into their lives with a referendum right now. This is why there is currently no prospect of another referendum on independence under the SNP’s timescale: it is not because of Boris Johnson’s opinion on the matter, it’s because Scots don’t want it.
For the self-appointed political wing of the Scottish people, however, this inconvenient fact cannot be allowed to take hold. The SNP leadership is also aware of the army of activists who are growing increasingly impatient and want to be told that Freedom is coming yesterday. So, never mind the fact we were facing a Covid “tsunami” just a matter of weeks ago, it’s clear the SNP has decided it needs to rehash the same tired, nationalist performance for us all this coming spring. You will all be familiar with the plot. Stage left is the good guy: plucky little Scotland, a poor, oppressed nation which yearns day and night for the right to choose its own future. Free by ’23! But — boo! — here, stage right, comes the UK Government, armed with a huge club, emblazoned the word “no”. It’s a simple story of oppressed v oppressor, where we are invited to take sides in the battle of us versus them. Who cares that the call for a referendum next year is complete nonsense? That is not the point: the point is to manufacture the circumstances in which Westminster will block it before the falsehood can be exposed. Thus, the SNP can retreat to its favourite story of grievance and invite us similarly to feel outrage over the denial of something that most of us actually don’t actually want.
As this suggests, there is the potential for the SNP ends up looking ridiculous here. Even its own activists know that the whole performance is for show. “It’s red meat for the base. A cynical ploy,” says one tired pro-nationalist acquaintance. Among many pro-independence activists, there is a growing belief that Miss Sturgeon simply wants to retain the trappings of power as the leader of a devolved nation, playing the Holyrood versus Westminster battle for ever. But I’d suggest it’s far more than that. For these political games to be played at a time when the NHS is in crisis, when the hospitality sector is on its knees (thanks to restrictions imposed by the SNP), and when the nation is about to come up against a once-in-a-generation cost of living crisis, is an insult to us all — No and Yes voters together. Yesterday, the Poverty and Inequality Commission warned that targets for cutting child poverty are to be missed and 210,000 children in Scotland could be trapped by the coming squeeze in living standards. This is just a glimpse of the kind of social and economic hangover from the pandemic that is likely to linger over the country for years to come. What does it say about the attitude our government has about us that it is preparing to prioritise a fake row of its own making above the deep crisis that the country continues to face?
So tempting as it is to just ignore the entire charade, I’d suggest there are some important facts that should be made in response to the SNP’s forthoming claims to represent the views of most Scots on our “right to choose”.
Firstly, and most obviously, there was a vote about this already. The SNP can now insist all it likes that 2014 is null and void but that decision does still hold. Along with Alex Salmond and his allies, it cannot simply be made to disappear by the SNP because it says so.
Secondly, let us remember why the SNP was elected in the first place, not yet a year ago. In a pandemic election, Scots rallied to the Nationalists because they were looking for direction and security, not because they wanted a second referendum. Polls taken on the day of the election showed that fewer than 30% of SNP voters put securing of a referendum among the top three reasons for voting. That is something to be remembered when next the SNP insists that “Scotland” declared with one voice last year that it wanted a referendum pronto.
And finally, it’s worth saying that even where there is support for a second referendum, it is highly conditional. Just as a majority of Scots don’t want a referendum immediately, so they are demanding, post-Brexit, that those who want us to leave yet another union provide far more detail than what is currently available. We are warier and more knowledgeable now. Miss Sturgeon informs us that a new “prospectus” is being drawn up — though we shall see about that. In the meantime, it is a measure of her party’s hypocrisy that, after spending much of the last four years complaining about the consequences of a “blind Brexit”, it is now set to demand the right to hold its own referendum without providing any information at all on the key questions it faces around currency, the border with England, and the thorny question around EU membership. Dominic Cummings, eat your heart out.
But what a waste of time this is. Once again, it is worth repeating that there is an honest conversation the SNP could have right now about independence that would be of genuine benefit to the country; one that would confront the country with the reality of the choices it wants to make. But lacking the courage to do so, and focussed only on retaining its grip on power, it’s clear that, instead, the same old show will go on. For a country needing real leadership, it’s less a comedy than a tragedy for us all.
ENDS