Thursday 8 March 2018

"The Case For Independence Has Never Been Greater" - So Go Demand It.

"It seems beyond human comprehension how those separate and distinct interests can be supported by one Parliament. The Scots deserve no pity if they voluntarily surrender their united and separate interests to the mercy of a Parliament where the English shall have so vast a majority... and the 16 Scots Members may dance around to all eternity in the trap of their own making". Fletcher of Saltoun was referring to the Treaty of Union of 1707 of course and he was even more scathing of his countrymen after the Treaty was signed, when, on being asked if he intended to desert his country, he replied, "It is fit only for the slaves who sold it". Scottish Nationalists have aye agreed with Fletcher's take on the Treaty of Union and almost 450,000 of us believe it can be applied with equal force, to the Treaty of Rome and Scotland's membership of the EU. That division of opinion in the ranks of the SNP, which also spilled over to the broader National Movement, played its part in the loss of 21 seats by the SNP, in the General Election of June 8th 2017. The other major issue that caused division was the rise of Jeremy Corbyn in the last fortnight of the campaign and the decision of recent converts from Labour to the SNP, to revert to the Labour Party, in the belief that was the way to achieve socialism or, at least a more equitable society in the UK. Independence was not a priority, nor had it ever been; it was simply seen as the best vehicle to change UK society, until Corbyn that is.

The split which led to the loss of 21 seats and almost 500,000 votes by the SNP on June 8th, was some years in the making, the genesis emerging in the aftermath of the General Election of 1979, when the party lost nine of its eleven seats.   And it must be remembered that the party had only 6 Westminster Parliamentary seats until the General Election of 2015, when it won 56 of 59  of Scotland's Westminster seats and 1,454,436 or 50% of the popular vote. A number of factors came into play to explain the jump from 6 of 59 Westminster seats and 491,386 or 19.9% of the popular vote in the General Election of 2010. The most important factor of course, was the Independence Referendum of September 2014, which was lost but which energised politics in Scotland to a far greater extent than any other test of popular opinion, in Scotland's modern political history. No one, least of all the leadership of the SNP, expected the party to record such an astounding victory in 2015 and Nicola Sturgeon, in order to calm the expectations of some of the more enthusiastic SNP members in the days just before the poll, reminded supporters that anything over 11 seats would be a record for the SNP. Under the Old SNP, such a result would have been taken as a mandate to negotiate Independence but under the New Gradualist SNP, it meant, well, nothing very much. Unfortunately, it took only a few weeks for it to become obvious that the leadership had little idea how to make the best use of their total domination of Scottish politics. Instead of driving the cause of independence to new heights, Ms Sturgeon and her chief office bearers have done much to reduce its popularity. The pathetic campaign in the election of 2017, was only partly to blame for the election losses; much greater responsibility must lie with the nature of the SNP, the type of party it has become.

Political commentators tend to talk of the battles inside the SNP in the 1980s as a battle between the "Fundamentalists" and the "Gradualists", a battle which was won by the latter. Traditional Nationalists, by which I mean those who think as I do (fundamentalists or "fundies" was a derogatory name for that group) never saw the argument for independence in terms of economics - we were Nationalists long before oil was discovered - and certainly never saw it as an argument about class. We saw independence as the restoration of sovereignty, dignity, self-confidence, self-respect and an appreciation of our history, culture and languages; in short those things which independent countries see as normal and take for granted. We knew we had to rebuild the nation of Scotland, which meant appealing to the people of Scotland across classes, political allegiances and religious divides. Independence per se, had to be sold as more important than any "ism", after which Scots would build the kind of society they wanted the country to be. Gradualists on the other hand, argued Devolution would offer the opportunity of giving experience of government, however limited, and would allow Scots generally to judge the SNP on performance. They tended to assume they would always be better in government, local or national, than any of the Unionist parties. Despite an examination of SNP policy prior to 1979, showing the party to be more radical and conscious of social issues than Labour in Scotland, those who came to dominate the SNP under Alex Salmond, insisted the party must adopt a more left-wing policy platform. In time, the rhetoric was more evident than the reality.

The resignation of Angus Robertson as Deputy to Nicola Sturgeon, has opened up the opportunity to debate politics inside the SNP, something which has not been done since Alex Salmond became Leader in September 1990. The National of February 14th 2018, carried a piece by Alex Salmond, in which he said, "I always liked internal elections as they are good for debating issues. Deputy Leadership elections in the SNP have been quite significant and in living memory the really significant one that I can remember was myself against Jim Fairlie in 1987 which was basically the classic face-off between the fundamentalists and the gradualists. It was an epic contest which was resolved in favour of  gradualism and myself". Perhaps significantly, Alec did not mention the even  more epic contest which took place four years earlier over the question of the SNP's participation in the Scottish Convention. As Deputy Leader I had led two earlier SNP delegations to preliminary meetings of the Convention, in which it was established that none of the other participants - Unionist parties, TUs, Churches et al - recognised the sovereignty of the Scottish people.I had asked at the first meeting, and it was agreed, that the question of Scottish sovereignty should be on the agenda for the next meeting. It wasn't but I insisted on a roll-call vote, on the grounds that it would be difficult to determine what the Convention could achieve until it was decided who should be making the final decisions- the Scottish people or Westminster. Every single delegate from every institution present, except those from the SNP, opted for Westminster sovereignty.

The SNP Leader Gordon Wilson was a keen supporter of the Convention and had organised a resolution at the 1983 Annual Conference, to the effect that the SNP would play a full part in any Convention that was set up. I moved the direct negative and the resolution fell by a substantial majority. Gordon organised the same resolution for the next Annual Conference in 1984 at Inverness, but this time Jim Sillars carried the flag for the Convention and I again moved the direct negative, warning Delegates that the likely outcome, if they voted to support the Convention, would be to allow Scots to do no more than to talk about how little self-government Westminster would grant us. Jim and I debated the issue in front of hundreds of Delegates and the resolution to support the Convention was passed by only 7 votes, a clear indication of how divided the party was. There was no such division by January 1989 when the delegation of Gordon Wilson, Jim Sillars and Margaret Ewing advised the party to leave the Convention, when, as I had warned it would do, it refused to offer independence as an option. In effect, it demanded the SNP drop independence completely. At the National Council a few weeks later, the vote to leave was passed by 198 votes to 48. The two who had led the clarion call to support the Convention in 1984, Gordon Wilson and Jim Sillars, led the call to ditch it in 1989 and the SNP had wasted five years.

Alex Salmond is right in one respect, 1987 was a highly significant year for the Gradualists because their strategy lost the SNP Dundee East and Western Isles and turned what might have been a significant advance for the SNP into an utter shambles. Enter stage "Left", the idea of the "hung parliament" Salmond's brainchild and highlighted by him in his, "if Westminster is to hang, let it be by a Scottish rope" a catchy, if totally meaningless piece of political pap. A pact between SNP and Plaid Cymru, agreed to support Labour "in the event of a hung Parliament at Westminster", an idea touted for well over a year leading to the General Election of 1987. Margaret Thatcher had been painted as such a "hate figure" that keeping another Unionist party in power at Westminster and anti-Thatcherism, became the sole political aim for the SNP at that time. Some will have seen shades of the same "strategy" in 2017, when the SNP did their best to convince Scots the election "was NOT about independence". In the regular weekly column I wrote for the Scots Independent, I warned against the "hung parliament" scenario as far back as June 1986, when I wrote, "If the SNP continue to hype a hung Parliament, we will be making a present of that vote (anti-Tory vote) to the North British Labour and Unionist Party". That was only one of several warnings given about the lack of political nous over the next year and more in sadness than triumph, I wrote after the 1987 election, "Dundee East and Western Isles were sacrificed on the altar of anti-Thatcherism".

Was the "hung parliament" strategy in any way realistic, from the SNP's stand point? The UK Parliamentary figures tell their own story. In 1983 the General Election saw the Tories returned with a majority of 144 with each party polling as follows (Scot figs in brackets):- Tories 397 (21) Lab 209(41) Lib/Dems 23 (8) SNP 2. The bald figures alone show what a monumental task it would have been to create a "hung parliament" scenario but this was the period when Thatcher was in her pomp and Labour in England, offered no realistic opposition. The whole "hung parliament" idea showed an almost total lack of political awareness, given the strength of Labour in Scotland at that time. The polling figures for 1987 are as follows:- Tories 376 (-21) Lab (229 (+20) Lib/Dems (22 (-1) SNP 3 (+1) giving Tories a majority of 102. The Scottish figures show more clearly what a disaster for the SNP, the "hung parliament" strategy was, the voting figures being as follows:- Tories 10 (-11) Lab 50 (+9) Lib/Dems 9 (+1) SNP 3(+1). Labour's total gain of 20 seats in the UK, included 9 in Scotland, including two from the SNP. The party line became, "the election was a success as we increased our number of MPs by 50%" We had gone from having 2 MPs to 3 and it was in the atmosphere that this "success" had created, that Alec Salmond and I contested for the Deputy Leadership in September.

It is reasonable to assume that had the Salmond/Gradualist analysis been correct, the SNP would have enjoyed far more electoral success than it had prior to 1979, allowing for the internal strife that bedevilled the party throughout the 1980s and which ensured the party paid the electoral penalty. In October 1974 the SNP won 11 seats of 71 and 839,617 or 30.4% of the popular vote in the second General Election of that year.  The party fought four General Elections under the leadership of Alex Salmond; 1992 where it won 3 of 72 Westminster seats and 629,564 or 21.5% of the popular vote; 1997 winning 6 of 72 seats and 621,550 or 22.1% of the vote. Under John Swinney's leadership 5 of 72 seats and 464,314 or 20.1% of the vote were won in 2001. During Alex Salmond's second ten year leadership term, the party won 6 of 59 seats and 412,267 or 17.7% of the vote in 2005; while in his final attempt the party won 6 of 59 seats and 491,386 or 19.9% of the vote in 2010. Thus, on the electoral platform favoured by the Gradualists, under the leadership of Alex Salmond, widely acclaimed as the foremost politician of his generation and highly successful on a personal level, in two General Elections the party polled 400,000 or 10%, less than it polled in October 1974 and in the other two it polled over 200,000 and 8% less than it had in 1974: and in the one election it fought under John Swinney it won 6 seats and 200,000 votes or 10% less. Over a period of 35 years, 1979-2014, the SNP was embroiled in internal disputes for a decade, then totally dominated by the self-styled Gradualist, left wing and where party discipline was ruthlessly imposed, success at the polls amounted to no better than 50% of the successes of 1974. More to the point, throughout that period independence rarely dominated SNP campaigns and on one occasion occupied 10th place in a list of the SNP's top ten priorities.

Much greater success has been achieved in Scottish Parliamentary elections, where a form of proportional representation has ensured the SNP has won the share of Parliamentary seats commensurate with the number of votes won. Without proportional representation, the party would have had only 7 of the 73 constituency seats in the Scottish Parliament as that was the number of constituencies won. but its share of the vote entitled it to another 28 of the remaining 56 seats, giving it a total of 35 out of 129. In 2003 under the leadership of John Swinney the number of  constituencies won was still only 9 but topped up by another 18 to give a total of 27 out of 129, a reduction of 8 seats from 2003. The breakthrough came in 2007, with Alex Salmond back at the helm, the party won 21 of 73 constituency seats, with another 26 added under the top up, giving a total of 47 out of 129 making the SNP the largest party, forming a minority government. For the first time, in 2011 the party won a majority of the constituency seats - 53 of 73 - topped up to a total of 69 out of 129 and a majority government. But did being a majority government bring the prospect of independence any closer? The answer to that question must be a resounding "Yes". But has bringing the prospect of independence closer, made the SNP any more sure-footed, any more in command of the political situation in Scotland? The answer to that question, must be an equally resounding "No".

The atmosphere created by the campaign for the Independence Referendum has never been experienced in Scotland, either before the vote or since. It would perhaps be stretching it to suggest the vote could have been won, had it not been for the debacle of the SNP's insistence on a Currency Union with the rUK, but there is absolutely no doubt that the currency issue, more than any other single issue, lost the vote for the Yes side. Again, this was Alex Salmond's baby and the Yes side allowed itself to be bullied by the SNP, into supporting the CU as opposed to the argument supporting a Scottish currency. I have pushed the idea of a Scottish currency since the 1970's and the most galling part of the defeat for Yes, is to hear so many prominent members of the SNP, now claim they also supported the idea but remained loyal to the SNP's policy. It was put to me at the time, that the Scottish people had to be "persuaded and cajoled" to vote for Independence and, to push the idea of a Scottish currency would "frighten too many who would not want to take the chance". Who were the real fearties, the Gradualists in the SNP, or the Scottish people whose mettle the SNP refused to challenge? The other major issue which has divided the National Movement, is the SNP's total and absolute commitment to membership of the EU. I have written extensively on the EU in this series of Blogs and don't intend to rehearse the arguments here but the SNP refused to listen to how strongly many Independence supporters felt about membership of the EU. They treated those of us who voted Yes/Leave, with total disdain and contempt, paying the penalty at the poll in 2017.

The SNP is facing some of the same issues today, that split the party in the 1980's viz. the means by which Independence can be won, membership of the EU and the place the party should occupy on the political spectrum. Many of the self-styled left among the new recruits from the Labour Party, have no attachment to the cause of Independence and will return to the Labour fold if they feel there is any hope for Labour to form a government in Westminster - or when the SNP decide to run with another "hung parliament" scenario. It doesn't really help when the SNP Leader, along with some of the leading lights in the party, can't wait to decry Nationalism, claiming they support Independence because they reject the "Thatcherite neo-liberal, capitalist policies of the present Tory government" while endorsing the same neo-liberal, capitalist policies of the EU. Over one million Scots voted to leave the EU, we don't take kindly to being dismissed as racists. If the SNP continues to conflate Independence and membership of the EU, they will kill Independence. The Tories won 13 seats and 758,000 votes at the general election in 2017 for a reason. They cannot, indeed should not, simply be dismissed as "scum" without there being consequences. We cannot rebuild a Nation by treating people as if they are of no consequence.

The title of this piece is a straight quote from Alex Salmond - although I added the wee bit at the end. I hope it is not just another soundbite.

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