The word unprecedented should really be banned from all utterances for the rest of 2020.
But where the SNP is now as a party really is without much precedent. A party in its third term of government, riding high in the polls with a leader whose approval ratings eclipse the other UK party leaders never mind the Scottish ones who frankly don’t even rank.
However, the SNP cannot afford to be complacent. The question for us now is what to do with this hegemony. Especially, in the lead up to the 2021 elections, less than 12 months away.
Unlike other political parties in the UK the SNP exists not just to win elections and form governments but to achieve structural change . The structures we seek to change are socio-economic as well as constitutional. We want to win independence for Scotland, not just as an end in itself but to make sure that the vital decisions about how we run our economy and our society are taken closer to home so that we can do things differently and better.
Back in February, I was invited to give a lecture on why Scotland’s future is best served as an independent nation in the European Union and how we get there.I identified that the Brexit process has made many of those who voted No in 2014 reconsider their position on independence. I said that my experience is that there is a substantial cohort of former No voters who would support independence if it meant independence in the EU, but they had questions they felt had not yet been adequately answered.
These questions revolved around three issues: the economic case for independence; how the process of accession to the EU might work and how an independent Scotland might avoid a hard border with England.
I argued that my party had yet to answer these questions satisfactorily although I believed satisfactory answers existed and what was needed was good clear articulation of the answers to voters. I welcomed the policy papers promised by the First Minister on 31 January as a means to address these issues. I also welcomed her announcement of a Constitutional Convention as a means to reach out beyond the party and the Yes movement.
Beyond the pandemic
Since then the Coronavirus crisis has engulfed not just Scotland and the UK but the world. The FM has rightly put campaigning for an independence referendum on hold. The policy papers and the commencement of the Constitutional Convention have inevitably been delayed Unquestionably, the public health crisis must be the focus of the Scottish Government but the SNP as a party still has the bandwith to continue to consider the issues I identified earlier this year.
Fighting the virus has not led the UK Government to put their plans for Brexit on hold. They are adamant there will be no extension of the transition period. The current state of the negotiations on the future relationship between the EU and the UK is such that there is a substantial risk that the UK will leave the single market and customs union without an agreement with adverse consequences for the Scottish economy that have been well rehearsed elsewhere.
The UK is no longer the stable entity it appeared to be to No voters in 2014 . This perhaps explains why the appetite for revisiting the constitutional question has not been dimmed by the current crisis. This week an Ipsos MORI poll for BBC Scotland suggested that two thirds of Scots would like to see an extension of the transition period of up to two years.
It also suggested that (excluding don’t knows), 55%of Scots want an independence referendum within 5 years. This compares to 47% in a You Gov /Times poll conducted around this time last year.
It seems that fear of the economic consequences of Brexit is still fuelling the desire for a second independence referendum despite the coronavirus crisis, and that if anything the UK Government’s handling of that crisis may be increasing support for a second independence referendum (the polling was carried out before the Dominic Cummings fiasco).
Reframing indy case
The challenge for the SNP is how we approach reframing the case for independence in the wake of the crisis.
Within the party there is a widespread recognition that the economics of the Sustainable Growth Commission report requires to be revisited. That this is so is a view shared by both its enthusiastic proponents and those of us who had our reservations from the start.
The setting up of the Social Justice and Fairness Commission was announced at the 2019 spring conference in order to address the concerns of many party activists about the conclusions of the Growth Commission. The First Minister said that the new Commission would show how the proceeds of economic growth could be shared more fairly and how to end poverty and deliver full employment.
The new Commission recently announced it is looking at the idea of a Universal Basic Income. This is an idea which has been long been advocated within the party by activists such as Ronnie Cowan and is now attracting mainstream attention from think tanks like Reform Scotland. My own discussions with the business community suggest an appetite to explore this option. However a UBI cannot be looked at divorced from the overall economy. It means looking at the taxation system as well as welfare provision.
The questions being addressed by the Social Justice and Fairness Commission will therefore require to be looked at on a wider canvas.
Green new deal
Those of us advocating for a more radical approach would like to see the Common Weal think tank’s proposals for a New Green deal and an economy based on resilience play a large part in the deliberations needed to produce a strong new economic case for independence.
The Common Weal’s plans incorporate imaginative ideas about stimulating domestic industries and looking at creative ways of using our raw materials like timber and our abundant energy resources to drive up domestic production and consumption. Realising local government reform, advancing land reform further and faster and implementing rent control as a deliverable policy are among other proposals from this think tank that are close to the heart of many SNP activists.
The Common Weal’s economic blueprints look to the long term but also incorporate steps that can be taken now using devolved powers. This is the approach I believe is needed to frame the manifesto for the 2021 Holyrood elections.
One area of agreement between the architects of the Growth Commission and the Common Weal is that Scotland should be given more borrowing powers to pay for resilience measures under devolution. Andrew Wilsons’s recent proposals in this respect were favourably received across the board and are supported by our impressive and dynamic new Finance Secretary, Kate Forbes.
The sort of discussions that the SNP should now have are taking place across the UK, Europe and the world. The need to rebuild our economy and society in the wake of the pandemic provides a moment for us to rethink our priorities. If we do not take radical steps now, there will be no change and we will go back to where we we were and that was not a sustainable place.
The good news is that there seems to be widespread acceptance that this is a moment for huge social and economic change. With that acceptance independence becomes a less daunting prospect for many voters, but the SNP still need clear answers to the questions I identified back in February in order to win a majority for independence.
To say that the SNP should now revisit its economic plan for independence is therefore in keeping with the times we are in. My call for a radical rethink is not a challenge for the leadership, nor is it a challenge to the leadership. This new situation is a challenge for all of us and a challenge for our party as a whole.
Featured image: by UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Stephen Pike, flickr via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Keith Macdonald says
Interesting piece but I think it needs a lot of work on ideas for the economy to get beyond attractive sounding terminology.
What Joanna Cherry seems to be advocating is a form of economic nationalism in which the state would play a much larger role in the economy to protect and encourage native enterprises at the expense of those from outside our country. I think many people now understand that the state must indeed play a bigger economic role and not leave so much power in the hands of big companies and wealthy individuals but there are many issues about how that should be done.
In the first instance, economic nationalism is hardly compatible with EU membership as the EU is currently constructed. That would not just apply to fishing but to everything else. The SNP must be honest about the extent to which EU membership limits the extent of the “independence” which seems so alluring.
If there is another referendum on leaving the UK and the nationalists win it, the most important factor in Scottish life will become the withdrawal negotiations with the UK. Since they refuse to give Scots a confirmatory vote on the terms negotiated there is little reason to believe that the glowing promises which will no doubt be made during the referendum campaign will actually be kept. Since Scotland absolutely must keep an open trading relationship with the UK and since the UK will have the overwhelming balance of power in the negotiations it is likely that the outcome will again severely limit Scotland’s actual independence and may make an economically nationalist strategy much more difficult.
Again, in the spirit of what Joanna Cherry has written, the SNP should be honest about this problem. Commitment to a confirmatory vote would go a long way to easing justifiable fears that the Brexit con would be visited on Scots for a second time.
The extent to which state intervention in the economy should seek to diminish external trade to the benefit of internal supply is a tricky one. The era of unmanaged and unrestricted globalism is over and the best hope for us all probably lies in powerful groupings or some single nations which are capable of operating in a careful but enlightened fashion e.g. balancing short term advantages against longer-term need on issues such as global warming. For me, the best hope lies in Scotland being inside a UK which has a close relationship with the EU. Scotland needs some powers which can be of practical benefit such as on migration but an artificial separation on e.g. the currency will not help us.
David Gow says
Thanks Keith for another of your thoughtful comments. On the point about economic nationalism and the EU: you’re too black and white IMO as the EU can certainly accommodate quite a lot of economic divergence in policy (provided it does not undermine the single market) and even, as we’ve seen during the pandemic, substantial amounts of state aid whatever the UK Gov says…iof you wish to contribute an article pursuing your argument we’d be more than happy to run it! David Gow, co-editor
Les Mackay says
Hi Keith. An interesting comment, but I can’t agree on your conclusion that ‘the best hope lies in Scotland being inside (the) UK’. What this would mean is that Scotland would continue to have very little say in the party of Government, because England almost always votes Tory, and Scotland rarely does. And we know that Tory Government is not good for the majority of the population.
Keith Macdonald says
Thanks for that David, I was perhaps a bit black and white but I was trying to draw out Joanna. What she wrote will have sounded great to a lot of people but to me it was cakeism. Given the dire state of the UK at the minute anything that can be presented as “independence” i.e. get rid of Boris Johnson et al sounds great. The word tends to be used as a kind of magic wand.
What I think we need is something from Joanna that says how she would go about encouraging endogenous businesses. It might well be compatible with EU membership – it might be compatible with remaining in the UK as well. I would also like to know if this is the definitive abandonment of Alex Salmond’s tax competition strategy.
As a non-nationalist but I hope a patriot I am willing to embrace any idea that will make things better for Scotland and I believe there are many like me. Over to you Joanna I think.
Nelson says
Cherry’s musings are so vapid and pointless, I found myself losing the will to breath. She fails to articulate what she supports, what she stands for, and what she would like done differently, at great length.
Keith Macdonald says
Thanks for your comment. England, of course, does not always vote Tory and did so only in the current Parliament in sufficient numbers to overwhelm the majority of non-Tory MPs from Scotland. In the 3 Parliaments between 2010 and 2019 Scottish MPs prevented the creation of the sort of hard right government we see now and nearly stopped Brexit.
This is very important for Scotland given the fact that our life, particularly our economy, is inextricably intertwined with what happens in the rest of the UK. Constitutional change won’t alter that and so the constitution has to take account of it.
In fact if Nicola got her referendum the future of Scotland would very much depend on the outcome of Brexit style negotiations between her and Boris Johnson. We absolutely have to have free trade with the UK but the UK does not have to agree to that.
Me Bungo Pony says
Why do we “absolutely have to have” free trade with the rUK? We just need to trade with it. Which we will unless the UK puts sanctions on a newly independent Scotland.
Ireland was for long and weary tied to the UK economically, even pegging it’s currency to Sterling, and it’s trade with it accounted for a higher percentage than Scotland’s currently does. They broke the economic ties, did their own thing and have never looked back. Their trade with the UK is now about the same as their trade with Belgium.
The apparent over reliance on trade with the rUK is not a healthy thing. However, while we remain within that suffocating union, there is little we can do to change that.
Keith Macdonald says
I am afraid that you are wrong on many counts. Our pattern of trade is not dictated by the constitution but the structure of our economy which can change only slowly and painfully (the quicker the change the greater the pain as we see at the minute). You seem to be assuming that the UK will allow Scotland to trade freely with it once we leave. There is no warrant for that assumption.
The need for Scotland to trade with the UK is the fundamental reason why even the SNP do not want to abandon the currency union or something like it.
Ireland only flourished long after it left the UK. For many years it was a comparatively poor country and even now does not have a full NHS as we do. It has cleverly exploited the possibility of tax competition and that is what Salmond wanted to do in 2014. This is, of course, incompatible with any agenda of fairness as you have to run after big tech companies like Apple. Ireland has refused 14bn Euros owed it by that company.
In any case, the era of tax avoidance and evasion is coming to an end and does not offer Scotland the prospect of a good future.
However, you could do something to convince people like me that leaving the UK will not be full of pitfalls. You could support a confirmatory vote on the withdrawal terms and the negotiations with the EU so that any promises made in a referendum campaign are honest ones and the Scottish people can get their lives back if they find they have been misled.
Me Bungo Pony says
Obviously, I disagree with your points.
Firstly, your claim about Ireland being poor until relatively recently is the very point I was making. It was the 1970s before it broke its economic ties to the UK that were holding it back, not the 1920s. As I said, it never looked back. Scotland needs to learn that lesson immediately, not waiting 50 years to realise a reliance on UK trade was not “essential” but an illusion instilled in the national psyche by the very union it thought it had escaped.
Secondly, trade with the rUK is not determined by the “structure of our economy”. It is determined by what we produce and what the rUK wants. Clearly, as the rUK currently wants what Scotland produces, the constitutional arrangement is not going to change that. What reason, other than spite, can be given for rUK to refuse to continue to trade with a newly independent Scotland? Why would rUK want to risk its international reputation to go out of its way to put sanctions on Scotland? How would it prevent companies and organisations in rUK from continuing to trade with their counterparts in Scotland without such sanctions?
As I said in the previous post, Free trade is not essential; just trade. There is no reason to suppose rUK and Scotland would not want conditions to be as smooth as possible. It is not like Brexit where the UK has, of self inflicted political necessity, taken a hostile stance to their EU counterparts, demanding the EU accede to every UK demand or be labelled unreasonable and intransigent. A stance born of a sense of “British exceptionalism” that does the UK no favours. Scotland has no such grand illusions about its place in the World.
Your fears here seem based on rUK possibly acting as a bully to Scotland. I don’t believe that is a good enough reason for us not to stand on our own two feet.
Keith Macdonald says
Thanks very much for your reply. You appear to be arguing that Scotland should follow the Irish tax competition strategy immediately on leaving the UK and that it is not important whether or not Scotland has a trade agreement with the UK. This seems to be based on the assumption that the UK would basically contain the current arrangements. I am not sure if you mean that to apply to the currency as well.
In the first instance I believe that tax competition is inherently immoral and in any case, has had its day. The right strategy for Scotland is to build up our educational system and other aspects of our economic base including homegrown enterprise and we do not need to leave the UK to accomplish this.
As regards the withdrawal negotiations with the UK, in my view they would make Brexit look like a piece of cake and the ultimate conditions for our withdrawal would be wildly different from those promised in the referendum. You would no doubt argue otherwise.
There is a clear way to resolve this and it is what any organisation seeking a good public reputation would offer. If there is another referendum there must be a confirmatory vote on the withdrawal terms so that the Scottish people can get their lives back if the promises made to them are not kept.
Me Bungo Pony says
Just for clarities sake, I would like the chance to clear up some points from your post.
1. I have said nothing, nor implied anything, regarding Ireland’s tax policy and whether or not Scotland should follow it on independence. Your claims here are all your own invention.
2. I did NOT say Scotland did not need a trade deal with rUK on independence. I only said it need not be a “free trade” deal. I have stated that clearly in both my posts.
3. I believe your insistence on a “confirmatory” vote are disingenuous. The NO campaign made many claims in 2014 that have been proven to be …. “factually challenged”. As did the Leave campaign in 2016. Yet no “confirmatory” vote has materialised for either of them. If anything, a second indyref could be described as “confirmatory” vote for 2014. People voted NO on the basis of promises made. A second vote would allow Scots to cast judgement on the UK’s “delivery” on those promises, having been given plenty of time to do so. You will have gotten your wish.
Keith Macdonald says
Thanks for your reply.
1. What is the difference between a trade deal and a free trade deal?
2. If you do not think we should follow the tax competition policy, what other aspects of Ireland’s economic policy of recent years do you believe we could copy?
3. It is not for us to decide on what basis people would vote in a referendum. The confirmatory vote would give the Scottish people control of the situation. Since you are so confident that we can leave the UK without damaging our economic and other relationships I cannot see why you are unwilling to offer Scots the basic protection they would get if they bought a gadget from Amazon.
David Gow says
can we leave it there guys? Ed
Tim Bell says
Before we get to the ‘what?’ we should question ‘how?’. The very idea of a referendum should be de-legitimised.
We have a well established representative democracy, in which a referendum – an ad hoc exercise in direct democracy – is an ill fit. Many claims and promises and forecasts are made in the run-up to the day, in which a hugely complex question is reduced to an over-simplified binary question. But there is no mechanism by which the whole exercise, or any part of it, or any interpretation of it, can be rendered invalid. Not even a confirmatory referendum entirely resolves the problems, since any referendum is vulnerable to unregulated and unaccountable influences.
The answer is for the SNP to put into its manifesto an undertaking to make a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Holyrood if it’s able to do so. This would produce a fine clash between the electoral mandate and constitutional law, which is democracy in action, the whole thing contained within established institutions.