Kezia Dugdale is right about one thing: Scots do want indy debate to go away
Oh no! Not again! How often are we to be pulverised by yet another pathetic paper, albeit with the backing of an august academic institution – in this case the University of Glasgow – poring over yet again the warmed-over gruel of Scotand’s constitutional future.
The authors of this rehash of all the bitter quarrels that have so bedevilled discussions of Scotland’s politics for decades grandly state that they recognise “that the last thing some people want to do, ten years after the referendum… is to simply repeat the arguments of the past”. That’s what their conclusion says, in spite of devoting page after page to doing precisely what they claim to be avoiding.
However, I do have a scintilla of sympathy for Prof Kezia Dugdale, my former comrade in arms in the Better Together campaign which won the 2014 independence referendum, and Stephen Noon, who was chief strategist for the losing “Yes” team. After all, as I’m sure they’d privately agree, there’s really nothing new in these same old points of view being dragged into some sort of limelight again and again.
And it’s not just “some people” who want to forget about all that independence stuff, it’s by far the majority.
I’m sure that the handful of people who’re still stirred by the subject will devour their document: “Scotland and the Constitution: Agreeing A Way Forward.” However, I personally reckon that the best place for it is in the University of Glasgow department headed “moribund documents”, where it can be allowed to quietly gather dust without troubling the populace any further.
After all, every time the question is asked as to what Scotland’s future should be, the same answer comes back with a yawn: “We’d prefer to stay in the United Kingdom, thank you very much for asking.”
That’s what the 2014 referendum said and surely what the voters decided in their massive rejection of the SNP on July 4. John Swinney, the First Minister, campaigned almost solely on how independence was the solution to whatever he reckoned were Scotland’s problems. And he was hammered.
What appears to be the catalyst for this latest tome, appears to be the fact that the authors have caught up with the fact that the so-called Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland’s future contains a provision for what would be termed a “border poll” on whether the province should be reunited with the Republic of Ireland.
Northern Ireland
It states that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland “is required to call a referendum if it appears to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland”.
The authors suggest a similar condition should apply to the Scottish Secretary in that a referendum would be permitted “if it looked likely that independence would secure majority support”. And that this support could be judged by, for instance, opinion polls, parliamentary votes and/or election results.
But they insist that this clear majority would have to be sustained over a period of time. How long – a year, or longer… the document doesn’t say. What it does seem to suggest, however, is that the debilitating effect this perpetual constitutional wrangle has had on Scottish politics will continue, perhaps forever.
And when they say “some might wish that the debate on independence would simply go away…” I can only agree wholeheartedly with that hope and prayer.
The authors claim they are seeking to offer an alternative view but if they’re frank they’ll admit that every option has been exhaustively examined, that we’ve jumped through every hoop and yet always come to the same conclusion: namely that Scots prefer to remain British.
It’s really as simple as that.