I’ve long had this one, pleasant fantasy: which is that, somehow, people get
what they say they want, but it all happens in some kind of parallel
existence and I don’t have to suffer from their preferences. Examples might
be Osama bin Laden is left in Afghanistan, speed cameras are removed,
there’s a Lib Dem government or Ken Livingstone becomes mayor of London.
On Sunday I was thinking about Scotland. A series of weekend polls seemed to
be suggesting that the Scottish National Party could come out top in the
elections in May, and that right now a majority of Scots would favour a move
to complete independence from the United Kingdom. An ICM poll put support
for Scottish independence at 52 per cent in Scotland and — a backhanded
compliment this — at 59 per cent in England. The Welsh, apparently, were not
consulted.
I am not completely confident about this last figure. Polls that ask
respondents to choose between real alternatives (independence and, say,
devolution) register much lower support for separation. As you can imagine I
find myself in a lot of discussions with a lot of people, and never once
have I had somebody set their drink on the table, lean forward with furrowed
brow and say: “You know, the one of the things that I would most like is for
the Scots to have independence.” In fact, never once has anyone of any kind
in any situation ever mentioned it to me.
Anyway — in this other dimension Scotland does indeed elect an SNP government
with Alex Salmond as its First Minister, and subsequently votes at a
referendum for independence. And yes, for this scenario to be sufficiently
entertaining Mr Salmond must actually be elected to run something, and thus
be shorn of his habitual role as super-snide sideline critic, his nasal
sneer now turned to plaintive defence of his own inevitable disasters.
You think I don’t like him? He’s clever, is Alex. He is the debater par
excellence, the sixth former with the answer for everything. His party is in
the high moral business of squaring circles, giving the business of making
impossible promises an almost religious dimension. Under the SNP there would
be cuts in local taxes, more money on health, local hospitals kept open, no
student debt, a reduction of burdens on small business, while — apparently —
being able to replicate the economic success that Ireland has enjoyed by
making life easier for big business.
As for independence, well Scotland would be better off because, as I
understand Mr Salmond’s complex argument, Scotland is a small country and
some small independent countries are doing well economically, therefore
independent Scotland will do well economically. Some small countries are, of
course, doing badly, but Scotland won’t be like those, because it is full of
geniuses, entrepreneurs and Scottish nationalists.
Naturally, though “London” has apparently acted like some kind of sheet anchor
on Scotland’s ability to grow as fast as, say, Iceland, the SNP presumption
is that, when independence is negotiated, and as plans are advancing for
border checks (yes, of course there will have to be border checks, ask the
Norwegians) and Scottish embassies (or maybe they could rent out rooms from
the British embassies), what is left of the United Kingdom will say, sure —
let’ s do it on your terms. Of course it’s all your oil, we had nothing to
do with it. And by the way, please don’t imagine that we will act in any way
to reassume control of any of our natural “English” or “Welsh” assets
currently held by Scots.
What I most dislike about the SNP, however, is its necessary chauvinism. “For
Scotland to flourish,” says Mr Salmond, “our economy must be free from
London control”; “Labour’s policy of sending up the heavies from London . .
.”; “Mr McConnell is like a little boy lost and hardly gets a look-in while
his London bosses take centre stage”; “we were lucky enough to discover oil
and gas as well, but we gave all of ours away to the London exchequer”;
“those revenues either flow south to London or they can be invested for the
people of Scotland”. London’s taken our money, London’s controlling our
Parliament, everything would be great if we didn’t have London. And for
London, of course, read England. For England read “the other”.
I am not going to argue with Mr Salmond about the extent to which English
people or companies might have helped to discover “his” oil and gas, or the
extent to which Scotland might have been subsidised by English enterprise or
natural resources. I am not going to argue about it because it’s so
obviously demeaning.
What interests me, however, is the magical thinking involved in the increasing
tolerance of Mr Salmond’s scapegoating. These days you find some Scottish
Tories arguing, as one did this month in Prospect magazine, that
independence — by removing the English scapegoat and the London subsidies —
would force the Scots to confront their own demons. The new independent
government, they suggest, would have no choice but to make the self-same
tough decisions on public expenditure and the role of the State that the SNP
is so determined to avoid. There are some English constitutionalists who,
despairing of our lack of interest in regional assemblies and the West
Lothian question, also believe that Scottish independence would — as one put
it — “concentrate minds in England about where we want to go”.
None of this will happen. The Scots chauvinists would not be one whit happier
for being completely separate (just as they weren’t happy with substantial
devolution), and would work even harder to discover why their failure was
really the fault of England. The gap between their promises and the Scottish
reality would always be found to have an external cause. The English, on the
other hand (including the new Anglo-Poles, the English-Africans, the Telford
Caribbeans) might moan about the passport man getting on the train near
Berwick, but — with traditional complacency — would otherwise soon get over
it.
But what a strange, backward-looking argument to be having as we contemplate
massive population mobility, technological advances, Islamist terrorism and
international environmental crises. Or perhaps that’s exactly why such an
argument is happening now. The argument for Scottish independence is
essentially an argument for avoiding hard choices; which is why Alex Salmond
is so well qualified to make it. If there were a parallel dimension it would
be fun to watch him win. But there isn’t.
