Peter Jones: Grey day, but there’s a long way to go

Yesterday’s historic signing was distinctly underwhelming but it should get more interesting, writes Peter Jones

Now, finally, the die is cast. Scots will vote some time in autumn 2014 on whether they want Scotland to be independent or not. There will be no other question on the ballot paper, nor any legal challenge to the validity of the vote. Devo plus or any other variant of enhanced devolution, will have to wait. That sums up political events in Edinburgh yesterday and, watching them unfold, I was distinctly underwhelmed.

Though the word “historic” was much bandied about, neither the demeanour of the two political leaders at the centre of events, nor the words on the piece of paper, they signed quite lived up to that billing. The history will come on that decision day in 2014 when Scots will decide between continued union and independence.

The curious thing was that neither the unionist cause, represented by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, nor the nationalist side led by Alex Salmond, First Minister, was anxious to claim a victory. Mr Cameron arrived, posed for pictures inside and outside St Andrew’s House, gave a couple of television interviews and then left with naught but a wan autopilot smile for gathered journalists. Mr Salmond did much the same but for the addition of a half-hour press conference.

Neither seemed anxious to make the victory claim, conveying instead that the “Edinburgh Agreement”, as the Scottish Government termed it, was the rather mechanical conclusion of a nuts-and-bolts process which had to happen as a result of the SNP winning a majority in the 2011 Holyrood elections.

Mr Cameron left any victory claims to media advisers, one averring that the Prime Minister had gained the referendum that Mr Salmond didn’t really want – a decisive yes/no vote on independence. Mr Salmond was a bit more up front, emphasising that he had secured a referendum to be made in Scotland without any Westminster interference, conveniently ignoring the fact that his preference (which might also be the Scottish public’s desire) for an additional ballot paper option of maximum devolution has been excised.

So now to two years of campaigning. Will it be about the personalities involved, ie which leader do people trust most, or about the issues?

The SNP would like it to be personal. Opinion polls consistently say that Mr Salmond is the leader Scots are most satisfied with and if the referendum was to be decided on that basis, independence would win hands down.

But the odd thing is that support for Mr Salmond as a leader, and the SNP as a party is well ahead of backing for independence, which the polls consistently say would be defeated by a margin of three to two, if not more. This says that voters do distinguish the issues from the personalities and will decide their vote on how they will be affected by either leaving or staying in the union.

The most striking aspect of yesterday’s proceedings was the degree of respect involved. Mr Cameron came to Edinburgh rather than make Mr Salmond trek to London. Mr Salmond also seemed respectful of the fact that Westminster had to be involved in order to clear away potential legal barriers to the referendum.

Indeed, respect seems to be a new tone in unionist discussion of independence. An example the other day was the response by Michael Gove, the UK Education Secretary, to a question about whether it was right that the Scots should be able to use the money from the Treasury block grant to provide university education to Scots without charging the tuition fees levied by English universities.

Mr Gove said that was a political choice the Scots had made which reflected the importance that Scots attached to free access to higher education. He, of course, having been brought up in Aberdeen, has a much deeper understanding of Scottish values than most of his Conservative colleagues. But if what he said is reflective of the campaign tone to be adopted by the Tories, then it suggests that the arguing will be rather more sophisticated than in previous years.

This is interesting. It is generally agreed that the future of the economy and whether Scots think they will be better or worse off under independence will be the key issue. To date, this argument has not progressed much beyond nationalists saying an independent Scotland will be richer and unionists saying it would be poorer.

Continuing that line would ill-serve the unionist cause because it ignores the clear advantage that the SNP has in Scottish politics – that it is the party most trusted by voters to look after Scottish interests within the union. Because of that, nationalists are easily able to dismiss independence-means-poverty claims as talking Scotland down and implying Scots are second-rate people.

But if the unionists have to be cleverer with their arguments, so do nationalists. The argument, for example, that an independent Scotland could continue to use the UK pound sterling as its currency has yet to be thought through to a fully-formed and convincing policy.

Earlier this year, Mr Salmond said there would need to be a fiscal stability pact with the rest of the UK government, implying a degree of rest of UK (rUK) control over Scottish borrowing and taxes, then later this year in Chicago he said he didn’t think there was a need for such a pact, and then yesterday he seemed to accept the need for one, adding that Scotland’s better balance of tax revenues against government spending meant Scotland would have plenty of room for manoeuvre within such a pact.

This and other examples of policy shifting suggest that a lot of what he and the SNP have been saying about independence has been made up on the hoof rather than thought through. This is potentially fatal to the independence cause – if Mr Salmond isn’t certain what independence will look like, why should the voters be?

Now the home rule journey, as Mr Salmond described it yesterday, is moving on to these matters. There is a bit more process to come – passage of orders and bills, including giving 16- and 17-year olds the right to vote – but it will be mostly the substance from now on. And it looks as though the next two years might be a lot less predictable and a lot more interesting than seemed possible from the dreary process preliminaries.