John McTernan: A softly, softly approach that suits the unionists

Published on Tuesday 17 May 2011 01:47

Sharing the monarchy, our armed forces and the national broadcaster could leave independence looking like not much of an option

PROFESSOR Tom Devine has observed that Scotland's union with England in 1707 was based on a shared monarchy, a shared enemy (France), a shared religion, Protestantism, and Empire. With the exception of monarchy these are no longer ties that bind. But, as we saw with last month's royal wedding, the Queen, and her heirs, still excite and enthral us. Prince William, or the Earl of Strathearn to give him his Scottish title, already shows signs of combining his mother's charm with his granny's authority. With his usual, canny surefootedness Alex Salmond has boxed off the issue of republicanism. Any independent Scotland he leads will keep the Queen, though somewhat mawkishly the First Minister talks of her becoming the Queen of Scots.

This move, though, now turns out to have been just one step in a broader strategy to neutralise the negatives associated with the concept of independence. A couple of years ago an opinion poll asked voters if they wanted to see Scotland separated entirely from the United Kingdom. Fewer than one in five agreed - the lowest support recorded for dissolving the union. Since then the 'S' word has been banned by the SNP and they flinch from it, when it is used, like vampires from sunlight. Following their massive election victory, Nationalist leaders have been briefing out their new plan for independence lite - or as it might be more properly called time-share sovereignty. Apparently an independent Scotland will not only keep the Queen, it will also keep the pound, the British Army, the BBC and social security.

This has an immediate tactical benefit. For one thing, it frames the debate and entices supporters of the status quo - for that is what the majority of those who oppose independence are, not unionists just people content with the way things are - into debating on terms of the SNP's choosing. For another, and more significantly, it aims to mitigate a huge problem. While Empire and religion no longer provide the glue to hold the nations of the United Kingdom together, there are modern institutions which do this for us.

The pound. The armed forces. The BBC. The welfare state. Each is a strand in a complex social and economic web that links us. Each, something we are proud of, and pride is a great motivator and mobiliser. Indeed, it generates loyalty - and its counterpart, fear of losing what we love. Emotion is an important part of the case both for and against separatism - and nationalism doesn't have all the best tunes. So, the SNP need to find a way to short-circuit any emotional appeal that the UK has for Scots. This is their best shot - the idea that independence keeps everything you like about existing arrangements, and just adds new nice things on top.In one sense, it is the way the Scottish Parliament itself is normally discussed. New powers are all gain and no pain. Fiscal freedom is talked about as though all the benefit of the block grant would be kept and new tax powers would give more cash on top. It's always and/and never either/or. Independence lite is the logical extension of this way of reasoning.

However, this approach creates some acute strategic challenges for the SNP. First, although in the short term it has clearly wrong-footed the UK government, in the medium term it weakens the nationalists. One cost of blurring the difference between devolution and independence is that they become supplicants. They want to step around the question of the set-up costs of creating new national institutions so they have to ask if they can share embassies abroad. They want to retain the economic footprint of the British forces in Morayshire, Edinburgh, on the Clyde and elsewhere - but that decision would be in the hands of the Ministry of Defence.

Secondly, the propositions are easy to pick apart. It is hard to see why a UK government facing Scotland seceding would feel inclined to offer to cross-subsidise the Scottish Self-Defence Force. Bases would move south, as would troops and defence contracts. The dislocation in local economies would be tremendous. The desire to keep the pound is transparently a ruse to avoid the question of the euro - which is no more popular in Elgin than in Eton. But what does it mean? A handful of countries round the world have adopted other countries' currencies as their own. Invariably they are weak economies who use the dollar because it is a far more credible currency than their own.

Scotland would not be in that situation, but does Salmond mean that the official currency of Scotland would be the pound sterling as issued by the Bank of England? He can't imagine that Scottish banks could continue to issue their own note if the pound was the currency of Scotland. Or will it be like the Irish punt, a separate Scottish "poond" pegged to sterling. There would be no need for shops, pubs and restaurants in England to accept the Scottish pound. The SNP would have sorted the vexed question of whether Scottish bank notes are legal tender once and for all. And we'd be changing money as we travel up and down across the Border. As for the BBC, their programmes - funded munificently by 22 million households would be sold to the SBC whose schedules would look a lot like RTE - repeats, soaps, and imports.

But thirdly, and worst of all it is a fuzzy fudge. The strength of the SNP appeal at the moment is not simply the emotional tug of the white rose of Scotland and the works of McDiarmid. Their cause has a clarity and simplicity - an independent Scotland would stand on its own two feet. Independence lite is like a teenager moving into the granny flat.What kind of country is an independent Scotland without its own armed forces or currency? Aren't they the essentials of a free nation? More than that, it lacks ambition - is that all there is, a kind of federalism? You don't leap a chasm in two bounds. At this rate, independence lite will be the gift that keeps on giving - just not for Alex Salmond.