Margo MacDonald: SNP forgot to sell us independence

Published on Wednesday 11 November 2009 08:29

IF THE pundits, anoraks and pressed men (and women) of the Scottish media who've been working in the Glasgow North East parliamentary constituency for the past few weeks are right, Labour will hold on to this formerly rock-solid socialist stronghold.

Politically, it's no longer accurate to describe Springburn and the adjacent parts of Glasgow as socialist, but Labour's history, in this part of Scotland at least, probably outweighs the cynicism and disappointment that characterises current perception in many, if not most, other constituencies.

Be prepared, following a Labour victory, for a repetitive verbal firecracker to be thrown into the deflated ranks of the SNP as all the parties get ready for the Westminster elections, more than likely to be held before May is out.

Will the purpose of the assault mounted on the very heart of government be to blow John Swinney's financial plans out of the water, or to sink Kenny MacAskill's flagship, the good ship Alcopop?

No. Labour will devote its energies to killing off an SNP policy it has spent its campaigning effort castigating as a waste of time, an indulgence and obsession on the part of the SNP, and the last thing Scotland needs or wants in the middle of a recession...the independence referendum.

The irony is lost on Labour of spending time talking about an SNP initiative that opinion polls say ranks way down voters' priorities and wish lists.

But as sure as Simon Cowell will not win the TV Viewers' Personality of the Year award, Labour won't be able to resist whipping up a froth of righteous anger at the estimated cost of the SNP's planned constitutional consultation, let out of the bag by the SNP candidate in the Glasgow NE by-election as costing an estimated 9 million.

So just as the money becomes tighter as the effects of the cuts in public spending begin to erode the social wage provided by free care for the elderly people, free school meals etc, after the next Westminster election, and pay-slips start showing higher taxes, regardless of who's in government, the attack dogs of unionists and nationalists will get their teeth into the referendum.

Labour, Conservative and Lib Dems are all likely to condemn the referendum as irrelevant – and devote resources to publicising this – just in case voters are too busy, depressed or uninterested to notice.

The SNP will counter with its big idea: the claim that unionist parties are too scared to give Scots a say on the issue and will therefore deprive their fellow citizens of the right to say whether they want Holyrood or Westminster to exercise sovereign powers over the laws and policies of Scotland.

That last bit is what will secure my vote if the SNP pushes ahead with the referendum. I can't envisage a scenario in which I would vote to deny Scots their democratic right to state their opinion on the governance of their country.

My objection to the referendum rests on the SNP's failure to provide enough detail about independence, and comparisons between outcomes of policy initiatives under independence and as a part of the UK, to allow voters to make informed choices.

The Scottish Government took another tack from the start. Alex Salmond figured that if he and his chosen ones demonstrated a superior ability of getting the best out of devolution, voters would clamour for independence. It was never thus.

Although there has been a common thread of the nobility of a nation accepting responsibility for its own destiny and the effects of its actions on peoples outwith its borders, which linked the American colonists who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Irishmen in Dublin's Post Office, countries obtain their independence because their citizens have goals that cannot be accomplished and dreams that cannot be realised without sovereign powers exercised by a legislature answerable to them and charged with representing their interests internationally.

Unless Scots come to see independence as the delivery mechanism best suited to achieving the policies and actions they choose, they're most unlikely to vote on the abstract notion of the benefit to the national soul of sovereignty. And the current SNP leadership is more managerial than inspirational.

We've somehow held body and soul together for 300 years without one of the essential guarantors of national identity, but the former needs strengthening and the latter needs deepening before we really believe in our ability to be all that other nations are.

Accurate information will provide knowledge of where the lack of sovereignty constrains what we could achieve with self-reliance and the ingenuity and determination that accompany it.

It's not difficult to illustrate how good governance is like a completed jigsaw, but the SNP has failed to use its time in government to do that. So my vote will be wasted.