Independence white paper is the party's white elephant

Published on Monday 30 November 2009 21:54

THE one question on the lips of almost everybody in the room as Alex Salmond unveiled his referendum bill white paper yesterday was: "What is the point of this?"

Even Mr Salmond and his loyal lieutenants – deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon and constitution minister Mike Russell – knew that, bar a Road to Damascus-style conversion by their opponents, there will be no independence referendum next year.

It will get blocked at the first opportunity in the Scottish Parliament.

Yesterday's event, including its glossy brochures and no-expenses spared video, was all about launching the two forthcoming election campaigns for the SNP – first for Westminster next year, not long after the Unionist parties will have thrown the referendum bill out, and then for Holyrood in 2011.

Mr Salmond went out of his way to be accommodating. He offered to allow his opponents to set a referendum date, dropping his hope for another St Andrew's Day event. He said they could write their own second question on more powers.

In particular, he appeared to flirt with the Liberal Democrats, known to be more in favour of a referendum, offering them a question on their preferred devolution-max position.

But these were gifts he knew would be thrown back in his face and he made it clear that the lack of a referendum would be the "huge, dominating issue" on which the elections would be fought.

His strategy was to look the reasonable man against the rigid opponents who, he argues, want to deny the people their choice and leave Scotland's future to the "great and the good".

Even the white paper's title – Your Scotland Your Voice – was meant to send that message to Scottish voters, never mind that only 15,000 of the five million inhabitants of this country could be bothered to contribute to a two-year event.

With four pictures of the First Minister himself, six of Saltires and one each of the other ministers as well three of the oil rigs representing the country's wealth – this was a manifesto to entice the patriotic spirit to Nationalism.

And given the way Mr Salmond dismissed the offer by former Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander to hold a referendum in 2008, it could be argued that an election campaign was always his intention. It may be, though, that he rues the day he threw back Ms Alexander's call to "bring it on" and possibly lost his one opportunity to hold a referendum at the height of the SNP's popularity.

Increasingly, the two-year National Conversation – which has included an at-times questionable online chat site with contributors such as "Spiderman" and the "Tinman from over the Rainbow", as well a series of public meetings and discussion documents – is looking like a 2 million state-funded election campaign – 1.6m on staff and 400,000 on the rest.

It was noticeable the 176-page document began to fall apart at the seams within minutes. With support for independence stuck in the 20 per cent range and the SNP's popularity waning, it is beginning to look symbolic of Mr Salmond's strategy.