Scottish independence referendum: Is David Cameron right to fear an independence bandwagon?
John Curtice explains why Prime Minister wants the referendum sooner than the First Minister
THERE is one obvious reason why unionists would prefer the independence referendum to happen sooner rather than later. At the moment, most polls suggest they would win.
Four polls released during the final quarter of last year put support for independence at between 32 per cent and 38 per cent. Between 47 per cent and 57 per cent said they would vote against this.
However, there are signs that support for independence may have increased somewhat in recent months.
A YouGov poll for this newspaper found that support was six points higher than just before polling day last May. The 2011 Scottish Social Attitudes survey reported no less than a nine-point increase on the previous year.
So, from the unionists’ point of view, maybe it would be better to get the ballot under way before there is any risk of an independence bandwagon emerging – and certainly before any nationalist frenzy that might be created by the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn in 2014 is aroused.
In truth, such unionist fears – or nationalist hopes – are probably exaggerated. Though somewhat higher than in the immediate past, current levels of support of independence are still not beyond the range within which it has oscillated ever since the advent of devolution.
Meanwhile, whipping up Scottish feeling and pride is unlikely to delivery Mr Salmond victory. Even among those who not only say they are Scottish, but explicitly deny they are British – around three in ten of all Scots – only just over half (53 per cent) back independence.
Mr Salmond will need not just to appeal to voters’ distinctive sense of identity, but also to their pocket books. As the Scottish Social Attitudes survey has revealed, 65 per cent would be willing to back independence if they thought that they would be £500 a year better off as a result.
Equally, there is one obvious reason why Mr Salmond is toying with putting “devolution max” on the ballot paper alongside independence.
While there may be less than majority support for leaving the UK, The idea that Scotland could take responsibility for more or less all of her domestic affairs, leaving just defence and welfare spending in Westminster’s hands, does appear to have majority support.
According to the Social Attitudes survey, three-fifths to two-thirds would like Holyrood to take on responsibility for taxes and welfare benefits.
In contrast, only about a third think the Scottish Parliament should deal with defence and foreign affairs too.
In line with this, a recent Ipsos-MORI poll reported that as many as 68 per cent would vote in favour of “devo-max” should they be given the opportunity. In short, the instinctive reaction of most Scots appears to be that what happens within their own country is for their own parliament to decide, and only when it comes to matters forth of Scotland do they accept that Westminster has a proper role.
It would seem the surest way of preserving the Union would not be to insist on a single question on independence, as David Cameron is apparently minded to do, but rather for unionists to develop and campaign for a scheme for more devolution within the Union.
Trouble is devo-max was originally Mr Salmond’s idea and requires Westminster to hand over far more powers than many an MP is prepared to do.
So perhaps in the end we should not be surprised that Mr Cameron is not minded simply to follow public opinion.
• John Curtice is a professor of politics at Strathclyde University.
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Comments
There are 79 comments to this article
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Scottish Warlord
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 08:45 AMScotland will be free by 2023
kari
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 08:34 PMI couldn`t care less about the politcal arguments between England and Scotland, but what worries me as someone who loves Scotland, is the lack of specific information from SNP concerning independence such as: will Scotland remain a member of EU - and what if Scotland for legal reasons must reapply and gets rejected? How would that affect Scottish economy? How does Scotland plan to manage economically - can SNP please make public their ideas about that? It strikes me that SNP does not appear to have specific plans to put forward to the people before a referendum - I am tempted to call that a politically based attempt to manipulate the Scottish people.
SINGAPOREAN
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 07:33 PM~73 Correct, correct and correct again. Anyone who has travelled on the continent or in the Far East cannot but notice how far Britain lags behind. Sadly, many British people believe what successive governments tell them - that Britain is great. The Scots are just beginning to realise, through the best efforts of a severely restricted SNP administration, that our deprivation has been inflicted by Westminster - even the Labour variety. I think they will realise by 2014 just what a difference it will make when Scotland's future is decided entirely in Scotland by the people of Scotland with unrestricted access to the resources of Scotland. No more Trident submarines, no more WMDs, no more illegal wars, no more syphoning off of our natural resources to fund Milennium domes, Olympic stadia, High Speed Trains, etc. in the South of England. What we need, and what we will get in an independent Scotland are better schools, better hospitals, better roads, full employment and a fund of money built up to take care of the future.
Grandan
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 06:31 PMA straw pole across a sizeable number of people in my work today - over 20 - on whether or not to have a referendum on independence for Scotland. Not a single person - NOT ONE - is in the least bit interested in taking part - we all have more important matters to deal with than the bunch who sit playing politics in that overpriced (and crumbling apparently) building at the bottom of the Royal Mile.
banditti
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 05:57 PM: have just watched moore as the mouthpiece for his torrie chums trying to dictate all the terms of the referendum with a few insults shouted by the rabble of the scotlandshire branch of labour they have all learned nothing from mays election. In the end it will be up to the people of scotland to decide and I only hope the tame members of the media don't keep coming out with the discredited old unionist lies, watched cheviot stag and black black oil its sad that its as relevant now as it was then. Saor Alba
samcoldstream
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 05:56 PMThe two questions in the proposed Referendum should be: 1) Do you wish to vote for Independence? NO OR 2) Do you wish to vote for Dependence? YES Well, we all know what the overwhelming answer will be to Question No 2!
Charlie McFarley
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 05:34 PM#20 Harrbrian: Both Independence and devo Max would mean the end of business as usual at Westminster, opening the door to ideas of reform. No Westminster politician wants this and will push hard for a referendum whose form is based on poll results that allow them to avoid this. The SNP position is of course the mirror image. Given the long term incompetence of Westminster I wish that living in England I could vote for the SNP. The incompetence of Westminster's leadership is clearer the further you get in any direction from London, and wider travel plus the internet have made the comparisons easier to draw. It is not just the scandals like the Iraq war, MP's expenses, News International, the power of unregulated banks, or even the hilariously inconsequential public inquiries ("Carry on, Westminster"): it also shows in the numbers. Google almost any economic measure - GPD per capita, percentage industrialisation, balance of payments history, balanced budgets, debt levels - and all the North European countries, (except France and Finland on some measures), outperform the UK. The UK's long term economic failure versus its Northern European competitors is being achieved despite reduced union bargaining power, significant privatisation, and it being made easier to sack staff than in any of them, and also despite repeated devaluations (a factor of 5 compared with German currencies of the last 40 years). The UK has had North Sea oil and still achieved a permanent trade deficit: genius. For most social indicators - life expectancy, obesity, cocaine usage, teenage pregnancy, % GDP spent on Health, % of the population in prison, etc - the UK is nearly always the worst, and the more time you spend in Northern Europe the more you sense this. The internet also reveals that the same is true for less obvious indicators - social mobility, Gini index, percentage of women in positions of power, pay differentials, pension regulation, percentage of youth in training, liveable cities, renewable energy capacity, etc. With its massive centralisation of power, its secretive ways (look up the McCrone report if you live in Scotland), and its unwritten constitution, Westminster is failing the individual populations of England, Scotland and Wales. But despite the crowded trains, the cracked pavements and pot holed streets that catch your eye when you return here, Westminster cannot make the comparisons: it thinks in terms of its own importance, total GDP -" we're 6th in the world", rather than that of its citizens, GDP per capita - "we're poorer than everyone in Northern Europe". It is not just Westminster that is dysfunctional, but so is the underpinning "Great British" culture of its political and chattering classes, a culture that is encapsulated in the veneration of the polar explorer Scott, whose men died of starvation and who lost to Amundsen, whose men put on weight. It is not just the endless wrangling of left and right idealogues, any form of drama is more valued than a grasp of the numbers, cooperation and long term thinking. Costly and outdated assumptions are not challenged, as if Britain somehow deserves its UN security council seat, as if it can afford Trident and its military spend, and so, from Suez to Iraq, it is considered normal to indulge in murderous, self important adventures. Most sacred are the myths - Westminster being the mother of parliaments has nothing to learn from other democracies - and distorted narratives of identity - we won WW2 and have little to learn from our neighbours. The arrogance of empire without the fact. The current British state works well for the metropolitan chattering and political classes, "Westminster" in short, who even if they do not believe all the myths buy themselves out from sharing the health and education services of their fellow citizens, and who, looking only to the USA, enjoy empire by association; however, for over a generation "Westminster" has failed the test of basic competence, let alone met the aspirations of the governed. Unlike the successfully capitalist countries of Northern Europe, the UK is simply not earning its living in the world. As a result it can afford less and less of the modern goodies, like infrastructure investment, market regulation, targeted welfare and wide access to education and training: this leads to its making worse use of its only asset, its people, who become less resourced, less educated, less numerate, less healthy, less socially mobile, less united in purpose, which in turn leads to less wealth creation, which in turn leads ... etc, etc. In Scotland the SNP are quite rightly looking to the more successful countries of Northern Europe as their model, because it would be almost impossible to do worse than "Westminster", from whom the rest of us should try to remove as much power as possible: if the SNP succeed, we may all benefit.............................................................................Like you, I have lived and worked in Germany and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that, whereas we won the war, they have definitely won the peace. The British establishment, whether Westminster, Whitehall, Fleet Street or the city of London, has utterly failed the citizens of this country. The gotterdammerung scenario we are all facing is nothing more than the inevitability of chickens coming home to roost, yet our so-called leaders have completely failed to seize the opportunity for reform the system which brought about so much chaos - indeed, while the country is facing impending economic and social collapse and we are all being squeezed hard, a commons select committee has identified 31 billion pounds (probably underestimated) of waste in Whitehall, over just two years. Let Westminster and Whitehall continue with their delusions of grandeur , it is time Scotland looked to its own future and unshackled itself from the dead hand of the corrupt, undemocratic, dysfunctional British state.
Scottish Warlord
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 05:16 PMEngland is finished, the Race riots during the late summer of 2011 are a portent of the future for that Country. Scotland will be dragged down if she stays in the Union, have courage and do the right thing. break the chains of English unionism and live as free people. The English are petrified of Scotland standing up for itself and will use every dirty trick in the Establishment handbook to castrate Scotland. Stand firm.
SINGAPOREAN
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 04:26 PM#48 By 2014 the pandas will have done their stuff and we'll have 3 times as many pandas as Tory MPs. Cameron should go away and get on with his next grandiose scheme for his south of England stronghold - his new train set. The sooner we're shot of them the better.
salad cream or mayo?
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 03:45 PMThe minority turn out is an issue at every election, regardless of timing, so a moot point really.
salad cream or mayo?
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 03:43 PMBroon, quite frankly I don't see how it's any of England's business what the people of Scotland want. They couldn't stop us breaking away (without using force, whch is unlikely). If Scotland votes yes and England no, then Salmond could call his own referendum safe in the knowledge he would be nailed on. At least we'd all know one way or the other. The constant arguing around the timing is getting very dull.
Broon Bairn
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 02:32 PM67: And what happens if only a minority of the UK turns out to vote? Or if Scotland votes "Yes", but England votes "No"? All sorts of possible permutations could happen. Do you have the amswers to these conundrums? That idea is a non-starter
salad cream or mayo?
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 02:11 PMIf Cameron wants an quick referendum what's to stop him calling one for the whole of the UK now? He doesn't need to wait for Salmond. If he had any balls he could do that and publish results by region. If he got the result he wanted it woould take the wind right outof the SNP sails. If not, at least he'd know what the people want.
GFrank
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 01:36 PMBroon Bairn I wouldn't bother trying to have a rational debate with poster 63 62 , Its not possible as the poster is the infamous "Doris" "Yoyo" "Tellen" or whatever Monikor it hides behind. A disgusting troll that blights these internet forums, a disturbing coward that should be ignored or ridiculed. Me personaly like when Ive been unfortunate to step on dog poo, is to wipe it off and move on dont dwell on it or let it ruin your day. 65 nicely put.
The Haymaker
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 12:51 PMHilarious stuff from Cameron and Clegg - and the performance of Sarwar and Babe Ruth on newsnicht last night was just jaw-droppingly dreadful. They are all over the place - Salmond must think he has died and gone to heaven FFS! . Listen up Unionists. The referendum will be in 2014. Got that? If you lot wan't a Devo Max question on the paper then you'd better get your fingers out - otherwise you'll be campaigning with the Tories for a No. Me? I'll be campaigning hard for a yes vote between now and then - along with an army of highly-motivated activists in what is going to be the biggest, most highly organised and well-funded mass campaign of public information Scotland has ever seen.
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