Bill Jamieson: Slick sales tactics won’t work for Scottish independence debate

A swelling tide of difficult questions is rising behind the dam of silence surrounding the SNP’s game plan, writes Bill Jamieson

WHAT is it Alex Salmond really wants? Independence, or devo-max? The detached house or the conservatory extension? Independence of course, we reply. But as the weeks and months tick by, this answer becomes less convincing.

Recent developments sow doubt as to what the endgame of Scotland’s First Minister might really be. There have been the repeated overtures from the SNP for a second question on devo-max to be on the referendum ballot paper, rather than a straight Yes/No on independence.

There has been a growing insistence that the Scottish Parliament (the SNP government in effect), not Westminster, should decide which questions are put. This has fuelled speculation that the First Minister may even be looking for a reason to postpone the referendum altogether.

Arguably most intriguing of all was the guidance from SNP Central to the party’s MSPs earlier this summer requesting them to refrain from use of the word “independence”. For a party whose very raison d’être has been the advancement of the cause of Scottish independence, this was an extraordinary edict. Did it reflect a concern among the SNP leadership that “independence” is too frightening a word for undecided voters? Was it because the word is considered so confusing and ambiguous of meaning to be a description of the party’s purpose? Whatever it is, might it nevertheless prove a most astute and perspicacious reading of the political runes?

Two years on from the SNP’s historic victory in the Holyrood election and we are little further forward in the verbal war of definitions. Indeed, if anything, we have gone backwards. Behind that miasmic charisma of Alex Salmond, the doorstep charmer, the feisty debater, the one-liner maestro, there is less, not greater, clarity as to what the term “independence” means.

And if independence is confusing, are we any clearer as to what “devo-max” means – the definitions here seeming to depend on which particular advocate of the different brands you happen to ask.

Where does devo-max end and independence begin? No early clarification be counted on. It could be up to a year before we have a detailed policy statement from the SNP on what exactly may be entailed in independence and what an independent Scotland might look like. Until then, there is likely to little more than the baleful exchange of clichés and well-rehearsed positions.

This prolonged uncertainty is of some advantage to the SNP. It is difficult for the opposition parties to get a firm grip on the debate or to land serious punches, because the definition of independence is continually changing and evolving – like devolution itself, less a destination than a process.

An independent Scotland, we are told, will retain the monarchy and respect Queen Elizabeth as the monarch. It will retain the pound sterling as its currency. The Bank of England will continue to set interest rates and be the lender of last resort to an independent Scotland. Our membership of the European Union will be automatically renewed. Pension and social security systems will be retained. The social union will continue. And, if the SNP leadership view prevails, an independent Scotland will retain its membership of Nato.

The problem with this, of course, is that the more the definition of independence is refined in this way, the more it resembles devo-max as most people understand it – greater powers over tax and spending, but control over the currency, defence and external affairs retained at Westminster. And this is the option which, as Scotland’s opinion poll supremo Professor John Curtice reminds us, is the one that most Scots would opt for were they given a choice between devo-max and independence.

So, to pose the ultimate brand definition question, what is that independence would entail that would be different to, or better than, devo-max? The answer is conditional, first, on the publication of the SNP government’s own legislative paper, and a more open and transparent debate than has prevailed to date. Here the omens are not encouraging. We have an assurance of the existence, but not the release, of an authoritative, cut and dried legal assessment, that Scotland’s EU membership would be automatically rolled over on independence – a point of considerable implication for Scottish exporters.

We are told, though it has not been made public, that a “risk register” on independence has been prepared by the Scottish Government. Its contents are not being released, despite a call to do so by the Scottish Information Commissioner.

Many other questions will emerge in due course. They will range over such matters as the division of assets and liabilities, revenue and expenditure projections, defence and armed forces deployment, debt and deficit management, rates and levels of tax, financial regulation, employment law, English and Scottish contract law, Royal Mail, the future of the BBC, division of responsibility and management of UK government property and a host of other critical issues. Our hearts may lean to independence. But the vote on the day will come to depend critically on the answers to these and other questions that will rain down on the First Minister and his administration as Referendum Day approaches. The questions are imperative, inescapable, unavoidable: a dam building up and a deluge that will follow.

Until then, we are beguiled. We are offered the detached house with stunning landscaped garden and tank full of free oil, a prospectus presented by that irrepressibly cheerful salesman, A Salmond of estate agents SNP & Co.

Barely has the patter reached its climax than the pen is pressed into our hands: just sign here, leave the details to us. But what of the mortgage? The interest payments? The running costs? And how long will that oil tank last? Might we not be better off avoiding all this upheaval, building on what we have, extending that devolution conservatory?

With the posing of these questions, Mr Salmond is unabashed. “You’ve come to the very man”, he chortles, instantly offering his saltire-embossed business card: “A Salmond, Manager, Devo-Max Extensions. All work considered”.

The political endgame of any political party is survival – and survival in office. The SNP wishes to survive – in office. It may argue in a hundred ways that independence is its preferred option. But the party dare not risk an all-or-nothing, death-or-glory shoot-out. This is why we should expect a growing insistence from the SNP on the “second question” issue. Devolution Max is the critical default position for the Continuation SNP. It may go by the name of the second question on the referendum ballot. But for the future of the party, it is, in effect and in substance, the question that matters.