George Kerevan: Salmond brand may be better seller

The referendum will be won and lost by people balancing gain and risk, optimism and negativity, writes George Kerevan

I’VE been reading the latest instalment of Robert Caro’s masterly biography of President Lyndon Johnson, arguably America’s most streetwise politician of the past 50 years. Famously, Johnson always reduced the art of politics to one basic question: “Have you got the votes?” Forget tabloid rhetoric and Braveheart aspiration. Does Alex Salmond have enough votes to dissolve the United Kingdom and create a new nation state called Scotland?

When I’m asked this question by foreign journalists and politicians – the latest being a former member of the German cabinet – I explain the default position: one third will vote Yes, regardless; one third will vote No, regardless; and one third are vacillating. Exactly like America during the War of Independence. The key question for Nats and unionists alike is: “Which way will the third in the middle actually swing come referendum day in late 2014?”

We are short of hard data. There have been no decent polls since January. According to the ubiquitous John Curtice, the UK’s best psephologist, support for independence has been running at between 32 and 38 per cent (allowing for sampling errors). That’s better than my baseline third, suggesting Salmond has gained territory. A poll conducted back in April 2011 put independence support far lower, at only 28 per cent. Call this the “bounce” from Salmond’s stunning majority victory in the 2011 Holyrood elections.

However, even a positive 38 per cent is down on the support for independence registered during the run-up to the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections, when the SNP first secured (minority) office and the economy was still booming. A Scotsman survey in October 2006 claimed a shock 51 per cent in the Yes camp. Even if that was a rogue poll, other surveys at the time put support for independence in the mid-40s. How do we explain the apparent loss of momentum since then?

Labour’s Johann Lamont (not to be underrated) is confident that Alex Salmond made a rare tactical error by not going for a referendum in the first honeymoon year after his 2011 victory. Having a majority at Holyrood has deprived the SNP of excuses, she thinks. Inevitably the electorate will begin to blame Salmond for the poor state of the economy, even if it is the fault of Westminster or Athens. That will inevitably erode support for Scotland going it alone. Lamont has a point.

However, there is another way of looking at the figures. Wily old President Johnson, with his authentic magnolia accent, would tell you to count the actual votes cast in this month’s local elections. The SNP outpolled Labour in first preference votes for the first time ever in a council contest, increased its share of the vote more than Labour did, and gained more new councillors than Labour secured.

True, the SNP share of the vote was well down compared with last year’s Holyrood election, by 13 points. Yet curiously this was the same percentage as voted for independent councillors in the local election, so the unionist parties did not gain. Labour is back in the game, having retained majority control of Glasgow. But that has more to do with the sudden meltdown in confidence in the Cameron-Clegg government, which is energising Labour activists.

Ms Lamont would be making a big mistake if she thinks Samond has lost command. Local elections are usually referendums on the government of the day. Yet the SNP won overall on 3 May despite – because of? – Alex Salmond being in St Andrew’s House through five long years of economic turmoil.

In fact, you can turn Lamont’s argument on its head. The Greek eurozone crisis only turned really nasty after the 2011 Holyrood elections, helping to push the UK economy into double-dip recession in January. That should have driven the independence poll numbers back to bedrock. It hasn’t. The Yes numbers have gone up in the past year. This suggests that Salmond’s brand of political optimism is starting to convince the wavering middle third of voters to take a chance on cutting ties with London.

True, the relative loss of Yes support since 2006 is due to the economic crisis sapping popular confidence. But equally, those 2006 polls prove there is a potential Yes majority, if people believe an independent Scotland will restore their economic fortunes. All the No campaign has going for it is negativity, and a case that the union is an insurance policy in difficult times. The latter is a potent argument but it is still a depressing one.

Salmond thinks his two Holyrood election victories, in 2007 and especially 2011, prove that positive campaigning will win the day. He is counting on two more years of the unionists trashing Scotland’s ability to stand on its own two feet will push voters – especially younger ones – to vote Yes in protest.

The main tactic of the No camp is to ask endless questions about what independent Scotland will look like, in order to bog down the Yes campaign. How many dustmen will there be in Montrose? What will be the exact interest rate on 23 October, 2019?

There are serious constitutional questions to discuss about an independent state. Salmond has yet to give convincing answers on bank regulation or Nato membership, for instance. But most of the queries lobbed by the No campaign concern party policy in a post-independence situation, not constitutional machinery. The more you answer, the more they ask.

The trick for Salmond and the Yes team will be to keep the initiative rather than tail-end questions from unionist newspapers. In particular, they need to win women voters (only 30 per cent of whom support independence) and those over 50 (who fear for their pensions). No amount of 16-year-old Bravehearts at the voting booths will compensate unless these strategic groups are on board.

In a close finish (which it will be) the unionists will try to make it a referendum about the SNP government. To avoid that, the Yes campaign needs to be a broad church, in which old enmities play no part. The campaign needs folk on the independent Left, like Margo MacDonald and ex-Labour MSP John McAllion, to mobilise working- class voters who are instinctively nationalist (small “n”) but still vote Labour. They will take Margo over Johann any day.

In the end, the referendum will be decided on a balance of probabilities – gain versus risk. We are four years into a global economic crisis and the financial clouds are darkening. On the other hand, when the Titanic went down, you were better off in a lifeboat than staying in a warm cabin keeping your fingers crossed.