Winner takes all in high-stakes game between Alex Salmond and David Cameron over independence referendum

AT A meeting of the national executive committee of the SNP at the end of last week, party figures joked about whether to have a whip-round to help pay for a plane ticket for David Cameron to Scotland, in the hope of getting him up here soon.

While Downing Street aides were congratulating themselves in London last week for having forced Alex Salmond’s hand on naming his preferred date for the referendum, there was little sense within the Nationalist camp that the Prime Minister had got one over on the First Minister.

This weekend, there is a short pause in the great referendum game after one of the most historic weeks in UK politics. Both Messrs Cameron and Salmond have, by coincidence, found themselves on foreign trips to the same region: Cameron to Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah; Salmond to an energy conference in Abu Dhabi where he hopes to announce a deal on a new air route direct to Scotland. They share little else. On return, there is no doubt that the next round in the poker game the pair are playing will resume.

The stakes? Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown laid it out last week. “We’ve got two high-pressure egos fighting it out in our television studios. Let’s recognise that as well as being the most significant constitutional debate this country has seen, this is high noon. Only one of these two men is going to be standing at the end of this. David Cameron cannot continue as Prime Minister of the UK if he loses and in my view Alex Salmond cannot carry on as First Minister of Scotland if he loses,” he told the BBC’s Question Time. Just that then.

Last week saw the debate which will, if Ashdown is correct, make or break the pair, explode into the public consciousness across the UK. Nothing emerged to change the nature of the choice which people in Scotland will face whenever the referendum is held. For now, in these preliminary stages, the issue is all about how both sides can manoeuvre themselves into the best starting position before the race begins. The intensity of that jostling shows just how important those starting positions are. Both Cameron and Salmond hold cards in this debate. But who is playing them the better? And who will come out of this with the most chips when the great debate really begins?

Even within the pro-Union cause, there was no great support last week for the way the Prime Minister played his hand. The announcement of the UK government’s consultation, confirmed on Andrew Marr’s Sunday morning programme, was chaotic and unintended; the plans were not due to be signed off until after Monday’s Cabinet meeting in London. As UK officials hurriedly briefed London-based media, it was reported there would be an 18-month window to hold a legally-binding referendum.

The whole tone was peremptory, to the say the least. With patience among Tory and Lib Dem sources in Scotland wearing thin, there were angry suggestions that, in a week when Ed Miliband was preparing to make a big “relaunch” speech, Cameron simply wanted to lead the news cycle. “I think he just saw it as a good way of spiking Miliband’s guns,” said one SNP figure. “It’s just the same as usual: interfering for the wrong reasons.”

Scottish Secretary Michael Moore was seen to have calmed matters on Tuesday, when he set a more measured tone. But with Downing Street having allowed their suggestions on the referendum to be seen as conditions for their “permission”, it was meat and drink for Salmond. “They think they can treat us as though we were their Eton fag,” blogged one of his advisers.

SNP figures gleefully claimed how hundreds of new members had joined up as a result (and then, in the case of MSP Joan McAlpine, went over the top, describing such actions as “anti-Scottish”). Once the heat had died down, however, the tone was less hostile. On Friday, Salmond asked Clegg and Cameron for talks, suggesting he wanted to get an agreement. This drew sardonic looks from Whitehall sources who noted the First Minister’s “strange and contradictory” stance, given the fact he had told them to butt out earlier that week.

The SNP may feel they have won round one, but, in summary, both sides now feel they have achieved something from last week. UK government figures are satisfied that – after months where the SNP had had the running to themselves – they now at least have got a seat at the table. One senior Lib Dem figure declared: “We’re happy enough. Alex Salmond is coming to the table. We think there is now basic agreement around what to do.”

But is there? The niceties of the referendum’s organisation may appear arcane, but they are crucial to the outcome. Thus, there is still certain to be an almighty tussle over the arrangements before a way forward is found.

No-one disputes the cards Salmond is holding. UK ministers accept that his overwhelming election victory last year entitles the SNP to hold a referendum on independence. UK ministers say their big card is the legal one.

This is backed up by former Lord Advocate Lord Boyd of Duncansby, who was chief legal officer in the Scottish Government under Jack McConnell. “I don’t think that the Scottish Parliament can competently hold a referendum into independence – even a consultative one,” he told Scotland on Sunday. “That is because the purpose and the aims of holding a referendum is to bring about the dissolution of the Union and that is clearly reserved under the Scotland Act. I don’t think they can do that.”

The fact that only the UK government can give Salmond that certainty gets Westminster to the negotiating table. Salmond, however, continues to insist that such a guarantee, while welcome, is not necessary. SNP figures were pointing out yesterday how, in Scots law, it is the people who are sovereign, not parliament. And the people voted for a referendum when they backed the SNP last year.

The same SNP figures acknowledge that, without a UK stamp of approval, a Holyrood referendum on independence would indeed end up in the courts. But, they wonder, how bad would that be?

One Nationalist politician raises recent events in the Basque Country. In 2008, the Constitutional Court of Spain suspended plans for a Basque referendum on the grounds that only the central government could oversee such matters.

The Basque leader, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, said afterwards that the court was “acting for political reasons disguised in a legal veneer”. More than 20,000 protesters took to the streets. Last year, the political fall-out saw a new Basque independence party Bildu get 25 per cent of the vote. How would people in Scotland respond if a UK Court ruled a Scottish referendum illegal? The SNP may be tempted to find out the answer.

One thing is certain: Salmond is not prepared to begin a referendum process which he does not think he can win. Speaking to The Economist magazine last week, he explained how George Osborne had, in his view, kippered the Lib Dems over the recent AV referendum by ensuring the rules were in his favour. “I’m not Nick Clegg,” he declared, pointedly. Some Labour figures believe this means Salmond will allow the poll to be shot down by the courts, knowing the political capital that would accrue.

But the other explanation is that Salmond is determined to ensure that the fall-back option of devo-max is kept alive. This may be as a second question on a ballot paper. More simply, the SNP may just want to ensure that devo-max – where all fiscal policy is devolved to Scottish ministers – becomes the alternative to independence in a single question.

If, after the dust dies down, devo-max is indeed one of the options available, it would still be a win for the Nationalists – not least because the sheer complexity of devo-max may end up making the more simple reality of independence look more appealing. A developing theme over the coming months, as the Scottish Government’s consultation begins, will be the support the SNP receives on including devo-max from a powerful group of civic leaders, led by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, which is demanding this option be considered.

But that is not to assume the party has in any way given up on the ultimate prize. SNP sources say they have received new private research, which they claim shows that people in Scotland are growing more open to the idea of independence than before. One source said: “Key swing voters are prepared to vote ‘yes’, and are looking to be persuaded. This is a shift from before. The issue has become real, so people are beginning to think about it in a way they never did before. They know they have to make a decision.

“The First Minister set out his assessment of the cards the UK government had to play and was likely to play. The events of the week… fitted our expectations.”

On the pro-Union side, however, the mood remains bullish. Cameron and Osborne have both agreed not to be the face of the campaign – that pleasure may go to Alistair Darling, Charlie Kennedy and Annabel Goldie. Even Gordon Brown may emerge soon.

Yesterday, Michael Moore made it clear that he intends to be the go-to man for the UK government, insisting that Salmond deals with him. The aim this week for the UK government is to secure a broad agreement with the SNP that a “Section 30’” giving Holyrood unequivocal powers to hold a legal referendum, is required.

They believe there are plenty of attack lines to aim at Salmond, not least his economic record (for example, his support for Royal Bank of Scotland’s takeover of ABN Amro) and the confusion over Scotland’s currency. “Once we get on to the substance, it’ll be a different game,” says one leading Tory figure.

For all the talk of Salmond’s political skills last week, it is the fact of his sheer staying power and focus on this, the biggest political moment of his life, which gives him a huge advantage over Cameron and the pro-Union cause. The impression is that if the Prime Minister wants to stay in the game, then he will have to study his cards a little more closely.