Webchat as it happened: Alan Trench on Scottish independence referendum debate

Comment from Baz:

The question of independance should be a decision taken in isolation, surely?

Alan replies:

Baz - I think it’s a different sort of question, so there’s a strong argument for a ballot that offers the choice between leaving the UK and remaining part of it. But while the Unionist parties are clear that it should be treated differently, I’m not sure that’s how Scottish voters see it. They seem to see these issues as part of a continuum.

Comment from Sean:

If ‘Unionist’ parties are asking Scots to reject Independence for ‘Devo More/Lite/Max/Plus’, they must detail what the offer on the table is. Frankly, I think they’re over a proverbial barrell. Unwilling to give details and unwilling to push for second question. In my opinion, they are actually pushing Scots to vote Yes through inept tactics.

Alan replies:

Sean - a straight Yes/No referendum is certainly a high risk strategy, higher risk than many in the unionist parties believe. As I read public attitudes, they have a big problem: their constitutional position is further away from what Scots want than independence is. I explained that on Devolution Matters in June last year, in a post you’ll find here. Until they’re closer to what Scots want than the independence position is, they’re very vulnerable.

Comment from Baz:

Devolution is a progressive system that hopefully keeps up with the national and regional needs through evolution, not revolution. The UK is facing a democratic divide which could yield a disenfrachised population south of the border. Do you agree there has to be a structure for English devolution before anything along the lines of devo plus or max could morally be applied to Scotland?

Alan replies:

Baz - England raises a large number of questions, and it seems to me that the English are only slowly getting to grips with the issues it raises.

Certainly a ‘devo max’ solution would have profound effects on all other parts of the UK. Carwyn Jones, Welsh First Minister, has been keen to talk about these, though I don’t think his idea of a constitutional convention would necessarily help much. See his speech at a conference in Cardiff last week, reported by the Western Mail here.

I should add I have serious doubts about whether ‘devo max’ as the SNP have proposed it would be workable. I’m also unclear what the incentive is for other parts of the UK in agreeing to it. It assumes that the UK wants to maintain the Union at pretty much any price, and I’m not convinced that that view is widely shared.

Comment from George Shering:

Independence is not necessarily a one off. If we don’t like it then we can vote back in a Labour/Conservative government which agrees to tax us as the Westminster government wishes. We will still have that option every four years.

Alan replies:

George Shering - I don’t believe independence would be at all easy to unpick. It would trigger huge changes, in rest-of-UK as well as Scotland, and simply electing a Scottish government similar in political complexion to that in r-UK wouldn’t alter that.

Comment from James:

What I want to know from pro-independence parties is what is happening now that wouldn’t in an independent Scotland. What is it exactly that the UK government are doing that is detrimental to people living in Scotland and how this would change in an independent Scotland. For example, the Scottish Government has made negative noises about the UK government’s programme of welfare reform. How would the government of an independent Scotland address this? I’m not convinced that anything would really change, the decisions would still be pretty much exactly the same.

Comment from DJ Johnston-Smith:

James the answer you seek in this regard is partly to be found in the consistent voting record of the Scottish electorate over the last half a century. Consistently left voting but receiving at Westminster a right-leaning government.

Alan replies:

DJ Johnston-Smith: I think the fact that, since the 1950s, Scottish voting patterns have diverged from those elsewhere in UK is only part of the story. For one thing, those voting patterns have been distorted by the first past the post electoral system, which means Labour voters have been over-represented in Scotland and Conservatives and the SNP under-represented. For another, an independent Scotland would have to make choices about how to manage its national future that it doesn’t face now, or face in the same way. Issues like defence and economic policy involve hard choices, and ‘left-wing’ alternatives may not seem so attractive when the consequences can be felt much more directly.

Comment from Baz:

Does the SNP consider an advisory ballot returning a yes majority as a mandate for independence or merely as justification for a second poll run by the UK government asking a legally binding question. It looks like the SNP is seeking to maximise the yes vote knowing that yes on an advisory may not actually end up meaning yes (overturned in a second in or out ballot) but that such an outcome would provide political leverage in extra power negotiations. The entire process appears more defined to yield additional powers than actual independence.

Alan replies:

Baz - everyone (SNP and Unionist parties) seem clear that this referendum is to be both ‘clear’ and ‘decisive’. So there’s to be no second poll (remember how Michael Moore was shot down by No 10 for suggesting that?), as well as only a single question.

Comment from Kyle Coats:

We are indebted, never the less still a pretty powerful economic country that is built on financial centre, that needs proper regulations set up so we don’t have the likes of 2008 meltdown happening again.

Alan replies:

Kyle Coats - one of the ironies about Scotland is that it is, in fact, both as nearly ‘averagely prosperous’ a part of the UK as it’s possible to get. Moreover, despite a markedly higher level of per capita public spending than other parts of the UK (except N Ireland and London), it’s quite close to being in fiscal balance. From a Scottish point of view, this looks like a good case for saying ‘we can stand on our own feet’. But from a UK point of view, it makes Scotland look like keystone in rather a complex arch of territorial financial redistribution. If there’s no redistribution from, or to, Scotland, how can a redistributive system for a rich place like South East England, or poor ones like Wales or North East England, work?

Comment from Cheesy Q:

The people voted yes for tax raising powers in the devo referendum years ago, why haven’t they been used by any party?

Alan replies:

Cheesy Q - the tax varying powers are very hard to use. Use would be expensive, both for governments and for business and individual taxpayers. I caused a row a year or so ago by saying that I had it on very good authority (which I do, but I can’t name my source) that the powers were put there not to be used, but to stop any arguments from the Scottish Executive/Govt that it wanted more funds from London and pleading a special case. If that were to happen, it would be told to use its own powers to raise them - ending the argument.

Comment from Kyle Coats:

That’s all down to regional assemblies who should decide how money is given out for each local area. Yes there is some stick about how Scotland gets more spent Per Capita than anywhere else in the UK, but that does not mean we don’t deserve it. We have fairly raised our own money, and it spent our fairly between Scots. I think the English have a misconception that Scots somehow are subsidised completely by the rest of the UK when that just is not true, I’m sure the GERS report said so (think). Anyway, would it not make sense to give English regions more autonomy, this could mean a more equal United Kingdom on par with Scotland and Souther England?

Alan replies:

Kyle Coats - there’s little evidence that enhanced regional powers do in fact drive economic growth, for all the hopes they would. Indeed, the rate of economic growth in Wales has slowed yet further since devolution, despite increasing amounts of the Welsh Govt’s budget going to economic development.

Comment from Kyle Coats:

I reckon with increased autonomy for England we will see more local issues being served, that could bring more jobs to local communities like in the North of England, which is heavily reliant on the public sector for jobs, may a more local assembly with local people could address such problems in parts of England? I think more research into the issue would be good, and it could solve the West Lothian question?

Alan replies:

Kyle Coats - devolution in its 1998 model was about distributive public services like health or education, not redistributive ones like taxation or social security. That was quite deliberate. There’s nothing wrong with free prescriptions as a small form of redistribution, if they’re accompanied by a properly progressive tax system that catches the cost of that from higher earners. If you don’t do that, they’re a handout to the better off - and that’s how they work in both Scotland and Wales.

Comment from talk_equal:

@Alan - but that’s only because the tax system’s not progressive enough. I do believe in free universal benefits, it’s just that those with the highest incomes should pay more taxes.

Alan replies:

Talk_equal: that’s an argument not just for a progressive tax system, but also for fiscal devolution so that devolved as well as UK governments make choices about that.

• Read the debate in full on The Steamie