Allan Massie: Many questions, but must we answer them all?

THE devil’s in the detail but the SNP’s mistake has been to get bogged down in it instead of appealing to voters on an emotional level, writes Allan Massie

Throughout its decades-long march towards the referendum, the SNP has been driven by a single idea: that Scotland should be independent. That idea has had both an emotional and intellectual force. Scotland is a distinct and historic nation and should be a sovereign state; this is the emotional appeal. An independent Scotland would manage its affairs better and more successfully than the affairs of Scotland can be managed within the United Kingdom; this is the intellectual appeal. The attraction of neither should be discounted by unionists.

The emotional appeal is the harder for unionists to counter. They can do so only by speaking of the three centuries of shared history within the United Kingdom, and by asserting that this makes us British as well as Scots; that we are happy with this dual identity and are no less Scottish for being also British. This claim was generally accepted for a very long time, and was fortified by the Scottish role in the Empire, and by the experience of the two World Wars. If a majority of Scots have sloughed off their British skin, and have come to think of themselves as being only Scottish, and to regard the English as foreigners – the Welsh and the Northern Irish too, if it comes to that – then it will prove impossible to counter the emotional appeal.

It is, however, in advancing the intellectual appeal that in recent months the SNP has begun to experience trouble. Even if you are inclined to accept the proposition, it is increasingly clear that the devil is in the detail; and the detail is disturbing to many. The SNP’s position has become more difficult as it has had to spell out its understanding of independence, and the form this would take. Awkward questions about disengagement have been raised, questions about the currency, about pensions and social security, about membership of supra-national bodies, NATO and the European Union.

Some of the answers have been less than convincing. The leadership’s shifting position on NATO membership has dismayed many party members, and has even led two MSPs to refuse the party whip. Confusion over the position of a newly independent Scotland with regard to the EU has done some damage to the First Minister’s credibility. For the first time Mr Salmond, recently hailed as the most formidable politician in the UK, has been subjected to ridicule.

There was another course the SNP might have chosen to take. It might have stuck to the simple message: independence will be good for us, and declared that these questions of the currency, NATO and the EU would be matters for the first parliament and government of an independent Scotland to decide, and then, if necessary, negotiate. There was no need, they might have argued, for the party to set out a detailed programme. After all, they might have conceded, it is quite possible that the first independent Scottish government might be a coalition – even a grand all-party coalition.

This would not have been an absurd line to have taken. There are plenty of precedents. When the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia resumed their independence after the break-up of the Soviet Union, they did so without advancing any detailed constitutional or political programmes. That was the case also with the Ukraine and Georgia, which had both been integral parts of the USSR. The independent States of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and indeed Serbia itself, which emerged from the disintegration of Yugoslavia, have all had to start from scratch, devising constitutions and policies as they went along.

Yet, just as there were differences between the break-up of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia, so too Scotland’s position with regard to the UK bears little resemblance to either. The Baltic States had enjoyed independence between the two World Wars and had then been occupied by Soviet forces and incorporated in the USSR. Yugoslavia was cobbled together after World War I, and the union was never happy. There was a large majority for independence in the various breakaway states. So few questions about the form and course of independence were asked.

Such questions are being asked here, and there are no clear answers. The SNP, for instance, is not proposing to create a Scottish currency, but to retain the pound. This is quite feasible. Ireland continued to use sterling for a long time, both as the Free State and the Republic. But doing so meant its freedom was constrained by the decisions of the Bank of England and the UK Treasury. A Scotland that retained the pound would be in the same position. Interest rates here would still be set in London.

On both NATO and the EU, the SNP’s position is still less comfortable. On both it has changed tack – at one time, for instance, it favoured joining the Eurozone – and this makes it look as if it really doesn’t know what it wants. Even if it did know, achieving its goal requires the agreement of other states which are members of these organisations. We don’t know if such agreement will be forthcoming, and it is impossible for anyone to give a definitive answer. There are not only legal considerations, such as whether a successor state is bound by treaties signed by the state from which it has seceded. There are also political considerations, and, at least where the EU is concerned, these may prove to be important. Clearly it would be easier for the SNP to win the referendum if they didn’t have to address these questions, but could rely only on the emotional appeal of independence and on the assertion that an independent Scotland would manage its affairs better than they are managed within the UK. But, unfortunately for Mr Salmond and his party, the irritating and difficult questions are being put, and for the moment, they are failing to provide satisfactory answers. They are going to have to find some which will persuade the large number of Scots who are hesitant and undecided; or they will find the victory they seek slipping out of their grasp.