Why you should ignore Nicola Sturgeon's #PretendyRef
The SNP leader's proposals are so pitiful they don't even deserve to be attacked.
This is the text of my Scottish Daily Mail column, which appeared on Monday, June 20, 2022.
I’ve never been one for the theatre but I’m fair enjoying Nicola Sturgeon’s latest production.
The writing is full of bombast and great soliloquies about democracy and self-determination. The stage decoration is exquisite. (Who knew Bute House had so many Saltires?) Some of the casting is questionable, mind you.
If I were looking for someone to play the part of a charismatic revolutionary, in the vanguard of an uprising against an oppressive government, I wouldn’t have gone with Angus Robertson. ‘Peace, bread, land and 50 per cent off my history of Vienna, now in paperback.’
In the past few days, we have begun to receive glimpses of Sturgeon's planned referendum and so far it is the best show outside the West End. I had previously suggested that, the constitution being reserved, Sturgeon’s masterplan might be a consultative referendum on the process rather than the substance of independence. My bet was a question about which parliament ought to have the power to call a binding plebiscite. According to a Sunday broadsheet, this is more or less Sturgeon’s plan. A consultative referendum on process, albeit on negotiations rather than powers.
What would this mean in practice? Well, unlike in 2014, when we were asked whether we thought Scotland should be an independent country, the Sturgeon referendum would ballot the electorate on whether the Scottish Government should open negotiations with Whitehall for Scotland becoming an independent country. This, the theory runs, might stand a chance of getting around the little legal problem known as the Scotland Act.
I’m not a lawyer so I won’t offer an opinion on the likelihood of this plan standing up in the Supreme Court. But I have seen every James Bond film ever made and watched all those climactic scenes where the supervillain outlines his dastardly plot — extorting the world’s nuclear arsenal with a diamond-powered satellite laser, carpet-bombing Earth with space pods filled with deadly pollen gas — and I can honestly say Sturgeon’s scheme is more harebrained than anything 007 has ever come up against.
My position is that this is all pure theatre. Just the latest bit of party management to get Sturgeon through the next few years. I don't believe she's serious about a referendum because her proposed referendum is not serious. Therefore, I propose that no one else treat it seriously.
Any engagement confers legitimacy on what Unionists ought to consider an illegitimate process. Note that I say ‘illegitimate’ rather than ‘unlawful’. If necessary, the courts will decide the legality of Sturgeon’s referendum. Legitimacy is something different.
Nicola Sturgeon and her party have prospered electorally by promoting division and discord. They have injected into Scottish national life a new political sectarianism in which constitutional preference has become a fiercely held and bitterly defended identity. They have encouraged the formation of a self-consciously nationalist community and told its members their country is constantly under siege from Westminster power grabs and block grant cuts.
As a result, this community rejects shared institutions like the BBC and authoritative publications like the Gers report. It hives itself off into an ideological and cultural enclave infused with paranoia, self-pity and grievance. On the other side, people who didn’t consider themselves terribly political before 2014 have had their quiet, instinctive Unionism forged into something altogether steelier over the past decade.
These changes have brought about a realignment of Scottish politics in which a large minority prioritises its support for independence, another large minority its opposition and the rest of the country shuffles about in the middle. The thing that most sharply divides us has been put to the fore and all the things on which there is broad agreement have lost ground. While this benefits the SNP electorally, it undermines their ability to build a national consensus on a policy that requires it more than any other. A new state born in division will have to overcome that division before it can succeed.
Quite apart from questions of legality, a consultative referendum that only consults one half of the country is a hollow exercise. The only hope Sturgeon’s referendum has of gaining any legitimacy is if Unionists participate in it. Even if it were subsequently ruled unlawful, the First Minister could claim an affirmative result as a mandate to continue campaigning for a binding referendum. If the result went against her, she could still tout the high turnout as evidence of Scotland’s ongoing interest in the constitutional debate and the need for more devolution or another referendum in the next parliamentary term.
Unionists cannot win Sturgeon’s referendum and that is why they must not participate. You cannot win a referendum held on your opponent’s preferred territory, on their terms of reference and when you already know that even in defeat they will not concede. Some Unionists will be tempted to exploit this as another opportunity to scrutinise the SNP’s prospectus for separation but this would be strategically unwise.
Even if you scorn Sturgeon’s particular referendum proposal, the moment you start demanding to know what currency would be used or how pensions would be paid for, you inadvertently make the case for there to be a referendum of some sort. After all, Sturgeon’s argument is that the 2014 vote did not resolve the constitutional question and that there is public appetite for another debate on Scotland’s future.
Unionists who respond to Sturgeon’s gambit by trying to debunk the Scottish Government’s ‘scene setting’ papers can only give credence to what is otherwise a ludicrous position. See, she would be able to say. It’s not just supporters of independence who think these issues must be debated. It’s both sides.
The consultative referendum is not just a sop to nationalists; it is a red rag to Unionists. Part of Sturgeon’s strategy will be relying on the emotional incontinence of her legion of haters. I’m not talking about voters who think she’s a terrible First Minister (she is) or that her government is hamstrung by incompetence (it is). I’m talking about that section of Unionism that despises her with a white-hot fury, people for whom reviling Sturgeon has become a political personality in itself.
These are people who could be very useful to the First Minister. Even if mainstream Unionists boycotted her referendum, the Sturgeon-haters could well be baited into storming to the polls just to show her. Depending on how many did, the result would still be in favour of separation, but not lopsided enough to make the whole endeavour look ridiculous. It is ridiculous and deserves to look like it.
Unionists must be ultra-disciplined on this matter. The opposition leaders should not allow themselves to be drawn into Sturgeon’s strategy. Were I advising Douglas Ross, Anas Sarwar and Alex Cole-Hamilton, I would tell them to do nothing to amplify the consultative referendum. No matter what weak spot they think they’ve identified. No matter what brilliant zinger they were up until 2am thinking up. They cannot win when the whole game is about making the referendum look like a genuine, legitimate exercise.
Every time they attack it, every time they ask questions about the costs, every time they grill Sturgeon on the details, they do her work for her. They provide the clips that will be sent out to the party faithful from SNP spin central. ‘Watch Douglas Ross reject Scotland’s right to choose.’ ‘Here’s Anas Sarwar getting the Better Together band back together.’
The opposition parties should proceed as though no referendum is happening. Don’t ask about it at First Minister’s Questions. Ask instead about hospital waiting times, the attainment gap, and if the ferries will ever set sail. Reject all media bids for interviews or TV debates about it. Do not donate one ounce of credence to it.
This referendum deserves no credence. It is a piece of spin, a desperate throw of the dice, a Hail Mary pass, an exercise in absurdity. There is a debate to be held about it, all right, but not at Holyrood. The debate should take place at Westminster and it should be about putting an end to this sort of taxpayer-funded political theatre.
The last sentence is the most important of all. But the problem is that HMG has for too long followed Stephen’s advice and ignored the SNP’s appropriation of reserved powers and measures that have allowed authoritarianism in Scotland to advance. If only WM would smarten up and stop Sturgeon’s March towards dictatorship.
Absolutely correct Stephen Completely ignore this so called consultative referendum If there is one thing that politicians detest it is being ignored