You’re getting angry at the wrong people

Politics Notebook #15: Of course the SNP is going to exploit the flaws in the devolution settlement. What is the UK Government going to do about it?

Image by Stefan from Pixabay

The Scottish Government has published yet another paper on independence.

An Independent Scotland’s Place in the World is the eleventh instalment in the ‘Building a New Scotland’ series. Like every paper that preceded it, this one was researched and compiled by employees of the Home Civil Service assigned to the Scottish Government. Their activities and the costs incurred in the publishing of the paper were funded entirely by taxpayers’ money.

Every time a fresh independence paper is published, opponents of Scottish independence become very cross. They demand the Scottish Government cease preparing and releasing what is essentially taxpayer-funded pro-independence propaganda. After all, the Scottish Government has no powers to bring about Scottish independence.

Allow me to offer a different perspective. I happen to agree that civil servants shouldn’t be compiling these papers and the Scottish Government shouldn’t be publishing them. I doubt there is another political commentator in Scotland who has banged on more about these matters. I have put forward all sorts of suggestions for how the UK Government could put a stop to the Scottish Government’s use of public resources to advance independence. No one could fairly characterise me as soft on separatism.

All the same, I think the anger Unionists express towards the Scottish Government over these papers is misplaced. Implicit, and often explicit, is the idea that Scottish Ministers should focus on the day-to-day business of governing Scotland rather than grandstanding on reserved matters.

I agree. In theory.

But politics is not about theory. Politics is about power: where it lies and what you do with it. And the simple fact is that the UK Government has failed to use its power.

SNP ministers are plainly spending public monies on reserved matters — and UK ministers have done nothing about it.

The SNP is pushing at the boundaries of the devolution settlement — and UK ministers have done nothing about it.

The Nationalists are exploiting the institutions of devolution, which are institutions of the British state, in order to undermine the British state — and UK ministers have done nothing about it.

The reason for this inaction might be weakness, it might be neglect, or it might be indifference. The reason doesn’t matter all that much. What matters is that the SNP government is prepared to use power and the UK Government is not.

In which case, why shouldn’t the Nationalists seize on this inaction? Why shouldn’t they take the opportunity the UK Government has left wide open for them? The SNP is committed to ending the United Kingdom via Scottish secession. It is only natural that it would use every lawful tool at its disposal to bring about that outcome. What political party wouldn’t?

Politics is not an etiquette lesson. The SNP is not obliged to play by any rules except the law of the land. And the law of the land does not prevent them from using taxpayers’ money or civil servants to publish pro-independence prospectuses.

The reason it doesn’t is that the architects of Scottish devolution spurned a conferred powers model, under which Holyrood would have held only those powers explicitly devolved to it in law, in favour of a reserved powers model, under which Holyrood is assumed to hold all powers not explicitly reserved to Westminster. The adoption of this latter model made devolution not only an act of constitutional vandalism but one of constitutional radicalism.

I won’t name any of the guilty men responsible for this historic error but there’s a reason I mutter under my breath every time I pass the steps outside the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

But just because devolution was legislated in a certain fashion does not mean that legislation cannot be amended. Indeed, Conservative-led governments have amended the Scotland Act twice — in 2012 and 2016 — though they did so to entrench and expand the flawed devolution settlement rather than to correct those flaws.

As I have pointed out many times, if the UK Government wanted to stop the Scottish Government pumping out pro-independence propaganda on the taxpayers’ dime, it could do so fairly easily. All it would require is a one-sentence amendment to the Scotland Act: ‘Scottish Ministers shall not expend public monies in relation to Scottish independence.’ Alternatively, members of the Home Civil Service could be forbidden from undertaking activities relating to Scottish independence except during an independence referendum.

You’ll have to ask the UK Government why it is not prepared to do even the bare minimum to stop the SNP misusing the apparatus of devolved government. Perhaps one of the reasons is that supporters of the Union in Scotland expect so very little from their politicians. They nod along as UK ministers hand fresh tranches of powers to an SNP-run parliament in Edinburgh. They applaud when Tory politicians gripe about SNP ministers banging on about independence, as though their griping has any effect. They are satisfied with cynical productions in which Penny Mordaunt theatrically scolds the SNP from the Commons despatch box, even as her government fails to use that despatch box to introduce a Bill to reform devolution. If you settle for viral social media clips over legislation, viral clips are all you’re going to get.

It’s not as though the UK Government is entirely ignorant of the problem. The one exception to my criticisms of Whitehall inaction is Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, who has shown some awareness of the problem and a willingness to act upon it. But he is one minister. We need every minister in the UK Government to be aware of the flaws in the devolution settlement, grasp how they imperil the constitutional integrity of the UK, and be prepared to remedy them. Every single minister in the Scottish Government is a pro-independence ideologue above all else. Every single minister in the UK Government must be a pro-UK ideologue on some level.

The only way that will come about is if Unionists force these issues onto the political agenda. There will soon be a general election and representatives of the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem parties will be knocking on your door asking for your vote. I would suggest asking them in response whether they support amending the Scotland Act to block the Scottish Government spending taxpayers’ money on independence. They might say yes, they might say no; more likely they will fob you off with a fudge answer. But by asking the question, you will intrude into their preferred issues with your preferred issues, which is what elections ought to be about, after all.

Let them know your vote is up for grabs and will go to whichever party is first to get serious about devolution reform. And if their idea of devolution reform is handing over yet more powers, rather than restricting or even removing some of Holyrood’s powers, then tell them they’ll have to do without your support. Devoscepticism is a small movement but all isms begin as small movements. It’s up to those who believe that devolution must be reformed to strengthen the UK to turn this small movement into something pro-UK politicians can no longer ignore.

So, as much as I hate to say it, when you inveigh against the Scottish Government for wasting time and money on independence, you’re getting angry at the wrong people. The SNP isn’t going to stop supporting independence, and it isn’t going to stop using the Scottish Government to advance that cause. The only institution which can stop the SNP exploiting the flaws of devolution is the UK Government, and it is only going to do so when it is made to by its voters.