Alex Salmond will be a formidable opponent – so David Cameron needs to fight on his own terms
In Aberdeen this week, a new statue of Robert the Bruce was unveiled. Canny, daring and tenacious, he is a king revered for an audacious victory that altered the course of Scottish history and secured his country’s independence from England. It is easy to imagine Alex Salmond plotting where his own statue will be, how tall the plinth. He has the same ambition, to win Scotland’s independence, and his battle plan is not entirely dissimilar. In Bannockburn, a much larger English force was destroyed on the battlefield as a result of its recklessly complacent commanders. Almost 700 years later, the same fate may well befall the unionist parties if they’re not careful.
The devolutionists aimed to kill Scottish nationalism by setting up a parliament in Edinburgh. To put it mildly, this has not gone according to plan. When home rule was introduced by New Labour, it was obvious to many of us on both sides of the border that such crackpot constitutional changes would weaken the United Kingdom and imperil its survival. Wouldn’t giving power to Scotland only boost the SNP and create an appetite for more concessions? So, alas, it has proved.
A new orthodoxy has now emerged, at least in Westminster. It is fashionable to say that an SNP victory does not mean the Scots want a complete break-up of the union — polls show support for independence at as little as 33 per cent. But polls showed just 25 per cent supporting Salmond’s party two months ago: he went on to wipe the floor with his rivals in the election campaign and win a majority in Holyrood. The same might happen again. His forces are highly disciplined, and have the goal of independence firmly in sight. His opponents, both in England and Scotland, are in utter disarray on this question.
With the elections over, the real battle for Scotland has begun — and there is little sense that the unionist side is in any condition to fight. All three of its parties in Holyrood are now leaderless; the talent pool that they can fish from is dispiritingly shallow. The best Tory, Lib Dem and Labour politicians gravitate towards Westminster, while the best nationalists gravitate to Edinburgh.
Salmond is also extremely cunning, with a gift for obscuring the revolutionary nature of what he proposes. He even says he’s strongly in favour of keeping the Queen (for now) and revels in his audiences with her — meetings in which, we are led to believe, they share horseracing tips.
Salmond has built a previously unimaginable coalition, partly by offering more uncosted freebies from English taxpayers. In the election the SNP appealed to bedrock nationalists, former Tories, distressed Lib Dems, old welfarist lefties, much of the Edinburgh establishment and aspirational middle-ground floating voters attracted by his charisma. He then ran a highly presidential campaign in which he dwarfed his rivals. Having got this far, Salmond is not about to throw it all away with a mad dash for a quick referendum he knows he would, at this stage, probably lose. Instead it will be guerrilla warfare, demanding more powers from London every week and gradually chipping away at the Union.
And he has the perfect vehicle for doing so, idiotically gifted to him by Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems. Failing to learn the original lesson of the devolution experiment — that more powers are never enough — they all signed up before the general election to extend the remit of the Scottish parliament by granting unlimited powers to raise tax without losing any subsidy from England. Last week’s election results show how well that worked.
Twenty years ago, both Labour and the Tories had senior MPs who lived in Scotland and knew its politics intimately. Now both parties are starting to discuss Scotland as if it were a foreign country. During the general election campaign, George Osborne had a map on his wall with Scotland airbrushed out.
In normal circumstances it should fall to the Prime Minister to rally his troops, but he doesn’t have many — just one MP and a leaderless rump at Holyrood. Cameron does not know what to do and he is exposed, having taken little interest in Scotland while declaring himself devoted to the Union. His main aim in this regard is to avoid ending up as the answer to a pub quiz question in 100 years time: ‘Who was the last prime minister of Britain?’ As one worried Tory puts it: ‘There is nobody in the civil service or in the team of advisers around him with even the remotest understanding or experience of Scotland.’ No. 10 has no person responsible for Scotland — and so it has landed on the desk of Ed Llewellyn, Cameron’s chief of staff, whose speciality is foreign affairs and rather appropriately the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Cameron has holidays in Jura, and there is a bottle of its whisky in his house, but this is as far as his Scottish knowledge runs.
Worryingly, the early indications are that No. 10 and the Treasury think still more appeasement may somehow be the answer. Ministers are starting to consider Alex Salmond’s plans for ‘financial independence’, envisaging a relationship for Scotland and England like the devolved Basque Country has with Spain. Scotland’s budget would be set at whatever it raises in tax — topped up by a slice of oil revenue. Salmond seems to have levered an extension to Scotland’s new borrowing powers (envisaged by the Scotland Bill) out of the PM. ‘We have to think carefully,’ says a leading Cameroon. ‘We have to take some time to listen and try to lower the temperature.’
Lowering the temperature is the opposite of what Salmond is aiming for. His troops relish the idea of taking on Cameron, respecting his political skills but seeing him (rightly) as having zero purchase on voters north of the border. ‘They want to send up an English toff to put the Scots back in their box?’ asks one friend of Salmond. ‘Bring it on. That’s a dream for us.’
All deeply depressing, divisive stuff for those who cherish Britain as a great partnership between countries bonded together by historical, cultural and family ties. But the situation is, while extremely dangerous, by no means hopeless. The ultimate responsibility for a referendum on the break-up of the UK lies with Westminster. The Scottish parliament has no powers to call one: it can merely pass a request to the Prime Minister. The Scottish parliament was designed to avoid antagonism with Westminster.
Yet the Cabinet seems to have been badly advised this week by the Scottish Secretary, the Lib Dem Michael Moore, who let it be known that the coalition would not interfere with Salmond’s choice of a referendum date. That is madness, leaving the way open for a scenario in which government lawyers think there might have to be two referendums held in Scotland (one multi-option affair held by Salmond and then a later one sanctioned by Westminster to approve or reject the verdict). Then there is the question of whether England should be consulted as to whether it wishes to sever ties with Scotland. Unionists have long feared that the extraordinarily tolerant English may lose patience and ask Scotland to close the door on its way out.
The answer is for Westminster to call Salmond’s bluff by instigating an early referendum. It ought to have been done years ago. Why let the SNP leader choose the moment of maximum advantage, when now there is still a natural majority for the Union in Scotland? And even if there is no clear leader of the No forces capable of taking on Salmond, a cross-party campaign could assemble a powerful range of Scottish voices, including John Reid, Charles Kennedy and former Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth among others. The battle is winnable, if fought early enough.
The No to AV campaign was a reminder that referendum voters tend to opt for the status quo — which is partly why Harold Wilson called a vote on Europe two years after Britain joined. Scotland presents more hostile terrain for the Prime Minister, but when the PM and others belatedly put their back into the fight against AV, they prevailed. The question about whether there is to be a referendum on independence has already been lost. But far better that the question be put at a time of the London government’s choosing.
The unionists need to learn a lesson from Robert the Bruce. A master strategist, he prevailed by fighting his battles on his own terms. At the start of battle at Bannockburn, he was charged by a heavily armed opponent but stood his ground, stepping aside at the last moment and, with a blow from his axe, decapitating his assailant. The morale of his troops was transformed, and the battle won. It will take similar daring to see off the Nats. Cameron can win if he strikes early. Alex Salmond is formidable, but not unassailable.