When voters go to the poll in September’s referendum they deserve to know how Scotland’s ministers will respond if they can’t get their way.
For years, if not decades, Alex Salmond has based his campaign for Scottish independence on building his stature within the minds of Scottish voters, and appealing directly to nationalistic tendencies.
As he prepares to deliver a major speech today on independence, the SNP should, if it is not already aware of it, accept that its audience is now bigger than the people of Scotland alone.
For Scotland’s voters to have any confidence in Salmond plans for independence, the Scottish government must persuade the whole of the European Union that it should be accepted as a member state whilst appealing to the rest of the UK that Scotland should be able to retain the pound.
On both points the omens aren’t good for Scotland’s first minister.
When voters go to the poll in September’s referendum they deserve to know how Scotland’s ministers will respond if they can’t get their way. Any failure to provide an alternative will lead Scotland into pursuing a radically different path to the fantasy dreams of the SNP without any democratic legitimacy whatsoever.
In his speech last week on currency union, George Osborne, followed shortly after by Ed Balls and Danny Alexander, made crystal clear that based on the advice received by permanent secretary to the treasury Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the remainder of the UK would not accept Scotland staying within the same currency.
Whilst in his response today Alex Salmond will launch a stinging attack on the chancellor’s position, it would behold him to accept some humble pie, and realise that all three of the UK’s main political parties are only giving voice to the views of the people they are there to serve.
A YouGov poll published over the weekend shows that 58 per cent of voters in England and Wales would oppose an independent Scotland using the pound. This is an increase of 15 per cent since the question was last asked in November. Salmond needs to woo, not bully the rest of the UK.
But there is something else far more curious that has emerged over the weekend.
Speaking to the Andrew Marr programme yesterday, the president of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso declared in no uncertain terms that it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible” for an independent Scotland to join the European Union.
Accepting the fact that the SNP disagree with this view, it nevertheless raises the question as to why its White Paper on independence failed to outline the scepticism within the Commission about the prospects for Scotland joining the EU on its own. What else did ministers in Scotland omit to mention when they published their prospectus for independence?
Outlining the challenge faced by the Yes campaign on the European Union, the Scotsman’s leader column this morning notes:
“The Yes campaign now has to find a credible pathway through the deep uncertainties surrounding the status of an independent Scotland, and in particular to assure Scottish exporters that their interests will not be prejudiced. While there may be room to establish a status of Scottish exceptionalism to ease the evident concerns of Spain, that, as matters stand and with seven months to go, is starting to look a very tall order.”
Scotland needs a credible plan McB from Alex Salmond today. It’s doubtful that he’ll deliver though.
58 Responses to “Alex Salmond needs to woo, not bully, the rest of the UK”
Alec
A knee jerk reaction would have been saying this immediately on publication of the White Paper or at any of the multiple points since then when Salmond has spoke of his fondness for St£rling (which no longer looks like a millstone around Scotland’s neck) in the subsequent six months.
Likewise, astuteness by Salmond would have involved calm, phlegmatic consideration… not a mixture of bluster, bombast, vituperation and seething threats.
~alec
Scott Creighton
They didn’t have to say anything–that is the entire strategy of BT–say as little as we can get away with and let the UK Govt’s state sponsored propaganda broadcaster do the rest. Given the recent surge in the polls towards YES, the NO campaign strategy seems not to be working too well and thus they needed to do something to stem the tide Osborne’s announcement last week of the ‘George Tax’ on English businesses was the knee-jerk reaction I am speaking of. But I rather suspect it’ll do Osballs any good whatsoever.
uglyfatbloke
Osborne may have played a smarter game than we thought him capable of. If he goes down the path of ‘no asset sharing’ the gnats will say ‘OK…keep the assets, but you also keep the debts’. It’s not really going to have that much impact on rUK iif there is a Yes vote, but Osborne has also drawn Balls – and the glib-dumbs too, but who cares? – into what can be presented – not altogether unreasonably – as an anti-Scottish position. The tories have nothing to lose in Scotland so Osborne does n’t have to worry about electoral implications, but he knows that Ed Miliband and Ed balls certainly should. If there is a No vote there will be pressure (and not just from tories) to scale back devolution, not extend it and that will play well for the gnats. Anything that works for them must be disadvantageous for Labour and – to the extent that it matters – for the glib-dumbs too. If the 2015 election is close, just a handful of Labour seats falling to the gnats could make a very real difference.
The EU question is a rather different beast. Barosso is trying to suck up to Cameron just now because of the EU referendum issue and Cameron is concerned if there is a Yes vote there will be a price for rUK in the EU – fewer MEPs, loss of rebate and other opt-outs/privileges. That would strengthen the hand of UKIP and it’s the tories who stand to suffer most from that.
Mark Myword
Scotland is a member of the EU because it is a part of the UK. Nowhere in any EU treaty does the word Scotland appear. If Scotland chooses to leave the UK, it also chooses to leave the EU, the citizens of the independent Scotland will have voluntarily given up their EU citizenship – they will not have been deprived of it, they will have given it up voluntarily. Next the rUK will continue its membership of the EU. In law it is the continuing state, it can continue to call itself the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island and enjoy all the rights, privileges and obligations that it presently has with the exception of any rights, privileges and obligations that it grants to an independent Scotland.
Alec
BT, what that?
As for the rest – Osballs, UK Government propaganda etc. etc. – this is not the halcyon days of the 2007/11 Administration, or even until some point in the current one. This is where youse actually have to explain what youse’ll do like grown-ups instead of playing the cheeky, resourceful opportunist instead of the nihilistic opportunist.
Yes, the bloviating lout on the Holyrood floor is demonstrating that effortlessly. He’s had two years since calling the referendum (more likely more since the €uro went tits up) to come up with a Plan B. To paraphrase Baldwin, he’s behaving like the courtesan.
~alec