Professor Richard Kerley - CSPP Interim Chair

There has recently been a frenzy of excitement in the print and broadcast media over the constitutional position of Scotland, and therefore the constitutional position of the rest of the UK.

Whether the media have been based in Edinburgh, Glasgow, or London they have devoted pages and minutes to dissecting the meaning of various official statements, and reviewing history, often running back 300 or 400 years.

Press, radio and TV  have been interviewing politicians,  experts, and occasionally people on the streets of London, Berwick on Tweed or Bannockburn (now a village on the edge of Stirling, 698 years ago  the site of a  battle that was a home win).

This is depressing, because, as always  in such circumstances political posturing and the media commentary it generated often creates far more heat than light and does not do a lot to help either readers (or voters as they may become) to understand just what might be going on.

I’d like to concentrate on 3 things in this column and try and cover some of the matters that have not been clarified, and in some cases not even discussed. The first matter to clear up is that none of this is a surprise – certainly not if you live in Scotland.

The Blair government made some enormous constitutional changes right across the UK:  Scotland; Wales; Northern Ireland (and Ireland); the House of Lords; and directly elected mayors in various councils, with forms of proportional or preferential voting wherever elections occurred.

All these changes were novel and broadly accepted, but they were not neat and tidy. As such, they have inevitably led to calls for changes and amendments, as we have seen in Wales last year, in Northern Ireland and in the current legislation for a Scotland Bill that will make changes to both the taxation arrangements and the powers of the Scottish Parliament.

Just as the changes themselves have been untidy and often incomplete, the way in which they have been put into effect has varied because we have no neat and tidy arrangements for holding referendums.

Messrs Blair and Cameron have form when it comes to holding referendums, or not holding them in the way they said they would. So we should not be surprised when Mr Salmond, Scottish First Minister, tries to organise a referendum in a way that best suits his cause, whether that cause is actually Independence or perhaps something close to Independence.

The other reason why we should be concerned about the relative uncertainty in the UK about using a referendum as a natural part of decision making is that our failure to get this right runs the risk of disenfranchising substantial bodies of opinion, both in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK.

I do not claim to have the answer at present, but worry that governments are not even thinking about the right questions.

The 2nd key issue is what the substance of any decision might be about. The manner in which this discussion has been presented to a wider UK constituency has, to a great extent, been set in the context of clear unequivocal choices between some form of status described as ‘Independence’ versus ‘continue as we are’. 

Of course, the rhetoric of political argument builds this tension up, with the presumption of the Westminster government (and the Opposition) that posing just one question in this way is the means most likely to get the referendum result that most of Westminster wants.

The problem with this stance, certainly in relation to any acknowledgement of public views, is that opinion in Scotland consistently appears to suggest that although there may not be a majority for something called ‘Independence ‘ there is a majority for the current Scottish Parliament having greater powers than it currently has.

Of course this is also the easiest choice for many to opt for as it seems warmly positive, but without the real uncertainty of almost complete separation.

Since the current powers of the Scottish Parliament are already being changed by Westminster (without a referendum) and there is no clarity about what is meant by either Independence or the status quo, exploration of the balance of powers and financial responsibilities that might lie somewhere in the middle could be an important part of any public discussion.

What any Scottish government might do with greater powers and responsibilities, whether through independence or something close to it, is currently unclear in most respects although we do know that the SNP is keen to reduce Corporation tax, remove Trident and have the Queen as head of state.

Other proposals – such as currency if independent - are not clear. Best way for anybody to hedge their bets? Buy residential investment property in Berwick on Tweed.

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This article was originally published in the February edition of Public Servant