The case for Scottish independence is imploding – and Nicola Sturgeon knows it

 Her demand for another referendum is a bluff, an act of political theatre to keep her troops hopeful

Source - Daily Telegraph - 16/06/22

Link

After relaunching her case for Scottish independence this week – with speeches, a 72-page economic dossier and the promise of a referendum next year – Nicola Sturgeon had a quick something to add. She did not, she said, intend to dwell on the hard border she plans to erect with England. She’d deal with the “implications of Brexit” another day.

It’s easy to see why she’s not keen to discuss it. Most of Scotland’s imports and exports cross over the border with England, so what impact would it have subjecting all of them to checks, tariffs and customs controls? The SNP often talks about the harm inflicted by Brexit, but Scotland’s trade with England vastly outweighs its dealings with Europe. So “Scexit”, as some Unionists have taken to calling it, would be “Brexit times 10”.

This phrase is from one of Sturgeon’s own economic advisers – and he makes an important point. Brexit has transformed the equation. Not even the most fervent nationalist can now deny that separation would impose massive and permanent economic disruption, a cost far greater than had both countries been EU members. An independent Scotland would need to somehow put itself on a path of fast economic growth. How to do this if it chooses EU membership and massive trade friction with England?

It’s not that Scotland can’t be independent: it’s a rich, ingenious and confident country that could stand proudly on the world stage. Voters certainly are willing to pay a price for greater sovereignty, as Brexit demonstrated. But the price of separation, now, would be sado-austerity on a scale few countries have ever attempted.

Sturgeon leads a 120,000-strong brigade of party members (parts of my family included) anxious for another referendum. They need to believe that the great battle is just around the corner, that their date with destiny awaits. That’s why she has set aside £20 million for a referendum next year. But under devolution rules, the UK Government needs to agree, and it won’t. So her main hope is to sue, persuading the Supreme Court to back a referendum billed as being “advisory” – and, ergo, not a referendum. It’s a rather long shot.

But let’s say she is granted her referendum: what then? She can talk (as she has done this week) about successful small countries. But none of them has Scotland’s economics. Sturgeon’s own officials calculate that state spending amounted to 61 per cent of GDP last year – making it one of the biggest governments, if not the biggest, in the world in relation to the size of the country. And, yes, the pandemic distorts things. But even beforehand, Scots were enjoying Swedish-style public spending while paying normal British levels of tax thanks to the regular Union dividend.

Let’s say an independent Scotland is accepted as an EU member. And let’s put aside some other pretty serious questions, like who pays the pensions and in which currency. Under the Maastricht rules, it would need to get the deficit down to 3 per cent of GDP (from 22 per cent last year). This would be possible, but devastating. The cuts required would be bigger than the post-crash austerity visited upon Greece, Ireland or Iceland. An independent Scotland could close every school, free every prisoner, disband the police force and still not come close to balancing its books.

When I was political editor of The Scotsman, I’d argue for Scotland to be given financial independence alongside devolution. There would, I’d argue, be an incentive to cut tax and grow the economy – far better than begging London for money and complaining when it wasn’t enough. But over time, it became clear what “fiscal autonomy” would mean: the kind of shock therapy that no country should be made to live through.

Had Scotland been brilliantly run under 15 years of SNP rule, Sturgeon may have a claim to be given complete control. But we’ve seen indefensible decay in schools with a widening attainment gap between rich and poor (closing this was supposed to be the “defining mission” of her government). Drug deaths have surged to the highest in Europe. I backed devolution on the ground that it would address such problems. Instead, it opened a debate about independence that went on to overshadow all else. Tory sleaze was eclipsed by SNP sleaze.

In which country, anywhere in the Western world, has the head of government been accused by a predecessor of conspiring to have him imprisoned by framing him so as to remove him as a political threat? Alex Salmond’s full case against Sturgeon is still unpublishable, owing to censorship edicts issued by Edinburgh courts. He was acquitted of attempted rape but what he did admit to in his time as First Minister makes Boris Johnson’s birthday cake session look like a nun’s tea party. A striking proportion of the SNP’s MPs have faced charges of embezzlement, anti-Semitism, sexual harassment and more.

Five minutes into Sturgeon’s speech this week, we had yet another one: Patrick Grady, the party’s chief whip, was suspended for inappropriate behaviour with a staffer. There are many good, even outstanding SNP politicians – including Sturgeon herself. I’d rank Kate Forbes, her 32-year-old finance minister, as one of the most impressive politicians in Britain. But as a team, they are beatable. Especially if their strategy is to run away from the main arguments and fall back upon “small is better” platitudes.

So the referendum demand is a bluff, an act of political theatre. Sturgeon had told friends after the last referendum that it would be political suicide to call another one until separation was backed by 60 per cent of voters. But that point never came. Even now, there’s a (slim) majority for the Union – and that’s after Brexit, an inflation crisis, a not-wildly-popular Etonian in No 10 and the partygate debacle. Polls show barely a third of Scots welcome her new timetable.

So Sturgeon is threatening a vote that most Scots don’t want with a case she can’t win and questions she can’t answer. But her job, now, is to brazen it out, to suspend disbelief. To keep her troops hopeful by demanding a new referendum. And to hope, perhaps above all else, that the Tories don’t say “yes”.