“The issues are whether and how an independent Scotland would make the transition, at what cost, paid for by whom, over how long and, crucially, what policies would be needed to get to a position where people are at least no worse off. These are not insurmountable but they are challenging.”
Independence would offer the opportunity to be different and more progressive but that will require radical, painful adjustments and taking on some powerful interests. The assertion that Scotland is not too poor to be independent is meaningless. There is no entry fee to becoming an independent state. The issues are whether and how an independent Scotland would make the transition, at what cost, paid for by whom, over how long and, crucially, what policies would be needed to get to a position where people are at least no worse off. These are not insurmountable but they are challenging. But the SNP, as the main advocates of independence, does not appear up to the challenge.
The SNP has simply not engaged seriously with these questions, preferring to base its case on opposition to Boris Johnson and the Tories. That is fine so far as it goes but it does not take us very far. It has produced prospectuses designed to speak to very different audiences. Few doubt the sincerity of Andrew Wilson, who chaired the SNP Growth Commission, or Shona Robison, who chaired the SNP’s Social Justice and Fairness Commission. The problem is that these reports are mutually incompatible. The Growth Commission offers some insight but is uncomfortable reading for anyone signed up to the Social Justice and Fairness Commission. The lack of any leadership addressing these inconsistencies is notable as is the lack of policies introduced in advance of independence that might mitigate these problems.
What counts are revealed preferences, not rhetoric or competing visions, but actual policies that have been adopted. And what the SNP has revealed in office ought to be a cause for concern as it does not suggest that it is giving much thought to transition. Symbolic gestures designed to burnish a progressive image rather than seriously tackle inequalities might win votes, even win independence, but would leave Scotland’s most vulnerable dangerously exposed.
This reflects a fear common in the days of New Labour. The SNP does not want to upset middle-class Scotland. This is understandable as the SNP needs an overall majority to support independence. New Labour won a massive Commons’ majority with only 43% of the vote. Perhaps it might have been bolder with a smaller majority and without the need to maintain its broad church of support. The SNP has no such luxury. It needs more than that level of support for independence. The strategy to avoid difficult decisions and exaggerate symbolic gestures that suggest a progressive agenda and that there will be no losers is required. But what may win a referendum will undermine efforts to create a more progressive Scotland.
There was a time when progressive politics appeared to align well with the case for a Scottish Parliament. But it was a case based more on constitutional change to defend a socio-economic status quo. In Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard, reflecting on Italian unification and social class, Tancredi famously remarks that ‘everything must change so that everything can stay the same’.
So too with devolution. Constitutional change was needed to retain the socio-economic status quo. But if an independent state is to protect or, as the rhetoric would have us believe, build on the foundations of the welfare state and improve outcomes then difficult questions need to be answered. But the need to win 50%+ support for independence is inhibiting the SNP from making a credible progressive case for independence.