Road To Referendum

301 Pages·2014·1.335 MB·English

by  Iain Macwhirter

“A truly important book, particularly at this moment. It offers a huge sweep of
history and deals with recent Scottish politics in formidable, but never tedious detail.”
Andrew Marr, BBC
“A terrific book. Macwhirter covers much more than he does in his TV documentary,
and the book combines a broad history of Scotland’s relationship with England from
the time of Robert the Bruce onwards with a detailed analysis of the rise of the SNP,
the creation of the Scottish parliament and the run-up to the referendum. It’s a
heavyweight, serious book, but it’s a pleasure to read and it’s full of shrewd insights. I’d
recommend it highly.”
Andrew Sparrow, The Guardian
“Iain Macwhirter is shrewd, insightful and with few rivals in the business of
understanding — and explaining — the changing politics of Scotland.”
Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian
“Iain Macwhirter offers a highly readable and personal account of Scottish history
drawing on wide reading and a career during which he has followed these debates
more closely and consistently than any other journalist. He enlivens old stories with
new perspectives, challenges established wisdom and raises awkward questions for
protagonists and antagonists in equal measure on either side of today’s debate.”
Professor James Mitchell, University of Edinburgh
“Iain Macwhirter’s Road to Referendum is easily the most accessible piece of writing
concerned with the independence debate. Not only one of the shrewdest
commentaries on Scottish politics, it is also an important tribute to the country’s
history.”
The List
“Peppered with ty pical Macwhirter one-liners: “the SNP in the 1960s and 1970s was
a pacifist organisation inspired more by Gandhi than Gerry Adams”; They could
provide student essay questions for y ears to come with only the word “discuss”
added to them.”
Professor Tom Devine, The Herald
ROAD TO REFERENDUM
THE OFFICIAL COMPANION TO THE MAJOR
TELEVISION SERIES
IAIN MACWHIRTER
Road To Referendum
978-1-90888-544-9
Iain Macwhirter
Originally published in hardback 2013
Published by Cargo Publishing 2014
SC376700
© Iain Macwhirter 2014
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent
in any form or binding other than in which it is published.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
The opinions contained herewithin this book are those of the author and do not reflect
the views of the publisher, Herald Times Group or STV or any of their subsidary
companies or successors.
Printed & Bound in Scotland by Bell & Bain Ltd
Cover design and ty peset by Craig Lamont
www.cargopublishing.com
Also available as:
Kindle Ebook
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To Chrissie - if she’d only known
PREFACE
THIS BOOK began life as an accompaniment to a television series, Road to
Referendum, which traces the extraordinary changes in Scottish politics in the past
fifty y ears as we have gone from being at the very heart of the Union to facing a
referendum on independence. However, the road is rather longer travelled than that.
The wars of independence in the Middle Ages, when Scotland first asserted its
independence and defined itself as a nation, are clearly where the story of Scottish
Nationalism really begins.
But this isn’t intended to be a history book and I have only included sketches of key
periods in Scottish history to the extent that they make sense of what is happening in
the present. For example, the current arguments about whether Scotland was
extinguished by the Treaty of Union clearly require some understanding of how and
why Scotland relinquished its political autonomy in 1707. Similarly, the Darien
colonial adventure in 1699 is important mainly because of the way it is used to this
day as shorthand for either English perfidy or Scotland’s economic inadequacy.
As a journalist, I venture onto the minefield of Scottish history with trepidation and
my accounts will no doubt be contested by scholars. But I have tried to write this for a
wider audience than just Scots and I have tried to provide an introduction for people
not acquainted with Scottish politics and who have only a vague notion of what has
been happening here and cannot be expected to know or care much about the
Caledonian Antisy zy gy or the 57 varieties of Devolution Max.
Chapters 7 to 12 cover broadly the territory of the TV documentaries, and I am
indebted to STV, not just for the opportunity to present a three-part series which was
long overdue, but also for being able to draw directly on many of the interviews in
the programmes and to the Herald & Times Group for making the project happen.
This is not a recapitulation of a television script and these chapters cover very much
more ground than a television programme ever could. All opinions expressed in this
book are mine alone and should not be taken as in any way reflecting the views of
STV or the Herald & Times Group.
This book in part represents my own attempts to come to terms with the astonishing
growth in Scottish national identity during my lifetime. I was born in Margaret
Thatcher’s constituency in London and brought up in Edinburgh, where I was
completely deaf to the appeal of Scottish Nationalism, even though my mother
became a prominent member of the SNP. I spent half of my professional life as a
journalist in London, mainly in Westminster, and the rest in Scotland, latterly at
Holyrood, where I have been continually surprised by the rapidity of political change
in Scotland. I have a great affection for Scotland; I feel I understand its confusion
over its identity, and its uncertainty over what, if anything, it still means to be a part of
Great Britain.
I am not a member of the Scottish National Party and many Nationalists will find
my portray al of the movement at times unsy mpathetic. Labour politicians will
assume, as they generally do, that I’m a closet “Nat”. Both sides now accept that
Scotland could become a viably independent country. At time of writing, there is no
firm evidence yet that the Scottish people want to go to the trouble of detaching
themselves from the United Kingdom, a country in which they feel at home, even as
they depart from it politically. Geography is destiny and Scotland and England are
condemned to coexist on this small island off the coast of Europe and live in each
other’s worlds. But it would be a great mistake to assume that Scots will remain within
the UK come what may — it will have to change to survive.
Like Robert the Bruce, the excommunicated Scottish king who defeated the English
at Bannockburn in 1314 despite having spent most of his life fighting for England, the
Scots will only sue for independence once they have explored every other
conceivable option, and when they have established beyond doubt that it is in their
material interest so to do. That moment may never come. But in the meantime, the
constitutional relationships between the constituent parts of this extraordinary island
will undergo a process of permanent renegotiation. If you halve the distance between
two points, and then keep on halving it, y ou go forward — but you never arrive.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
I’VE NEVER been much interested in the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Sitting in the
rain watching pipe bands marching up and down is not my idea of an enjoy able
evening, though more than 200,000 people pay to see it every y ear during the
Edinburgh Festival. So, it was with some surprise that I received an invitation to
accompany the First Minister of Scotland to the Roy al Box for the 2007 Military
Tattoo. How could I refuse?
Alex Salmond had only just been installed as First Minister of Scotland after the
first election victory by the Scottish National Party in its 80-y ear history. I don’t know
what the Brigadiers and Lieutenant Colonels made of him, but Salmond certainly
seemed to find it all hilarious, sitting in for the Queen on her own portable ‘throne’
playing with the light that flashed every time he had to rise to take the salute from
some regiment of foot. I wasn’t quite so comfortable, sitting next to Michael Martin,
the Speaker of the House of Commons, who a few years previously had reported me
to the Sergeant at Arms in Westminster for an article I had written on MPs’ expenses.
As a journalist who has witnessed the career of Alex Salmond for a quarter of a
century, I’ve been used to surprises — but this was positively surreal. Here was the
former leftist who had once been expelled from the SNP for being a republican
socialist, now sitting at the heart of the Scottish establishment — assuming such a thing
exists. The leader of the Scottish National Party leading the 10,000-strong Tattoo
audience in a rendition of God Save the Queen. Hugh MacDiarmid, the Marxist poet
who co-founded the National Party of Scotland, would be turning in his grave, along
with Queen Victoria and James Keir Hardie.
After the salutes, the flutes of champagne arrived and Salmond staked his ground
— wherever there is attention, the First Minister will alway s be at the centre of it. “I
can see you’re getting to like this,” I remarked. “You’ll be wanting to start a war
next.”
“Sadly, no,” he replied. “Unlike Tony Blair I can’t launch any invasions. Though
I’m told I have a navy — a couple of fisheries protection vessels — so maybe I could
start a new cod war.” A couple of Lt Colonels laughed uneasily. Salmond looked
around the circle of suits with that wide-eyed look of his that seems to say: “You may
think I’m a jumped-up politician, but I just don’t care.”
Who was laughing at whom, I wondered. Was Salmond sending up the British
Empire? Thumbing his nose at the Great Britain whose imperial past was being
celebrated out there on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle? Or was this some kind of
post-Nationalist gesture of conciliation to the UK, like his promise to keep the Queen
as head of state of an independent Scotland? Perhaps he had simply been adopted as
a new regimental mascot, to be humoured and tolerated by the UK because, as First
Minister of Scotland, he was all office and no power? I don’t even know if he knew
himself. Salmond doesn’t go in for too much self-examination. So long as he is
winning elections, he doesn’t care what any one thinks.
There have been many equally surreal moments in the past hectic six y ears as
Salmond took his party from relative obscurity, seized power in the Scottish
Parliament that was supposed to kill off the SNP and went on to challenge the very
existence of the United Kingdom. It was a very Scottish coup. He rose to power in a
Scottish Parliament that had become almost a national disgrace in its early y ears,
riven with financial scandal, resignation and petty factionalism. He won a landslide
election in 2011 by being more Labour than Labour. Before the Unionists had realised
what was happening, he had scheduled a referendum on independence to be held in
the autumn of 2014. The date was set, the clock was ticking.
IT’S A MYSTERY
Here’s the my stery. How did Scotland go from being a willing and enthusiastic
partner in the Union with England to a referendum on independence within the space
of little more than a generation? In the 1950s and early 1960s, Scottish Nationalism
was the preserve of the lunatic fringe; a motley crew of eccentrics who spent their
time blowing up pillar boxes and stealing the Coronation Stone from Westminster
Abbey. It was the Monster Raving Loony Party of its day, the only difference being
that it didn’t attract as many votes.
The Scottish National Party barely registered in general elections until the 1970s.
And y et today, under Alex Salmond, the SNP commands the political landscape of
Scotland, having achieved what most political commentators, this one included, said
was impossible — an absolute majority in a parliament elected on a form of
proportional representation. 2011 was Labour’s worst defeat in Scotland since 1931.
Scots are now preparing to vote in a referendum that could lead to the extinction,
after 300 years, of one of the most successful political unions in history, which once
commanded an Empire encompassing a quarter of the planet.
How did we get here? What went wrong with the Union? Where did this
Nationalism come from? Are Scots only kidding? Do they really want to leave the
United Kingdom, withdraw from Westminster and set up an independent state? Or is
all this just an elaborate exercise in political theatre, designed to leverage Scotland’s
position within a union the Scots have no intention of abandoning? As we interviewed
most of the key players in the Scottish debate of the past three decades for the STV
television series, questions wouldn’t go away : they just got bigger.
The rise of Scottish Nationalism doesn’t fit any of the standard historical templates.
This hasn’t been a struggle for national liberation — not even the most Anglophobic
Nationalist seriously argues that Scotland is an oppressed country. Scotland’s colonial
grievances, if such exist, date back 700 y ears to medieval times. Scots are experts at
holding a grudge, but not even the chippiest could remain so outraged at King
Edward’s theft of a block of sandstone in 1296 that they would consider it grounds for
political divorce today.
For the past 300 years, Scots have been largely content with their role as junior
partners in the Union with England, which allowed the Scottish middle classes access
to imperial markets, jobs and gave the all-powerful Scottish Kirk the right to
evangelise the heathen in the British colonies. The Act of Union in 1707, when the
bankrupt Scottish nobility was “bought and sold for English gold”, as Robert Burns put
it, were certainly unpopular at the time, and there were riots across Scotland at the
loss of the Scottish Parliament — even though the vast majority of Scots had no rights
to vote in it. The new English taxes, like the Malt Tax, weren’t appreciated either. But
these grievances were largely assuaged after 1750 as Scotland’s economy boomed as
never before thanks to the commercial advantages of access to the British Empire.
Some might say that the Scots were bought and sold for imperial gold.
In the last battle fought on British soil, when the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince
Charlie, met the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden outside Inverness in 1746, there
were almost as many Scots fighting on the “English” Hanoverian side, as were in the
ranks of Catholic Jacobite clansmen. Lowland Scotland wanted nothing to do with the
crazed Highlanders and their tartan absolutism. The increasingly Anglicised middle
classes of Glasgow were too busy founding the great 18 th century tobacco and slave-
trading houses, organising colonial plantations and seeking promotion in the British
Army.
The intellectuals of Edinburgh, such as David Hume, one of Europe’s pre-eminent
philosophers and self-styled “North Briton”, were at the time of the Jacobite uprisings
struggling to free themselves from dogmatism and religious obscurantism. Adam