Using an election as plebiscite referendum is just not going to fly

The National

3 days ago

Most of us, I bet. But fun as it is to see those who only a few short years ago were proclaiming themselves to be 'All4Unity' – and now failing to find much unity among themselves – Galloway endorsing the right of voters in Scotland to choose to be independent is no longer the political showstopper that it could have been a couple of decades ago.
Far more predictable was Labour minister Douglas Alexander popping up on BBC Scotland at the weekend and refusing – despite being asked three times – to say how Scotland can voluntarily leave the Union should they wish.
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It's the question which is guaranteed to leave any Unionist spokesperson spinning towards the ground belching puffs of acrid smoke in their wake, because there's really no good answer they can give. Which of course is all the more reason to keep asking it.
The fact is that most Scots, pro-independence or not, accept without question our right to self-determination. Implying or even stating that no such right exists, or dodging the question as Alexander tried to do, only serves to get right up people's noses.
While it's not a strategy for independence, it's nevertheless a useful way to put some people on the spot and get the people of Scotland in general talking about the rights and wrongs of the matter.
And let's face it, the more people who accept our right to choose independence and who start to consider that the question deserves to be put again, the more likely it is to happen.
Short of a 'black swan' event which turns people so decisively against the Union that any vote becomes redundant, independence will probably only happen through a standalone referendum to begin a legal process of becoming independent. And even in the unlikely event of that black swan flying overhead, you'd still likely want a referendum to ratify and legitimise the outcome.
So, having said that, let's recognise that using an election as a plebiscite referendum is just not going to fly. Not now. Probably not ever.
I'm always puzzled how so many who argue that we absolutely must take this route can argue with 100% certainty that any UK government will say no to another referendum on independence, yet can still believe the same UK government would just roll over and say yes to actual independence in the face of a positive election result.
The truth is this – in the unlikely event of being able to win 50% of the vote in a multi-party election, the best anyone in the UK Government will ever do is congratulate us on our result.
It will only have effect in their eyes if we fall short, when in a twist on that classic Edinburgh expression, it will be a case of 'you'll have had your referendum'. And independence then really will be off the agenda for another generation.
(Image: Supplied)
What should matter more to independence supporters than what Westminster thinks is what the Scottish people think. And by that, I mean what people in Scotland really think, rather than what we might wish they thought instead.
If anyone spends any time talking to voters in Scotland just now about what is important to them, they would find that even independence supporters are still overwhelmingly going to be voting first and foremost for a government, no matter what anyone else might want them to do.
In the present circumstances, if the SNP were to try to use the next Scottish Parliament election as a proxy referendum, then you can probably say hello to a thumping Unionist majority at Holyrood.
That's not because there's a thumping majority or anything like it out there for the Union, because there isn't. Rather, it'll be because most people – even independence supporters – will rightly conclude that there are lots of other pressing issues also needing decided.
By standing on a platform not of 'independence, nothing less' but instead 'independence and nothing else', Scotland's main pro-independence party would be showing that it was no longer capable of being both pro-independence and being a government at the same time.
And good luck getting Scotland to independence without having a pro-independence Scottish Government taking decisions in Scotland.
There are a couple of reasons why Alex Salmond embraced the idea of a pre-legislative referendum as part of his moves to professionalise the SNP that he led.
(Image: JASON REDMOND)
Firstly, it was to help decouple independence supporters from their (then) loyalty to the Labour Party. But also, it was to allow people who wanted SNP representation to vote for the party, knowing that if it came to it, independence could be only decided later on in a separate vote for that purpose.
While it was that first group who helped take Scotland so close in 2014, it was the second group of 'soft' SNP supporters who were instrumental in the 2011 SNP landslide which made that referendum possible at all.
It was a shrewd move from a man who knew exactly what he was doing when he did it.
And it was informed by the hard data that had come in from SNP canvassers all over the country, which had started to show that support for independence was not always the same as support for the SNP and vice versa.
So by all means let a thousand flowers bloom in our strategic thinking.
But let us always be realistic, grounded in reality and looking outwards to those we still need to persuade, rather than trying to set a political course based solely on what might make us feel good personally.