davidsberry

Apologies right off that this is another blog about things military. But this week saw quite a burst of activity that centred around the SNP releasing some ideas for an independent Scottish Defence Force (SDF) that were somewhat churlishly abridged to ‘a brigade and two bases’.

What is misleading about such peremptory dismissal is the implication that Scotland is about to abdicate from its exalted position as part of a world power and discard the 300 years of history that gave us the seamlessly integrated world-class institutions that are the British Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF. Led by Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and the ToryHoose blog, variants on that position were plentiful. But let’s consider why that might not be the balanced view. Most make the following flawed assumptions:

1. That all British forces belong to England if the Scots leave. The 1707 treaty was between equals; when such a Union breaks up, each partner is entitled to its share.
2. That three centuries of (agreed splendid) shared military history must determine our joint future. The present military posture disadvantages Scotland because:
3. Forces with a global reach of the full gamut of conventional as well as nuclear weapons are required. Scotland has no need of Trident subs, aircraft carriers, strategic lift or Challenger MBTs, all of which cost £billions:
4. That Scotland must pay £3bn to help sustain the 4th biggest military budget in the world at £28bn, yet get no maritime recce aircraft, no fast missile boats and nothing bigger than a minesweeper to defend £1tn+ of North Sea oil and infrastructure.
5. That the men of the RRS, RSDG and Scots Guards would want to serve in the English Army. If the Ladies from Hell earned a formidable reputation at the business end, their martial traditions did not derive from the snugger Home Counties.
6. That those same soldiers would see deployment in the English Army (Northern Ireland, Iraq, Falklands) as preferable to Arctic training with Norwegians, or deployment on UN blue helmet operations.
7. That current MoD attachment/TOE has any relevance. Whether the 22 Scimitars recce vehicles come with the RSDG or AAC Lynxes come with 5Scots in their role is not the point. The Scots would be morally—if not legally—entitled to 8-9% of MoD assets, including elements of 40th Regt RA, 38th Regt RE, 32nd Signal Regt, logistics, catering, etc.
8. That the present idiotic RN/RAF deployment provides a sensible defence of anything at all, let alone North Britain/Scotland: no STOL/LRMRA. A bunch of Somali pirates could strangle North Sea production as they almost sank USS Cole in Aden harbour.
9. That both Clyde and Rosyth yards would close shop with no business. Even the MoD has some sense and if it’s cheaper to finish the two aircraft carriers there, that’s what they’ll do. We also need fast missile boats and they could have 4-5 years’ work building a flotilla of six.
10. That we are obliged to retain Faslane and the nuclear submarine fleet. While we are keen to retain good relations with the English, the fact they have no appropriate base to which these could be transferred is their problem. And they can take all five nuclear subs mothballed at Rosyth with them when they go.

Both MoD and their ministers are still wedded to a Central Europe WWIII posture and a delusion of global strength. As described in earlier blogs, Scotland could develop an appropriate defence for half what it currently pays and evict Trident from the Clyde as a bonus. We need allies like the English and the Scandinavians and we need to contribute to common defence. But, realistically, who’s going to invade us without taking on England first?

I am all in favour of the SDF maintaining close links with the English. But the MoD has decimated the traditions of Scottish regiments. Reconstituting the five that were forced into the RRS would be a start in redressing that. And, because we would need proportionally more infantry, forming Territorial regiments that revived the heritage of the Cameronians or the five kilted regiments that merged to form 4Scots (Highlanders) would be sensible.

The SDF army component is likely to consist of 6-8 infantry battalions and, like the present RRS, exhibit several specialties from 5Scots Air Assault training to 4Scots mechanised deployment. These would probably form an active and a reserve brigade and would require the appropriate support units mentioned above.

Comparison with the Danish, Norwegian or Irish armed forces show this scale is proportionate. No country of 5m expects to fight a war by itself, nor to be deployed far overseas and engage in, in von Clausewitz’s ringing phrase, ‘diplomacy by other means’. Most of the unionists arguing against the above seem to be military types for whom ‘a whiff of grapeshot’ or ‘in the service of empire’ still belong in the lexicon. If the English wish to retain such tradition, they are welcome. But Scotland wants to live in the now.

It is sad that Lord George Robertson of Port Ellen should be so vocal and bitter about the prospect of an SDF. Port Ellen was once the heart of MacDonald power as Lords of the Isles. They once deployed such a highly efficient military, based on clan infantry and the Norse birlinn that they could thumb their nose at the King of Scotland. But they did not change with the times; carracks and carronades defeated them. From his stint in NATO, George apparently can only think in Cold War terms of tanks, nukes and aircraft carriers. Such big-ticket items may belong in the hands of superpowers, but those are not sensible weapons for small-to-medium countries in the 21st century.

Perishing though the weather has been of late, it has been dry and (largely) calm so we’ve been taking a break from the rarified world of the Twitterati and blogosphere where debate has been especially intense on Scotland’s future. Being deeply interested in that, I tend to ‘get tore in’ and not worry about the rarified atmosphere of such debate.

But, out on the doorsteps of East Lothian having a chat with some ‘normal’ people puts things in more realistic perspective. People out there are far more preoccupied with real and immediate things. While I’m sure they are capable of dreaming and speculating, when you show up to ask what concerns them, you get it tight about the streetlight across the way, the abandoned skip, the rowdy pub, the safety of the walk to school or some such highly localised issue.

Truth be told, this is the meat-and-potatoes of representation. While you need to show vision, integrity and tenacity, people are pleased when you simply listen to their concerns and doubly so when you do something about them. And while mobile phones, e-mail, secretaries, offices, surgeries, newsletters and all the accoutrements of political life are helpful, if you’re not out on the street meeting people then your radar’s simply not plugged in.

Which makes me wonder who our opponents are talking to—if anyone at all. I have been astonished since New Year not so much that the debate on if/when/how/etc a referendum on Scotland’s independence is to be held has taken off such as to be on the London news media for the first time, but that all three opposition parties are singing a close harmony on it. They have not, to my recollection, been able to do this before, so you have to wonder what is actually going on.

Historically, all three parties have held a variety of views and, though I disagree with most of them, I respect that they reflected significant constituencies of views and looked on them as obstacles that would need to be overcome for victory in any independence vote. The Tories, to their credit, oppose more (any?) power to Scotland and have been consistent in this. Lib-Dems consistently argued for a federal state and Labour, after decades of welshing on Kier Hardie’s original promise, did come good with devolution under the late (and I say with all respect lamented) Donald Dewar.

These last two parties even went so far as to form the Constitutional Convention and the first MSPs of both parties signed the “Claim of Right” that asserted the principle to which the SNP also subscribes—that, unlike England neither the monarch nor the parliament but only the people of Scotland are sovereign.

Many in the Labour party had made positive contributions to the Calman proposals to extend powers for Scotland and some went so far as to agree with many Lib-Dems that the proper solution was ‘devo max’ under which Scotland would raise all its taxes and leave only defence, foreign policy and the like to the British state.

So it was with some surprise and disappointment that this year the debate got underway by all three parties ringing down a unified curtain to try to define the terms of any referendum the SNP might try to hold. Michael Moore, backed by ex-MSP (and Claim signatory) Jim (now Lord) Wallace both said Scotland had no right to hold any such thing but, if they did, it must be soon and with a straight yes/no question. In London, Cameron Clegg & Milliband and in Edinburgh, Davidson, Rennie and Lamont almost fell over themselves backing this position. The variety of positions once seen disappeared.

Every spokesperson on the subject from those quarters, be it Jim Murphy, Douglas Alexander or George Osborne, sang from identical song sheets—that an answer must be found soon because of uncertainty and that the choice could not be complicated. Just last week Jim Murphy said “people want clarity now”. Yet, as recently as October, he was demanding that Salmond define ‘devo max’. Douglas Alexander was reported as “heading in the same direction”. Yet both Calman and Devo Max have all but disappeared from any opposition statement.

Which is a puzzle that makes me wonder who—if anyone—the opposition parties can be talking to. Because what we are seeing is a spread across the five basic options:

1. Revert to pre-devolution. (<5%) Easily the least popular option, there are enough people with rose-tinted memories of Britain’s glory days where the SP doesn’t belong
2. Status Quo. (15%) Held onto with some principle by mainly Labour folk, there seems to be a feeling that Labour’s creation of the SP shouldn’t be tinkered with.
3. Calman/Augmented Scotland Bill. (10%) The Commission took submissions across Scotland and the findings are the basis of a modified bill now before the UK parliament. Including many ‘tweaks’ to current responsibilities, this is a significant departure from the status quo simply because revenue would be raised
4. Devo Max (16%) Mostly embraced (until recently) by Lib-Dems, this seems to have grown in popularity under its other moniker of “Indy Lite”. There is no definitive interpretation that I can find, but it would be similar to a federal state, where Scotland would raise all its own taxes and provide all its own services, except for things like defence and foreign policy, for which it would pay London a fee.
5. Independence (34%) This would mean Scotland becoming like any other EU member state, including its own armed forces, foreign policy and membership of international bodies. In the option being promoted by the SNP, there would be as close a social union with England as both were comfortable with. Scotland would keep both the monarchy and the pound until we decided otherwise.

What concerns me is that our statistics on these options seem broadly reflected in national polls. Though the numbers vary, something less than a third like what we have at present and more than a third support. But all three opposition parties are suddenly insisting a black/white choice between those two must be the only option.  The Tories at least show consistency in stuffing unpalatable choices down Scots throats (as witnessed by Cameron’s clumsy intervention a week ago), But both other parties once enjoyed a better democratic record.

But when Murphy, supported by Lamont, ignores all the work on Calman and all Labour MPs/MSPs fall silent, for whom does he speak? The people of Scotland or some tactical plan to scupper the distressingly successful SNP? When Rennie, backed by  Wallace, says “devo max is a second class option” and swings his party into lock-step with Tories and Labour, what price their long tradition of seeking a federal Britain?

Most tellingly, the original Labour and Lib-Dem MSPs in the first parliament of 1999, along with many from ‘civic Scotland’, all signed the Claim of Right and therefore agree with us that “the people of Scotland are sovereign”. If they believe that, why dismiss the third of Scots who appear to want to give Scotland more power than it has now but want to stop short of full independence?

Having had a fairly stiff diet of politics this week, I had hoped to give readers a break and inject something lighter by way of a blog. (For those in desperate need of that, may I recommend Tom Harris’ dicing with the boundaries of taste in his Downfall rip-off on YouTube as an alternative?).

But along comes Johann Lamont sounding off in Hootsmon on Holyday and I just have to deconstruct what she is trying to do. I confess I was disappointed, if unsurprised, when Johann won the leadership and, despite being resolutely non-Labour myself, felt that the outcome of their leadership election was important to Scotland.

Being a parishoner of the former leader since 2007 and done my best to put him out of a job last May, my take on Iain Gray was that he was a decent guy out of his depth and whose coaching to take on Eck in the chamber had taken him far from where his soul was comfortable. Johann is much more from the doughty, salt-of-the-earth West-Central school of Labour politics and, as such, is as qualified as any other leader has been for the post. If this were 2002, she might well have done as well as Jack managed.

Johann’s approach in the article is to accuse the SNP of defining devolution as a waypoint on the road to independence, whereas she argues that it constitutes a valid end-point in itself. as she puts it: “It is wrong to conflate devolution with independence, and the kind of debate that would result would not be worthy of Scotland.” In the first part, I am in the unusual position of agreeing with her, but part company in the second.

These are, as the Chinese curse would have it, interesting times. It appears Johann (and most of her unionist allies, if not her own party) have decided this is not time for complex of interesting situations and jointly defined any choice to be laid before the people of Scotland as, of necessity, a simple “yes/no” and that to be done immediately.

A Torygraph poll from ICM, also out today has the Scots running 40% to 43% in such a yes/no tussle and, almost more interestingly, the English running 43% to 32% on the same question. When posed the three-alternative question, 37% of Scots go for the status quo, while 26% each go for ‘devo-max’ or independence. I may not be happy with those last stats but the circle I cannot square with Johann’s position is that, with such an even 3-way split, why she believes a yes/no can be the proper solution.

That is, unless I start thinking the way that Labour seems to have narrowed its thought over the last decade when the SNP has been growing in strength. That is: “How do I scupper the Nats?” Having suffered eight years at the hands of an arrogant Labour administration in my council, followed by five years with them in opposition where the rump has behaved in a surly and resentful manner that would put a grounded 14-year-old to shame, I have seen all manifestations of this tough process. Pretty, it ain’t.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me on this but all I see in Johann’s position is a tactical position that she believes is best placed to derail the Nats’ ambition. What the people might want appears to concern her rather less. Now, nationalist though I am, it is perfectly understandable to me that someone who sincerely believes in the union (as I accept Johann and many others do) would fight tooth and nail against our best effort. Once, as she believes, that the independence fox has been shot with a “no”:

“Then we can have a clear and calm debate on which powers work more effectively for the people of Scotland when they are shared with our neighbours and what new powers we need to exercise at Holyrood and in our communities to make Scotland all it can be.”

It is hard for me to think that Johann does not understand the principles of debate—nor the role into which she has been thrust. Based on Labour’s track record to date, a yes/no referendum held within the year would be dominated by the SNP and countered by a rather fragmented union argument that would be suicidally negative—all about “tearing out” and “severing ties” and “job losses at Rosyth” and “border posts at Berwick” because there would be nothing positive on the table for her, her party or any other unionists to argue for.

So, after a year of dreary barrages that resulted in a thoroughly turned-off electorate saying “no”, those same parties are then to switch into sweetness and light mode to outline the joys and/or extra powers under devolution  so that “the current devolved settlement to be renewed, refreshed and deepened”, as she wants? This seems flawed thinking, for three major reasons.

1. Someone must lead the unionist side. For my money, someone of the stature (on both sides of the border) of Alastair Darling is necessary. If such a person were not found then the mantle clearly falls to Johann, who has the thick edge of experience over the other new unionist party leaders. But with that, comes the need to make the real case for the union (the ‘positive vision’ she has talked about but I’ve yet to see evidence of).
2. She will need to deploy the union cavalry. Apart from reigning in the worst of the nat-bashers (which includes Sarwar because he relishes it too much), she’ll need to wipe that sour look off Margaret Curran’s face that appears every time ‘co-operation’ gets mentioned, agree a joint position with Davidson/Rennie that their troops will thole, get serious contributors like Murphy, Harris or Alexander in harness and, mobilise civic spokespeople with no perceptible party baggage.
3. Most of all, she needs to greatly expand and consistently articulate her ‘story’. That means getting positively messianic religion about what devo-now/Calman/max can do for us all. And if she doesn’t out-Eck Eck (no simple task) with this, her career as leader may not outlast the short referendum campaign she’s so desperate to have.

Perhaps, most importantly, she needs to review her own biases in order to best reach the goals she seeks. When she says “The SNP does not want to talk about the principles and practicalities of separation in this debate”, it is demonstrably untrue. Worse, it exhibits the kind of tribal pre-judgement that has cost Labour so dear. Members may be forgiven for nursing such a grudge but a leader cannot afford to let any such subjective bias cloud understanding their opponent.

Not if they want to win.

Look up the Treaty of Union and/or search for it on the web and its text is not easy to find. You’d think that something as binding and permanent as that is supposed to be would have a hallowed, prominent place. It is in our National Archives (as the American Constitution is in theirs) but there the resemblance stops.

Whereas the American Constitution is full of high-sounding principles (“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility…”) the Treaty of Union (actually two treaties—one for each country) is, by comparison, an embarrassingly pedestrian, not to say tawdry affair. (Oliver Cromwell actually enacted a pretty serviceable Treaty of Union a half century earlier but the restoration put paid to that and the clarity it might have brought.)

First of all, far from being a hallowed document that enshrined the loftier principles by which the two countries were wedded together, the Treay has been butchered by parliament down the years. Articles V, VIII to XVII, XXII and XXIII were all removed by the UK Public General Act 1906 in which a lot of loose ends like the March Dykes Act, the Lawburrows Act and other lumps of obscure legislation were either ditched or dragged into what was (at the time) modernity.

Of the remaining articles, the most odious is Article II which makes clear that “all Papists and persons marrying Papists shall be excluded from and for ever incapable to inherit possess or enjoy the Imperial Crown of Great Britain”. The remaining articles are replete with a combination of hedging in of vested interests (Article XIX protecting how the Court of Session and the College of Justice are appointed) and of Scots merchants finally getting their mitts on the lucrative English colonies (Articles IV, VI and VII ensuring freedom of trade, equal customs duties and taxation, respectively).

Article XXI preserves the rights and privileges of Scottish Burghs and XXV does the same for the Presbyterian Church (although the Scots had to write in that last bit and haggle over its inclusion). And, most interesting of all Article XX states (in full) “That all heritable Offices, Superiorities, heritable Jurisdictions, Offices for life and Jurisdictions for life be reserved to the Owners thereof as Rights of Property in the same manner as they are now enjoyed by the Laws of Scotland notwithstanding of this Treaty”.

Now, I am no lawyer (Scots or otherwise) but that last seems to enshrine rights that the Scots already have. In that, I would include the tenet enshrined in the Declaration of Arbroath: that the people of Scotland are sovereign. Nowhere in the Treaty can I find any evidence of such rights being taken away and this article would seem to confirm that.

Also nowhere in the Treaty is any article that extends the existing powers of the English parliament to Scotland. Not having any recognisable constitution, what is and is not valid in England is a bit of a punt: unlike the Scots, their legal system rests on precedence so, good luck if you can’t find one. As a kind of catch-all to handle this, the English parliament declared itself sovereign. But I, for one, do not see that extends north of the border, especially where it might conflict with the will of the people of Scotland.

Since that same people of Scotland gave a clear majority to the SNP last May and since all unionist parties accept that clear democratic mandate, it would seem that the SNP are well within their rights to put a referendum to the people of Scotland not just as to whether they wish to remain within the UK but about anything they damn well please. And there IS no such thing as a “legally binding” referendum anywhere in Britain. Just like Westminster can always make new laws over-ruling a decision in England so the Scottish people could at any time over-rule a decision made there.

Just because Scots MPs have served in Westminster does not mean that Westminster can apply its English privileges outside of the country in whose laws those privileges were originally couched. In part because the Treaty of Union was handled like a cheap bill of sale for the benefit of merchants and vested interests on both sides of the border, it is almost incapable of withstanding close scrutiny. Had this been the US, clever lawyers would have shredded it into useless chaff centuries ago.

And so, with nothing but this Swiss Cheese Treaty to build on, I wish the unionist parties well in finding sold ground on which to found their arguments. Deference and obfuscating tradition may have allowed Westminster to have its own way for most of those 300 years. But under any kind of examination, the major holes in the unionist position—no constitution to speak of, a Treaty not fit for purpose and a convention of arrogance that has not—until now—ever been challenged, become fuzzy liabilities that undermine their cleverest argument.

Looking back, people will say the Treaty of Union was dead long before now. It just took the Scottish people, exercising a right they never lost, to choose their destiny. And, unlike many historic documents, one as tawdry and hollow as this one will not be long remembered. Or, the English might display it in their National Archives, along with verse 3 of their National Anthem—you know, the one that sings about “rebellious Scots to crush”.

I find it just hilarious how unionists of all stripes are falling over themselves to demand an independence referendum the day before yesterday when—until six months ago—they did all they could to block the possibility of any such thing. Most claim that there is no reason to delay, in fact delay is causing uncertainty and that;s damaging business and investment. The fact that a record investment in North Sea oil for 2012 has just been announced shows which side is closer to the truth.

The time between now and Autumn 2014 must be properly taken advantage of if we Scots are to have the scale of debate that the seriousness of an independence choice deserves. The calls for much clearer definition of what it is we would voting for/against are actually reasonable. Ask even SNP members and you will not necessarily get a coherent picture of what an independent Scotland would look like. Over next few months, this blog will try to address these key questions, starting with probably the most fundamental questions of all:

What kind of country do we want Scotland to be?

We need to do this right—ready, aim, fire takes time but that is the way to hit targets. Though we will not all share the same ambitions, there will need to be cultural coherence so we all feel at home: little is gained from anyone feeling foreign in their own or their chosen country. Everyone wants a country that is prosperous and peaceful, that can sustain its industries and enjoy a high quality of life indefinitely. But those are goals most countries share; what would be so special about Scotland?

Firstly, it would surely further develop its sense of Scottish identity. At the height of our partnership in the UK, this was at a low ebb, with Harry Lauder parodies and a chip-on-the-shoulder sense of inferiority. But Glasgow’s savage, devastating humour found wider expression in Billy Connolly; playwrights and poets, actors and dancers followed. By the 1990’s we were laughing at ourselves in Para Handy or Rab C. Nesbitt—a huge cultural renaissance was rolling that is with us to this day. From defining ourselves as not English or (worse) English side-kicks, the Scots have lost that chip and come of age.

Secondly, our English bête-noire has mellowed. The see-you-Jimmy pugnaciousness through which the English were seen as patronising colonials has mellowed to the point that a close social union with our now-friendly neighbours is seen as both natural and desirable. Whereas once Scots ‘patriots’ might have jumped down the throat of any English using ‘England’ and ‘Britain’ as interchangeable we are shifting to treating them with the same good-humoured tolerance extended to Americans who make the same mistake—as we would to a granny who is forever misplacing her glasses.

This profound development towards our southern neighbours derives from the Scots—always the junior partner in the Union—realising, as the Norwegians or Dutch have done for decades, that they were always just a small corner of the world. Arrogance or hubris or talking louder so the foreigner can better understand never took hold in Scotland as a method of cultural outreach; a more modest approach came naturally. When you’ve run a fifth of the globe as you own feifdom, as the English have, it’s hard to be humble.

So the international outlook of Scotland would be very different from that which Britain has displayed even after the empire was dusty memories. For a start, while there might be global friendships (Canada, New Zealand, Australia, US) there would be no global ambition beyond selling quality products (whisky, financial services, produce, energy equipment) and attracting tourists. The defense posture would, therefore be defensive.

While much attention would be paid to the British social union with our good friends the  English, Welsh and Irish, new bonds to the Nordic Union countries will be forged. Similarity with Norway would extend beyond interests in oil, energy and fish to social programmes, specialist ship technology, foreign aid programmes and international peacekeeping under UN leadership. And, by becoming an active member of the Nordic Union, we Scots would have access to one of the richest international clubs in the world and re-forge trans-North-Sea ties that 300 years of fixation on London had lost us.

By staying a member of the EU, the whole relationship with that body would change. No longer the recalcitrant semi-member that Britain has played under English leadership, Scotland’s oil-fuelled economy and fish-rich seas would make them a valued member and  its fifteen members (comparable to Sweden or Austria) would soon be pulling more than its weight by leading groups of smaller countries with a common interest to balance even those of France and Germany. By being proactive, Scotland would be influential with friends to an extent greater than the rump UK with its 75 members has ever been.

Perhaps most importantly, Scotland could forge a unique role for itself in the world. Much funnier and full of character than the stodgy Scandinavians, better known than any other country its size through golf, its 20m+ diaspora, English-speaking friend of the US, historic friend of the Russians, former partner in the British empire with links to the Commonwealth, a place of beauty and energy riches, if Singapore can be a recognised trend-setting world leader, which price the Scots could do better?

It’s up to us: we could be rich Norway with a wider set of friends and a better sense of humour. We could be prosperous Austria, doing business all over Eastern Europe but with a magnificent coast to match our magnificent mountains. We could be easy-living Portugal, proud of empire-building history and content to compete amicably with its much-larger neighbour on the same land mass. Or—best of all—we could make some new contribution to civilisation that puts our 2,000-year-history-so-far in the shade.

It’s a future of hope, of ambition and (if we play this right) better relations with England than we have ever had.