By Philip Stephens

1 May 2019

When Scotland voted to maintain the union with England, the argument that separation would diminish both nations seemed compelling. Five years on, Nicola Sturgeon says Brexit has broken the bargain. Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National party is preparing for a possible second referendum by mid-2021. Ms Sturgeon may be a touch impatient. She is also essentially right.

Leaving the EU unpicks the logic of Scotland’s place in the UK. The independence vote in September 2014 saw 55 per cent support the union and 45 per cent opt for independence. The decision was clear, and yet still close enough to represent a reprieve rather than an unequivocal commitment to the status quo. The unspoken message was that the cloak of Britishness thrown over England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could not be taken for granted.

For a millisecond, the then prime minister David Cameron seemed to grasp the implications. Harking back to shared bonds of history and culture was not enough to counter the emotional pull of independence. Scotland was promised parity of esteem — a fresh political settlement to shift more decision-making from Westminster to the Edinburgh parliament.

The pledge was forgotten as soon as the votes were counted. Without so much as token consultation with the Scottish government, Mr Cameron marched ahead with his ruinous plan for a referendum on EU membership.

Brexit has stalled momentarily because of the paralysis in Whitehall and Westminster. Yet Britain has already been diminished by the decision to leave. The economy is weakened and British negotiators are habitually sidelined at international meetings.

Scots are paying the price of a reckless gamble to make it easier for Mr Cameron to handle the rising English nationalism in the Conservative party. Brexit was an English project. The prime minister scarcely cared that Scotland was more than content that a portion of the sovereignty it entrusted to Westminster was then pooled with Brussels. Some 62 per cent of Scots backed Remain in June 2016 versus 38 per cent for Leave.

Theresa May has been as blithely indifferent as her predecessor to Scotland’s legitimate interest in the shape of any Brexit settlement. The Edinburgh parliament, along with the Wales and Northern Ireland assemblies, was denied a voice in setting the negotiating framework with the EU27. The Scottish economy needs migrant workers. Mrs May decreed that an end to the free movement of workers was a red line.

The views of Scottish MPs at Westminster were brushed aside, while, until the bust-up over arrangements for the province’s border with the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland’s smaller Democratic Unionist party was courted assiduously. Mrs May had hoped the votes of the DUP would provide a majority for her Brexit deal in the House of Commons. The Scots could go hang. Mr Cameron’s reckless insouciance and Mrs May’s cold indifference provide reason enough for Scotland to think again. The game-changer, however, is that Brexit has forced on the Scots a choice they neither asked for nor wanted.

In 2014, voters backed an arrangement that at once preserved the advantages of being part of the UK and underwrote membership of the EU. To borrow a phrase, by holding on to its ties with the rest of the UK, Scotland could have its cake and eat it. 

Post-Brexit, Scotland has no option but to choose. Sticking with England means tearing itself out of Europe. Preserving a strong relationship with the rest of Europe demands that it leaves the UK. At the whim of the English Tory party, Scots have been told to surrender an identity. They can no longer be at once Scottish, British and European.

Psychologically as well as practically, it is easy to see why many of those who voted against independence in 2014 might now change their minds. Leaving the EU will accentuate the asymmetry of the relationship with England. The Scots face the prospect of being shackled to a partner that has turned at once rightward and inwards. The gulf between the deeply ingrained centrism of Scotland’s political culture and that of an England lurching to the right has widened into a chasm. Scotland wants open borders at a time when English nationalists are slamming them shut. None of this is to say that Scotland is ready for an immediate leap to independence. There are hard economic questions still to be answered, not least about whether an independent Scotland would have its own currency. A fair swath of the SNP’s traditional supporters share the narrow nationalist perspective that has now taken over the Tory party. They voted for Brexit.

Faced with the upheaval of leaving the EU, another group may hesitate to embrace the inevitable uncertainties that would flow from a constitutional rupture with England. Ms Sturgeon’s timetable may therefore be too ambitious — 2021 looks too soon.

That said, it is hard to imagine that five or so years from now a majority of Scots will see any purpose in the relationship. Small states flourish in the EU — witness the Republic of Ireland, which has junked the anti-British grievances and resentments that once defined its worldview. The break-up of the UK union would be England’s great loss. But how to persuade Scotland that it still has something to gain from staying?

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New constitutional approaches are needed to better represent regional areas

22 April 2019

Murdo Fraser is not the first politician to propose reforming the House of Lords in an attempt to make it more representative of a changing union. The MSP, who is also the Conservative Party’s finance spokesman at Holyrood, suggests replacing the present unwieldy and sometimes sclerotic body with a regionally elected senate.

In this he is echoing proposals put forward by Lord Steel who has argued that there is a case for a body that reflects the way that devolution has changed Britain over the past 20 years. He wants to see a combination of elected and appointed members who would better reflect the regional areas of the UK.

Mr Fraser believes that the transfer of extensive new powers to the Scottish parliament has meant that Britain is becoming a “quasi-federal” state, and unless parliament changes to reflect that, moves towards independence will gather pace. “A failure to change may make the pressures pushing our four nations apart irresistible,” he writes.

There is much to be said for this argument but it must also be considered in the light of reforms needed at Holyrood. It may be that a reformed House of Lords should go hand in hand with ideas for a revising chamber at the Scottish parliament, where the role of its committees, both as revising bodies and independent challengers to the power of the administration, has manifestly failed.

The committees have all too often elected conveners who simply represent the government’s views, and the serious review of legislation does not take place with the scrutiny and transparency that the role demands.

In February Jack McConnell, the former first minister, told The Times that if the volume of legislation increased again after Brexit there might be a case for “building something into the system that provides more challenge to the Scottish government”.

He said that he had never been convinced by arguments for an elected second chamber, but that there might be a case for introducing a civic assembly of some kind: a representative, grassroots-based consultative body that parliament would be forced to include in the process before final decision-making on legislation. It could also be involved in budgets, he suggested. Mr Fraser’s approach is dictated less by the need for more revision, more as a means of reflecting an ever-changing union, but his solution may prompt wider consideration.

A new senate would represent different parts of the UK and would replace the Lords in providing oversight of legislation. It would, he said, fulfil the role both of a revising chamber and as a counterweight to the House of Commons, and would, in his words “protect the interests of the nations and regions furthest from London”.

His arguments appear to be gaining traction within the UK party, certainly among Tory thinkers who concede that a bloated House of Lords is at odds with modern democracy. There are at present 782 sitting members, making it the world’s second largest legislature after China’s National People’s Congress.

Meanwhile, the case for reforms north of the border are also gaining ground. When and if the Brexit argument is resolved, the case for new constitutional approaches should be considered as a matter of urgency. It is not only the House of Lords that badly needs reform.

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