The awfiest clatter!

Isn’t it great to see our First Minister and the new British Prime Minister engaged in productive dialogue? See how hard John Swinney is working for Scotland’s cause. Look at how much more open to discussing the constitutional issue Andy Burnham is compared to his predecessors. Can’t you just feel the fresh air blowing through our politics as the mixed metaphor of new broom Burnham gets down to work on his project to renew British democracy?

I could go on in this sarcastic vein for hours. But the joke’s already wearing thin. I am not being sarcastic at all when I say that at least Burnham is honest. In a very limited sense, of course. He is honest about the fact that he won’t discuss the constitutional issue. John Swinney’s pretence that discussions on independence are under way is totally dishonest. It’s a lie intended to postpone the moment when he is forced to admit that there is no ‘Big Secret Plan’.

How credible is it that Swinney can still imagine a Section 30 order will be forthcoming? He must know that it’s not going to happen. How stupid would he have to be to suppose Burnham is going to be bounced into substantive talks on a new referendum by the odd headline in The National?

Am I the only one who gets the impression John Swinney enjoys being rebuffed? He appears to relish the opportunity to play the offended party. He gets to indulge in a bit of performative righteous indignation. And, of course, every snub by successive British Prime Ministers allows him to claim that it is the UK government which is blocking the way to a new referendum.

What about that guaranteed referendum, John? How’s that going? When can we expect you to announce the date?

I think it’s the casualness of the dishonesty that really offends me. Can it possibly be that Swinney actually thinks he’s being cleverly manipulative? Does he suppose people don’t notice? How can he be so oblivious to how all this looks from outside the leadership bubble.

Of course, he is fooling far more people than our conceit of ourselves as a politically aware nation would allow. But there is always a tipping point. A point at which there is the appearance of sudden, dramatic change which is, in fact, a particular moment in a process that has been happening, unnoticed, in the background for a long time. One day — and I suspect it will be sooner rather than later — John Swinney will wake one morning to find that he is massively out of favour with the Scottish public.

The moment Swinney starts to feel the chill may be when the media do their 100-day appraisal of the SNP administration’s performance. By my calculation, that is about five weeks away. Here’s a wee reminder of what he promised within that first hundred days.

So I can confirm today that on the first sitting day after the appointment of the new government, we will bring forward a vote of the Scottish Parliament to approve the development of a Section 30 to give Scotland the power to hold an independence referendum.

The parliament chosen by the people of Scotland will have the chance to represent the democratic will of the people of Scotland.

Within the first hundred days, we will publish the draft Referendum Bill.

We propose that the question, as in 2014, is: ‘Should Scotland be an independent country? Yes or No.’

We had the vote in the Scottish Parliament. But it was not a vote to “approve the development of a Section 30 [order]”. Which, to my mind at least, implies that the Scottish Government will be drafting the Section 30 order. What we got was just a vote to ask the British Prime Minister to provide a Section 30 order. How much difference this makes is debatable. But I get the distinct impression that not a great deal of thought went into the promises Swinney made. You can read the other promises he made here.

Will we see that draft Referendum Bill before the hundred days are up? What would be the point of it? Supposing Swinney does deliver that draft Bill, doing so will be just as performative as the vote on begging for a Section 30 order.

That vote was certainly performative. But that is not to say it was without effect or consequences. What it means is that the Section 30 process has now been validated by the Scottish Parliament rather than just by the First Minister. That validation could be crucial if/when the British state is required to show that there is an existing democratic route to an independence referendum. This could be the rock that sinks the UN initiative to have Scotland listed as a non-self-governing territory.

This is why the Manifesto for Independence starts with repudiation of the Section 30 process. In the first instance, the justification for having the Scottish Parliament assert legislative competence in matters relating to the constitution is the fact that this is the only way the people of Scotland can exercise our right of self-determination. That justification is lost if the British can claim that there is already provision for this.

The Scottish Parliament has now validated the Section 30 process as providing a route to a proper constitutional referendum. But the referendum we get by way of the Section 30 process meets none of the criteria for a proper constitutional referendum. The British can now say this referendum has been endorsed by the Scottish Parliament. Swinney has roped the Scottish Parliament in on his own folly.

The day is coming when Swinney will topple from his pedestal with the awfiest clatter.