The choke chain tightens

Tory peer Alister Jack asks UK Government to cut Holyrood’s powers

Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? But we should not lightly dismiss Alister Jack’s call for the choke chain of devolution to be tightened. Given his status, it is possible and even likely that he is flying a kite for proposals already being considered by the British government. Jack may well be testing public reaction at the behest of his political masters.

Here’s how this works. Imagine three newspaper headlines a few days apart.

MINISTER CONSIDERING 5,000 JOB CUTS!

MINISTER ANNOUNCES 3,000 JOB CUTS!

MINISTER SAVES 2,000 JOBS!

Alister Jack is simply doing his job. That job entails ensuring that Scotland continues to be held in Britannia’s jealous, avaricious grasp. Alister Jack is not the problem. The problem is that Scotland lacks political leaders who will do what is required to thwart Alister Jack and his ilk. It is simply not possible to imagine John Swinney doing anything more than donning his outraged mask and protesting in his best headmaster’s voice and wearing his outraged mask. He will sound like he’s laying down the law. In fact, he’ll be laying down a rug to kneel on as he buckles.

We have seen it so often. Those not blinkered by partisan devotion see it clearly. What imposition of the British state has the SNP Scottish Government ever successfully opposed? Offhand, I can’t think of a single thing. Certainly nothing of any great significance. More common is the token protest followed by surrender. I used to say that when he was leader of the SNP group at Westminster, Ian Blackford had three speeches. The one with the dire warning about what the British government is about to do before they do it. The one loudly objecting to what the British government is doing while it’s doing it. And the one angrily protesting against what the British government has done after it has done it. John Swinney seems to be cut from the same cloth. He follows the same pattern.

John Swinney cannot take a meaningful stand against the British state because he has accepted the supremacy of Westminster. By adhering tenaciously to the Section 30 process, he is acceding to the alien doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. To him and the rest of the self-serving clique at the top of the former ‘party of independence’, the sovereignty of Scotland’s people is merely a slogan. Much like the word ‘independence’, the principle of popular sovereignty is held aloft when the SNP are chasing votes and feel the need to convince the gullible that they are still the ‘party of independence’. Day on day, more people are waking up to the deception.

Devolution has been weaponised against the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. Initially thought of by the British as a sop which would kill the independence movement ‘stone dead’, devolution came to be regarded as a way of undermining the democratic institutions and nation-state infrastructure that had begun to develop. Principal among these being the Scottish Parliament.

I place this change at 2007 and the first pro-independence Scottish Government. It was at this point that the British started to realise that their devolution experiment had gone terribly wrong. It didn’t take long for some bright spark to see the potential of devolution as a means of leading or forcing the Scottish Government into adopting unpopular policies and thus eroding the SNP’s popularity. It was but a short step from there to the thought that by partial and piecemeal devolution of powers in areas such as taxation and welfare, all the while maintaining a grip on the ultimate controlling mechanisms of budget and procurement, expectations could be raised while the capacity to meet those expectations was diminished.

Initially, the Scottish Government under Alex Salmond managed to weather this storm and actually increase the popularity of the SNP. Salmond achieved this by applying a doctrine of principled pragmatism. His government would do whatever was necessary, unfettered by ideology or tradition, always mindful of red lines never to be crossed. This, along with having no ideological limitations, meant the SNP minority government could be more responsive to the electorate. It was a good time, even if I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a golden age.

People liked the way the SNP governed back then. And, in part at least, this led to the landslide of 2011. It also reinforced the British state’s determination to weaponise devolution.

While the British came to think of devolution as a weapon to be deployed against the independence movement, within the SNP it began to be thought of as a precursor to independence. That notion continues to dominate the SNP leadership. Swinney has been quite candid about the fact that he sees making devolution work better as the way to ‘win’ independence. Which is a bit like supposing the best way to win a sword fight is to sharpen your opponent’s sword.

Devolution is believed by the SNP leadership to be a way of gaining ever greater powers until eventually it becomes independence. In reality, devolution is more sensibly regarded as a means of withholding powers that rightfully would be vested in a democratically elected national parliament. Devolution cannot become independence. It is not some kind of ‘independence lite’ which can metamorphose into independence by way of an incremental process. Independence is not a continuation of devolution. They are two entirely separate and very different things. Independence is the absence of devolution. For independence to be restored, devolution must end. So long as there is devolution, there is no independence.

What, then, do we make of a First Minister who wants to embed and entrench devolution? A First Minister whose ambition is to polish the chains of devolution and make them more comfortable to bear. At the very least, we must conclude that this is a First Minister with neither the wit nor the will to restore Scotland’s independence.

It is best to think of the Scottish Parliament as the real parliament of Scotland that was taken from us by devious means 320 years ago and returned to us in 1999 stripped of essential powers. Devolution does not provide the means and opportunity to acquire those essential powers—in particular, powers relating to the constitution. Devolution is the British state’s way of continuing to withhold those powers while encouraging the pretence of democracy.

Alister Jack wants the British government to reserve more powers. There is nothing to stop them doing so. The whole point of the Union is to give England-as-Britain an overwhelming advantage over Scotland in perpetuity. The grotesque assymetry of the Union is an affront to democracy. Scotland cannot prosper under such conditions. Indeed, Unionists are at pains to persuade us that Scotland has not prospered under the Union. People like Alister Jack don’t want Scotland to prosper. They want that prosperity for themselves and the nation-state of London—and then themselves.

There is no way we can simply walk to independence along the path of devolution. We will first have to strike off the chains of devolution. John Swinney is not the man for that job.