What is the constitutional question?

Let me start by saying that the constitutional question is not ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’. Not the least of the problems facing the independence movement is the widespread failure to understand that independence is not the immediate issue. Which is not to say that restoring Scotland’s independence is not important or urgent. It is simply to point out that while restoring independence may be the ultimate goal, the proximate issue is self-determination and the exercise thereof.

It makes no sense whatever to talk of independence before we have sorted out the matter of how and when we exercise our right of self-determination. Independence ensues from the exercise of our right of self-determination. It should be obvious that the question of access to the full and proper exercise of our right of self-determination must take precedence over talk of independence. To talk of restoring independence at this point is to proceed as if the question of independence has already been asked and answered. It is foolish. Yet that is precisely what all the nominally pro-independence parties do and what almost all pro-independence activists do.

Politicians from the nominally pro-independence parties all maintain that a vote for them is a vote for independence. But it cannot be. Because none of them can deliver independence. Independence can only be restored as the consequence of a vote in a proper constitutional referendum. Only thus may the will of the people be determined in a way that is clear and conclusive. The immediate task, therefore, is to secure access to the opportunity for the people of Scotland to vote in a true constitutional referendum. Yet none of the nominally pro-independence parties are proposing a plan to do this. Instead, they continue to talk as if a vote for them is a vote for independence.

Are they lying? Technically, perhaps not. It depends on whether they know that what they are saying is not true. Some may be genuinely stupid enough to imagine a vote for them is as good as a vote in a true constitutional referendum. Some may have repeated the mantra that a vote for them is a vote for independence so often that they have come to believe their own electioneering spiel. Many will not have given the matter any thought beyond recognising that using the word ‘independence’ a lot seems to be a vote-winner.

Pro-independence activists may be forgiven for failing to realise that independence is not the issue, to the extent that they are merely taking a lead from shallow-thinking politicians offering simplistic analysis and simple fixes.

There’s a vicious cycle here. The politicians dumb-down issues because they consider voters too stupid to appreciate anything more nuanced than a Daily Express headline. The media take the dumbed-down issue and suck the last drop of nuance out of it as they try to make the material more titillating and/or editorially slanted. The public are at best ill-informed and at worst severely misinformed, justifying the politicians’ assumption that the public are stupid.

All concerned react adversely to anyone who attempts to break this vicious cycle by reintroducing a bit of nuance, as I am doing here. Politicians don’t like serious scrutiny of their electioneering. The media don’t like any questioning of their integrity. The public don’t like being told they’ve been duped. The landscape is littered with the bodies of shot messengers.

It is essential to get this message across. The opportunity to progress Scotland’s cause in May is being squandered because Scotland’s political caste is entirely focused on electoral success and the rewards of elected office. Voters, meanwhile, are being fooled by the conflating of partisan gain with progress on the constitutional issue.