Referendums express disagreements - they don't create them

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The UK’s PM has seemingly managed both to acknowledge that the UK Government has a duty under international law to call an Irish unity referendum under certain circumstances as part of the Good Friday Agreement, and at the same time to rule it out. Maybe he’s practicing political contortionism in readiness for his upcoming meeting with Trump, but as a way of trying to please everyone whilst actually pleasing no-one, it’s almost a master class.

The circumstances under which a referendum becomes unavoidable are vague, of course: the duty on the Secretary of State to hold a border poll if it appears likely a majority would vote for Irish unification is hardly clear cut, and what ‘appears likely’ to one person can appear very unlikely to another, particularly if (s)he chooses to ape Nelson and hold the telescope to a closed eye. Given the history and complexities of Irish politics, perhaps the circumstances could never be other than vague, and the dangers implicit in a narrow majority either way are obvious.

But it was the rationale for taking the option off the table which caught my eye. Referendums, according to Burnham, are inherently divisive, and he uses those on Brexit and Scottish independence as evidence to support the argument. It is a simplistic analysis, though. A referendum might crystalise and put arithmetical numbers to a divergence of opinion, but they don’t make that divergence appear in the first place. After all, if there’s no pre-existing difference of opinion, there’s nothing on which to vote. As a corollary, avoiding holding a vote doesn’t make the difference of opinion go away. Whether the issue is Brexit, Scottish independence, or Irish unity, there are strong and deeply-held opinions on both sides. Whether a referendum is the best way of determining a majority view or establishing the ‘settled will’ of a population is a valid issue for debate, as are the timing and circumstances of any vote. But denying a population any democratic means of deciding between two views, and insisting instead on adherence to the status quo (which is what Burnham’s appeal to concentrate on cost of living issues amounts to) carries its own dangers.

On constitutional matters (much like on economic matters), Burnham – despite all his rhetoric about change – seems deeply committed to a belief that the status quo is the natural and inevitable order of things. It’s a fantasy; in the real world, the long reach of history shows how human-made boundaries and institutions are constantly changing and evolving. Those who attempt to stand against the tide of history eventually get swept away by it.

Rigging the rules

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Arch-Brexiteer and current Northern Ireland Secretary, Steve Baker, has argued this week that there probably should have been a requirement for a ‘super majority’ in the Brexit referendum, despite acknowledging that his side would have lost on that basis. He said, “… the reason I say that is if we’d had to have 60%, everybody would have abided by the result. If it had been a 60-40 result, it’s inconceivable to me that we would have had all of the political difficulty which followed…”. If there had been a 60-40 majority, one way or the other, it’s just possible that he might be right – acceptance of the result might well have been more forthcoming. I’m not entirely convinced, though; people who hold a strong view about the ‘right’ way forward – people like Baker, in fact – don’t change their minds just because they have failed to convince a sufficient majority at a point in time.

The bigger problem with a requirement for a supermajority is not what happens when the vote exceeds 60-40, it’s what happens when it does not. If, say 59% had voted for Brexit and 41% against, meaning that the proposition was ‘defeated’, is there not just the tiniest possibility that the 59% would argue something along the lines of “we wuz robbed”? Once it is known, through a public vote, that 59% of the electorate support a particular proposition, stuffing the genie back into the bottle is never going to be easy. There are those who argue that some sort of super majority should be required – whether in a public vote or a vote in a parliament – for a change to the constitution. There is obviously an argument based on ‘stability’ to protect against over-frequent changes, or swings back and fore over a period, although whether that's necessarily a bad thing is open to argument. It’s not easy to apply though in a state which has no formal constitution and where whether a proposition constitutes a change to the constitution or not is itself open to argument.

Perhaps most worrying of all is that he wants to apply the rule in relation to any future border poll in Ireland. His concerns about a decision based on 50%+1 are entirely valid; reunification based on such a slim majority would leave a large part (50%-1) of the population unhappy with the new status. It would obviously be better for the idea of reunification to achieve a much greater level of consensual support. And a rejection of reunification on the same basis would have a similar effect on the other part of the population. Again, it would obviously be better for the status quo to receive resounding support. But suggesting that a vote of 59-41 in favour of reunification amounts to a vote for continued partition seems very much more problematic to me. It highlights the big problem with the requirement for a super majority for change, which is that it gives the status quo, however that was arrived at and however much it is contested, an inbuilt advantage in any vote. Whilst it’s easy enough to see why supporters of the status quo would argue that to be a good thing, it’s not clear why anyone would consider it fair. Seeking to rig the rules in favour of the status quo doesn’t seem the most sensible approach given the historical background to Irish partition.

Is the Earth flat if the majority say so?

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For most of us, the idea that the Earth could be flat (to the extent that the idea enters the consciousness at all) is something of a joke, a subject for mockery. Yet, apparently, support for the idea is growing (particularly – of course – though not exclusively, in the US). It seems to be partly about religious fundamentalism – making literal interpretations of key bible passages – and partly about a distrust for ‘authority’ and a preference for conspiracy theories. Whilst physicists struggle with ways of countering the growth in support, it seems to me that there is a simple way we could either dismiss the idea or else embrace it enthusiastically: hold a referendum. No, I haven’t gone completely bonkers (or at least, I don’t think so); bear with me a moment.

Holding a referendum wouldn’t change the facts, of course. It would merely enable the government to behave as though the earth were indeed flat and pursue policies appropriate to that belief. It might not work out entirely brilliantly, but hey, the will of the people and all that. Conceptually, it doesn’t seem to me to be hugely different from holding a referendum to decide that erecting trade barriers with our neighbours is a better economic proposition than trading freely with them. But there’s another, more recent, parallel as well. Some Tory MPs have been calling for a referendum on net-zero policy. Sunak has ruled it out very firmly (which probably means that it will be in his manifesto for the next election). Taking a democratic decision not to work towards net zero wouldn’t change the fact that climate change is happening, but it would absolve the government from having to do anything about it, and enable it to pretend that it isn’t really happening. The will of the people is a powerful force, indeed.

Holding a referendum to decide whether something is or is not a fact is a silly idea, of course. But we’ve done it once already, so we can’t rule out it happening again. And the idea that one opinion is as valid as any other, and that opinions and facts have equal validity, is growing in strength – it increasingly underpins political debate, particularly on what many call ‘the right’. Of all the different ways in which one can imagine the human race destroying itself, blurring the boundary between opinion and fact and allowing the former to determine the latter may turn out to be the most insidious of all. Best start planning that trip to the wall of ice at the edge of the disk we mistakenly call Earth before it's too late.

Polishing the excreta

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Referendums don’t sit easily in the UK constitution. Unlike in some countries which have a formal written constitution, there is no formal definition of when and whether a referendum should be called, and no agreed criteria. The result is an ad hoc approach where politicians who believe that there is popular support for their position demand that the issue be put to the people in a simple yes/no vote, despite the fact that most such questions are far more complex than that. Sometimes they are proved right, sometimes they are proved wrong – opponents of devolution certainly believed that requiring a referendum was a not particularly cunning way of killing the proposals. And sometimes they promise a referendum because they think the promise will attract people to vote for them, with no real expectation that they will ever have to call one, let alone go on to lose it. David Cameron and his accidental Brexit is the most obvious case in point.

The Tories seem to be flirting with the Cameron approach again. There is no obvious legal or constitutional requirement to hold a referendum on membership of the European Convention on Human Rights. They just believe firstly that the sort of people who vote for them will be incensed about the lack of deportations to Rwanda, and secondly that an offer of a vote to abolish all connections to the ECHR will motivate their supporters to go out and vote. It is, of course, asking people to vote to abolish their own rights, but what better way to remove rights from citizens than to have those citizens themselves demanding it. It worked on freedom of movement, where many of those involved genuinely seem to have thought it was only other people’s freedom they were removing; there’s no obvious reason to believe that they can’t be fooled into voting against their own rights and freedoms a second time.

Like Brexit, it’s a sort of proxy vote, not really about the ostensible subject at all. The question they really want to ask is something along the lines of ‘do you agree that we should be as cruel and inhumane as possible in our treatment of refugees in particular, and foreigners in general?’, but even the most extreme Tories are neither brave nor honest enough to phrase it in those terms. Instead, they phrase it in terms of the sovereignty of UK courts, knowing that their target audience will understand that that’s just applying a veneer of polish to the turd of a policy, in order to try and make it look like a respectable position to hold. I’m not even convinced that Sunak and his pals actually care a jot about how many refugees come to the UK anyway; they care only about winning the votes of people who don’t like foreigners, and who believe that keeping foreigners out is more important than providing care to those who need it. I’d like to think that the good news is that, even if they do decide to include such a pledge in their manifesto, the chances of them being in a position to implement it are small. Trouble is, that’s what most people thought about Cameron and his Brexit referendum. And in the meantime, Labour are so afraid that their own potential voters share the hatred of foreigners that they can’t even point out the practical flaws, let alone the moral ones. As ever, those suffering most from the faux war between the UK’s two leading centre-right parties will be the weakest and most vulnerable.

Valuing outcomes over process

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One of the things I learned about running projects during my working life is that process is as important as outcome. And at the risk of being accused of a gross act of gender stereotyping, it also appeared to me that it was often (but not exclusively) men who fixated on outcomes, whilst women were often at least as interested in the process by which those outcomes were achieved. Success – at least in terms of carrying people with you – necessarily involves paying attention to both aspects. One of my great hopes for the Senedd (or Assembly as was) was always that achieving a gender balance might lead to a kinder form of politics in which the process of arriving at outcomes was given rather more importance than ever seemed to be the case in Westminster – that is to say that it would harness the best of both approaches. I haven’t been entirely disappointed, but then neither have things worked out quite as I would have hoped (especially, it has to be said, from the Conservative ranks).

At first sight, Rishi Sunak’s decision to use the Section 35 process to block the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform Act might well look like a clever move. After all, there are elements of the Act which leave some SNP MSPs – to say nothing of party members or voters – very unhappy, and if you’re going to choose a battlefield, one where the enemy is divided is better than one where he is united. It is, though, a classic example of confusing outcomes with process. And probably deliberately so. The problem doesn’t start and end with Sunak and the Tories either. Labour’s parliamentary opposition to devolving the right to Wales to review gender recognition rules here (despite the views of Labour MSPs), and what looks like implicit support for Sunak on this issue, seems to be based on similar considerations. It’s not at all clear whether, or to what extent, the problems over this particular legislation played a part in the announcement this week of the Scottish First Minister’s resignation, nor whether her successor will do what she said she was going to do and challenge the UK government’s decision in the courts. Given the divisions within the SNP on the substantive issue, it’s a tough call; but leaving the decision unchallenged serves only to emphasise the reality of devolution: real power remains in London.

A few days ago, Simon Jenkins wrote a column for the Guardian in which he argued that there has always been another route to independence, via the infamous ‘devo-max’ referred to by Gordon Brown and others at the time of the last independence referendum. I suspect that he’s entirely right in his suggestion that had that third option been on the ballot paper in 2014, it would have secured an easy majority over both independence and the status quo. That’s partly, at least, because ‘devo-max’ is – and always has been – an ill-defined proposition which means different things to different people. The likelihood that legislation passed by either the Tories or Labour in London would have matched the expectations raised by the term must surely be close to zero, meaning that it would have resolved nothing. We have, after all, seen what they did with the famous ‘Vow’, which was effectively gutted by the parties who signed up to it. But, even supposing that ‘devo-max’ legislation had been written and passed, both Labour and the Tories would certainly have inserted the equivalent of Section 35 somewhere; at the end of the day, whatever the extent of devolution, however the legislation is framed, power devolved will always mean power retained.

There is one, and only one, way of bringing about anything remotely resembling a federal UK, and that is to start from a position where each of the member countries is assumed to be independent and they then come together as equals to agree which powers (if any) are better pooled and shared. Voluntary pooling of sovereignty on the one hand, and the centre ‘allowing’ specified powers to be exercised for the time being by devolved legislatures on the other, are two completely different animals. It’s not a distinction which the main UK parties are capable of making; for them, achieving their desired outcome (maintenance of a unified state) will always trump considerations of process and buy-in.

Calculating a majority

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The proposal to require a majority of the whole electorate in any future independence referendum is just one example of the tendency for the Tories to announce a policy without thinking through the implications and the practicalities.

In terms of the politics of it, it is a fact that, had such a requirement been implemented for the referendum on leaving the EU, the UK would still be a member. And it’s noteworthy that the people now demanding a 50%+1 majority for Scottish independence are, in many cases, the same people who would be protesting bitterly had a simple majority of those voting not been considered enough on that occasion. That’s just politics, though; they can and will bluster their way through that one. The fact that the proposed rule can award a resounding ‘win’ to a minority of those voting is, equally, just politics; it doesn’t matter because it would be the ‘right’ side winning. Assuming a turnout of around 80% (and it will never be 100%, for a variety of reasons: some people forget to vote, some can’t be bothered, some are away, some are ill, and some even have the temerity to die before polling day), then if 49.9% of the electorate votes yes, only a maximum of 30.1% (allowing for spoiled or invalidated ballots) can vote no. The patent unfairness under which a split of 62:38 of those who vote is considered insufficiently enthusiastic to justify independence, whilst 29% of the electorate voting against is considered to be resounding support for the union is, again, just politics.

No, for a government whose majority is based on English votes, and which is prepared to impose its will on the Scots and face them down, using the full power of the absolute sovereignty of Westminster, none of these political problems matter, and the policy will appeal to the English nationalists on whose votes the Tory Party now depends. It’s more the practical issues of implementing it which it seems to me that they haven’t really thought about.

In the first place, the UK does not have a constitution, which means that the constitution can’t be amended to introduce the new rule. That in turn means that it can only be done by Act of Parliament, and in the arcane world of Westminster, no Act can ever bind any future government. At some future point, a more pragmatic and less dogmatic government, faced with a situation in which it becomes politically impossible to resist the demand for a new referendum could, and probably would, simply delete or amend the requirement. Without a written constitution, accepted by the population at large, loose rhetoric about making Scottish independence impossible, ever, by changing the rules is just that – loose rhetoric.

Secondly, what form would this proposed legislation take? It would be a curious act of parliament which said something along the lines of “if there’s ever going to be a referendum, which there isn’t because we won’t allow it, then the rules for considering a majority to be binding shall be as follows:…”.  Very Ruritanian. Passing a law to define the rules for a hypothetical future referendum is also seriously damaging to the hypotheticality of it.

There’s another problem with enacting such a law as well. I don’t doubt that there would be a clear parliamentary majority in favour of it – and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Labour and the Lib Dems piling in in support of the government, making the parliamentary majority a very healthy one. But at the last election, Scotland elected 48 SNP MPs out of 59 – a total of 81% - and current polling suggests that they may well do even better next time round. Whilst there’s no doubt about the legality of the outcome of the parliamentary vote, using an English majority to over-ride 81% or more of the duly-elected Scottish MPs doesn’t immediately strike me as the most brilliant way of winning Scottish hearts and minds. It plays, instead, to the narrative that Scottish wishes are being ignored – more likely to help the independentistas than the unionists.

And then there’s one other little complication, the one that they regularly forget about – Ireland. The question of a border poll and how the results should be interpreted is, as I understand it, set out in the Good Friday Agreement, and requires the Secretary of State to arrange a border poll “…if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the UK and form part of a united Ireland” (my emphasis). Whilst it’s hard to rule anything out from a Truss government, starting to unilaterally tinker with that international agreement is a matter of a different order of magnitude. That leaves them imposing one rule for Scotland (and Wales) whilst operating to a completely different rule for Northern Ireland. Good luck to the government lawyers on arguing that case when it comes before a court, as it almost certainly will. From the Government’s perspective, they have the power and they make the rules. But wiser heads might well wonder whether somebody shouldn’t take their spades away before they dig much deeper.

Johnson's parting gift to his party

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Fresh from demonstrating their commitment to honesty, integrity and decency in politics by leaking dirt on each other to the Labour Party, the Tory leadership contenders are lining up to give their views on whether or when another referendum on Scottish independence can or should be held. Some say ‘not for ten years’ whilst others simply say ‘no’ or ‘it’s not the right time’, and one, Tugendhat, said that “you can't keep asking the same question hoping for a different answer”. There are reasonable arguments to be made (none of which have anything to do with a bit of campaign rhetoric from Alex Salmond in 2014 about “once in a generation” opportunities) for not repeating the same question in a referendum too frequently, and in that sense they have a valid point. The real question, though, is the one that they don’t seem to be asking themselves and neither do the compliant media seem to be asking them, and that is: who gets to decide when the time has come, how often to ask the question, whether some sort of event is needed before holding a further vote and what such a trigger might be.

But even without asking those questions, it is clear that there is a common, unstated, assumption: the answer is not Scotland. Yet that is really the heart of the issue. It might be considered wise to wait an arbitrary number of years between votes. It might be considered wise not to repeatedly ask the same question in a referendum. It might be considered wise to predetermine that a certain type of trigger is needed before running a further vote. It might have been wise to formally determine such issues in advance of the last vote – but that wasn’t done.  However, the only people who can decide what is wise or not in this context are the people of Scotland themselves. And even if some rules about further votes had been set in advance, in a democracy nothing can or should stop people from changing their minds. If Scots decide it is time to ask the question again – as they have done, by returning a majority of both MPs and MSPs on a manifesto of holding a vote in a succession of elections – on what moral basis or principle should the UK PM refuse? Telling Scots that they do, of course, have the right to independence if they vote for it (which is what being in a voluntary union amounts to) but that only the English government in London can decide when or whether they’ll ever be allowed to have such a vote is telling them that ultimately, they have no such right at all and there is nothing voluntary about the union.

In terms of making a coherent argument against independence, denying a vote by hiding behind laws imposed by London doesn’t look like the smartest of moves, although we should acknowledge that being smart isn’t exactly the prime qualification for becoming Tory leader. Delaying the vote as long as possible also looks to be self-defeating when all the polling shows that younger voters in Scotland are supporting independence in ever increasing numbers, whilst older voters are doing what older people have a demographic tendency to do; delay is only increasing the probability of a positive vote. Perhaps they genuinely believe that they can hold the line against both independence and a referendum for more or less ever by using the courts; perhaps Scots independentistas really will just say ‘OK’ and stop campaigning, although that looks like a forlorn hope to me. I suspect that the truth is more likely to be that they can see the tide turning against them, don’t know how what else to do, and are taking the essentially short term view which results from the winner-takes-all UK electoral system. Hoping that ‘something will turn up’ if they delay long enough isn’t the best strategy anyone has ever devised. It looks like being his or her own worst enemy is Johnson’s parting gift to his party’s next leader.

English nationalism makes Labour their own worst enemies

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During the 2015 election campaign, the Tories made great play (with some nasty but effective little posters to back it up) of the idea that a Labour victory in England would end up leaving Ed Milliband in Alex Salmond’s pocket. Whether it worked or not, we can’t be entirely certain. It was aimed, obviously, only at English voters, and particularly the sort of nationalist English voters who subsequently fell prey to the insane idea that England was so special that it could have all the benefits of EU membership with none of the costs or disadvantages.

It was, though, nonsense. It might not have looked that way at the time, because not many really believed that the SNP would pull off what was almost a clean sweep (winning 56 of 59 seats). However, once the results were in, it was clear that Westminster politics was facing a new reality. That reality was delayed by the unexpected overall majorities for the Tories delivered by an unrepresentative voting system, not only in 2015 but also subsequently in 2017 and 2019. But with the polls currently suggesting both that an overall majority for any one party is highly unlikely and that SNP dominance of Scottish seats is unlikely to disappear any time soon, whichever party comes out top in England in the next election has no choice but to deal with the fact that a block of 50+ SNP MPs is highly likely to hold the balance of power. Whether, or how, they choose to wield it over England-only issues is unclear, but their votes (and those of the people who elected them) cannot simply be ignored.

However, ignoring it is, it seems, precisely what the failed Labour campaign team of 2015 is advising Keir Starmer to do. The lesson that they appear to have learned from that campaign is that they mustn’t allow the Tories to depict a potential minority Labour government as depending on the votes of the SNP for its survival – a rather simplistic interpretation which overlooks the fact that a minority Tory administration would also have to handle the situation in Scotland somehow if it wanted to get any legislation through. In order to avoid the Tories painting them in such a fashion, Labour, they say, must make it clear that there will be no deals or arrangements of any sort with the SNP. This, they hope, will help them attract the votes of English nationalists for themselves.

One element of the proposal makes a certain amount of political sense. Forming a minority government and daring the SNP to vote against the policies they put forward will work for much of the probable Labour manifesto; SNP MPs are more likely to support Labour, or abstain, on most policies than they are to vote with the Tories. And on some issues (Trident leaps to mind), even if the SNP oppose Labour policy, a minority Labour government could probably rely on Tory support. There are some policies which Labour might have to adapt or delay rather than risk defeat, but a minority Labour government could probably work overall most of the time.

The bugbear – and the big argument against the above – is the second suggestion from the failed campaign team, which is that Labour should rule out, in any and all circumstances, allowing a second referendum on Scottish independence. Even if every Scottish MP is from the SNP (not an impossible outcome), elected on a specific platform of holding a second referendum, and even if an overall majority of Scottish electors voted for the SNP (a currently unlikely but, again, not impossible scenario) the suggestion is that the ‘democratic’ Labour Party should simply say no. It's almost guaranteed to encourage the Scottish MPs to be as awkward as possible. It could, of course, be just a campaign tactic to attempt to win over English voters opposed to Scottish independence (although all the evidence of polls suggests that English electors’ opinions on Scottish independence aren’t actually that strongly held), to be followed by a ‘reluctant acknowledgement of the facts’ after the event; but a wholly foreseeable and unnecessary U-turn the day after the election looks like foot-shooting on a Johnsonian scale. But if it isn’t just a tactic, and Labour adopt this as policy, the chances of a Labour minority government surviving for long seem to be slim, undermined by their own wholly avoidable commitment to English nationalist dogma.

If Labour really wanted to protect themselves from the accusation of being in the SNP’s pocket, they could commit to the introduction of STV for all future parliamentary elections. Nothing would do more to reduce the number of SNP MPs than a proportional electoral system in which non-SNP votes received their fair share of seats. As a bonus, it’s a policy which the SNP themselves would probably support. It makes it more likely that minority governments, parliamentary arrangements, and coalitions would become the norm, although many of us would see that as another bonus. But Labour – or at least some of them – seem to be saying that they’d actually prefer another Tory government to a situation where they don’t themselves have absolute power. Sometimes, they are their own worst enemies.

Distorting the meaning of words

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The timing of today’s announcement of a new UK coin celebrating the fantasy world invented by Lewis Carroll is very apt, coming as it does on the heels of yesterday’s announcement by the Queen of Hearts Michael Gove that Scotland can have another referendum on independence when it becomes the ‘settled will’ of the Scottish electors. In true Wonderland style, that ‘settled will’ is a matter for the exclusive determination of the UK government using criteria which they will neither explain nor justify, but which absolutely definitely excludes counting the results of any elections held to date or which might be held in the future in which supporters of holding such a referendum win a majority, and which will be found to have arbitrarily changed whenever they are in danger of being met. As Carroll put it:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

What appears at first sight to be a change from the UK Government’s anti-democratic position that a referendum will never be permitted turns out to be little more than a re-statement of the same answer in terms which eliminate all possibility of logical counter-argument. At least Lewis Carroll knew that he was writing fantasy; it’s doubtful that Gove understands the difference.

Was newmath developed on the playing fields of Eton?

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In principle, the announcement by Boris Johnson over the weekend that he is setting up a summit meeting with the First Ministers of the devolved administrations to compare notes and look at routes to recovery should be a welcome one, although it begs the question as to why it didn’t happen earlier in order to better handle the pandemic. There’s also an unanswered question as to whether this is a one-off stunt or the beginning of a process of better co-ordination and discussion; from experience of Johnson’s premiership so far, the former seems more likely than the latter. It remains unclear whether the intention is a discussion amongst equals (which is what the attendees are, legally, when it comes to devolved responsibilities) or something rather more akin to General Jaruzelski being summoned to Moscow to be instructed about his next steps in Poland. Reading the letter which he sent to Mark Drakeford which has been made public today, it sounds rather more like a summons to listen to the boss than an invitation to a discussion. If that’s his approach, then it’s likely to prove counter-productive, even with mild-mannered Mark Drakeford. Still, the good news for independentistas is that there are few situations which are so bad for the union that Boris Johnson cannot, effortlessly (and he does most things without exerting any effort, which is part of the problem), make them worse.

In the meantime, the PM’s acolytes are busy trying to explain to the Scots how electing a parliament with 72 members supporting independence and 57 opposing it represents a massive rejection of another independence referendum and a huge vote of confidence for the union. Attempts to redefine the bar as to what constitutes a ‘mandate’ are reaching new levels of contortion as they seek to apply different rules for the Scottish parliament than those which are considered normal everywhere else in the world, including at Westminster. Michael Gove deserves a special mention yesterday for his argument that “In 2011, the SNP under Alex Salmond got a majority, a referendum then followed. It’s important to remember that at that time every party in the Scottish parliament thought that it was appropriate to hold a referendum then”, implying that a mandate exists only if every party agrees to it. I suppose the wonder is that they’re making any effort at all to explain why 57 is greater than 72 rather than simply stating it as a fact on the side of a bus. As is blindingly obvious, 5+7=12, 7+2=9 and 12 is greater than 9. With Gavin Williamson in charge of the English curriculum, newmath, as Orwell might have called it, will probably become the norm in England very soon, with the additional advantage of being able to explain how a drop in trade with the EU is actually a stunning increase.

For most people, the first law of holes is to stop digging, but in Borisland it’s to send for more spades. I’m not as convinced as some that Scottish independence is yet entirely inevitable; I still tend to the view that a competent UK government could prevent, or at least delay, the end of the UK. But a government which can’t even cope with the simplest arithmetic is never going to attract the adjective ‘competent’, and its efforts seem almost designed to achieve the opposite of their stated intention. They are just completely unable to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and understand either the impact their words and actions are having or that not everyone shares Johnson’s view of the world. It’s often said that the Battle of Waterloo was “won on the playing fields of Eton”, i.e. it was down to the so-called ‘leadership qualities’ inculcated in that institution. To the extent that it might be true, and given that Etonians have had a disproportionate influence ever since, it would also necessarily be true that the British Empire was lost on the playing fields of Eton. It’s a simple corollary which they cannot begin to comprehend. It increasingly looks as though the UK will have been destroyed on those same playing fields. It’s a fitting epitaph.

Truth and lies are not of equal value

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A couple of day ago, the BBC reported that the UK and Australia had agreed “the vast majority” of the details of a new free trade agreement between the two states. Whether that was achieved by tying the Australian minister to an uncomfortable chair and having Liz Truss harangue him for nine hours was not reported, but agreeing the vast majority of the text of a trade deal is the easy part. It’s always the details which cause the problems. Time will tell – the possibility floated in the report that the final agreement will be signed in June, something of a record time for a deal, suggests either that one side has given a lot of ground, or else that the deal will turn out to be remarkably similar to an existing deal.

What I noted at the end of the report, however, was the matter-of-fact way in which the BBC report told us that “Trade can also be made simpler if countries have the same rules … The closer the rules are, the less likely that goods need to be checked”. It’s a statement of fact with which it is impossible to disagree, but it marks a major change of position for the BBC. During the EU referendum campaign, and in the interests of a specious form of ‘balance’, they regularly treated this key fact about trade as though it was merely an opinion, and treated the opposite opinion – that having different rules is no barrier to trade – as a position of equal validity. ‘Balance’ is difficult to define, and even harder to achieve, but it should never result in pretending that an obvious untruth has the same degree of validity as a provable fact. There is an old saying in journalism that “If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the window and find out which is true”. It’s the least we should expect from a publicly funded broadcaster, but the EU issue is far from being the only one on which the BBC seems to forget this basic tenet of news. Getting it right 5 years after allowing the lie to gain credence simply isn’t good enough.

Fig leaves and vision

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The Scottish Tories are probably breathing a huge sigh of relief following the news that the PM will not, after all, be visiting Scotland to ‘support’ their campaign for the Scottish Parliament elections. Given Johnson’s unpopularity in Scotland, it’s the sort of ‘support’ that they can well do without. They are perfectly capable of losing votes and seats all by themselves without the PM turning up to accelerate the process. The reason given – coronavirus restrictions – is a fig leaf at best, given the cavalier disregard the PM has shown for such restrictions previously and his campaigning activities elsewhere, but they’ve gone past even bothering to try and come up with a half-credible lie any more.

The Scottish Tory campaign itself seems to be based entirely concentrating all pro-union votes behind a single party by maintaining an outright refusal to allow a second independence referendum under any conceivable circumstances. It’s based partly on the almost certainly false assumption that Labour voters in Scotland hate the SNP more than they hate the Tories, and partly on an equally flawed assumption that they can indefinitely refuse a referendum because ‘the law’ allows it. It means that they are left trying to argue that there is no legal or democratic means of holding such a referendum. Despite what they say, it is far from clear that any referendum organised by the Scottish government would be unlawful, and labelling it as either illegal or ‘wildcat’ is a desperate act. It’s true that constitutional matters (including independence) are reserved to Westminster, but it doesn’t follow that organising an advisory (as opposed to binding) vote on a reserved matter is also outside the remit of Holyrood; it’s something which has yet to be properly tested in court. Even assuming that they are either right about it being unlawful currently or that they bring forward legislation at Westminster to make the situation crystal clear, telling people who currently seem almost certain to vote in a pro-referendum majority of MSPs that it doesn’t matter how they vote seems an astonishingly inept way of proceeding if the intention is to win those people over. Depending on the force of law – backed up, presumably, by actual force where necessary – to compel Scotland to remain part of the union seems almost deliberately designed to have the opposite effect.

The problem that they have, however, is that they have nothing more positive to offer. There was a time when turning the UK into some sort of federation might have satisfied enough people, even though it would never have been enough for some of us. But if all they can offer is that what the Scots vote for doesn’t matter because London will decide, their cause is hopelessly lost. Here in Wales, Mark Drakeford faces a similar problem. He argued this week that, “… the experience of coronavirus has strengthened in people’s minds the extent to which we have had independent powers and use them independently … because that’s what I think devolved Wales would be, an entrenched devolved Wales with powerful, independent right of action to take decisions on behalf of people in Wales on things that only affect Wales”.

He may well be right – in principle. There might well be a majority in Wales supportive of such a position, perhaps not indefinitely, but probably for some time to come. The problem is, though, that a “powerful, independent right of action” is not on offer – certainly not from Johnson who is busily undermining such right of action as does exist, and not, as far as I can see, from Starmer either. Drakeford’s position therefore amounts to saying that:

‘in the improbable event of England electing a Labour government in the foreseeable future, we can ask the Labour PM to entrench Wales’ powers in law, and there is a remote possibility that (s)he might even agree to do so’.

It’s not much of an offer and without significant reform (of the sort for which neither Drakeford nor Starmer seem to have any appetite) even if there was any chance of them being in a position to do something there is no guarantee that the next English nationalist government in London wouldn’t simply reverse or over-rule the law, as they have with the existing devolution settlement and the Sewell convention.

Drakeford’s difficulty is that he is putting all his eggs in the basket of improbability labelled ‘Labour Government at Westminster’, and that he neither possesses a Plan B, nor seems capable of constructing one. It's another figleaf; it will probably be enough to keep him in power at this election, albeit leading a lame drake administration until his pending retirement as First Minister, but it’s not much of a vision for the future.

Honesty and good faith are seen as optional extras

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One of the almost semi-coherent ideas emerging from the fog of the unionists’ desperate attempts to prevent Scottish independence is the suggestion that a second referendum should only be held once the full details of what independence means are clear. Leaving aside the obvious question as to whether this is a serious suggestion or merely an attempt to tilt the scales against independentistas, it’s an idea which is not without merit. And had the same approach been applied to Brexit, things might now be rather different. However, for those applying the argument to Scotland, being consistent in their approach comes second to getting their own way. There are at least two major problems, though.

The nature of any independence settlement would require detailed negotiation – it’s not a matter of one side dictating what the outcome should be. And a negotiated settlement requires that both parties approach the discussions in good faith. And that brings us to the first problem – Boris Johnson is incapable of doing anything in good faith. Whatever he says or agrees is subject to change – sometimes in the next sentence, never mind the next day. It is inconceivable that any Johnson government will put the time and effort required into negotiating a detailed settlement (which they would then campaign to urge the Scots to reject); they will instead attempt to dictate the terms and, at best, bully Scotland into accepting them or, more likely, simply present them as though they had been agreed. It is, after all, the approach which worked so spectacularly well for Brexit. (And that’s not an attempt at sarcasm – it really did work well in the only sense that mattered to them, which was all about politics. Businesses and individuals whose futures were destroyed were just an acceptable level of collateral damage in an essentially political act.)

The second problem is that after independence, Scotland will set its own direction. Whilst the nature of an independent Scotland on Day 1 could, theoretically, be clarified by the terms of any agreement with England, the whole point of independence is to allow Scotland to do things differently. How different, and in what ways, depends not on the fact of independence, but on the policies put forward and implemented by whichever party or parties win Scottish elections in the years which follow. Whilst one party to the negotiations might attempt to constrain Scotland’s future options, the extent to which they can do so is necessarily limited.

The proposal that Scotland’s voters should have a more precise idea of what they are voting for is a wholly reasonable suggestion. However, the implicit assumptions being made by the proposers – that they can determine the terms unilaterally, and that ‘negotiation’ amounts to imposition – make it completely unworkable in practice. To make it workable requires an honest government in London, and that, to use a phrase from the infamous Scottish play, “stands not within the prospect of belief”.

Blackmailing Labour would be counter-productive

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Before the last Senedd election, Plaid Cymru announced with great fanfare that they would hold a referendum on independence in their second term of office as the government of Wales. It was always an odd statement to come from a party which claimed to be committed to obtaining independence for Wales. The stated rationale was that that was what had happened in Scotland, but the comparison was a specious one. The only reason that the SNP didn’t call for a referendum in their first term of government was that they were a minority government; there was simply no majority in the Scottish Parliament for holding one. The determinant of whether a referendum on independence should be held is not how many times a majority has been elected on such a platform but the simple fact that such a majority exists. Plaid’s position looked more like an attempt to woo voters opposed to independence by promising not to do anything about it for the five years of a Senedd term than a means of advancing the cause. The announcement last month that Plaid would call such a referendum if it won a majority in the Senedd in the forthcoming election was a welcome correction to a strange stance.

However, the suggestion this week that Plaid would make the holding of a referendum part of any coalition discussions with Labour would be a step too soon and too far. I agree with Mark Drakeford that the route to holding a referendum is to secure a majority of members of the Senedd pledged to holding such a vote. Trying to blackmail those elected on a platform of opposing a referendum into supporting one in order to be able to form a government isn’t at all the same thing.  Drakeford’s agreement that if a majority of members of the Senedd are elected on a platform of holding a referendum then a referendum should be held strikes me as entirely reasonable.

It sometimes seems as though the aim of holding a referendum on independence is in danger of eclipsing the underlying aim of gaining that independence. I entirely accept that, whilst a referendum isn’t the only possible or legal route to independence, in the particular circumstances of Wales in the twenty-first century a legally recognised referendum is the best way of ensuring both a smooth transition and rapid international recognition for the new state. But such a referendum will work best if it is a means of expressing and legitimating an opinion already widely-held – the job of winning it has to be done before calling it, not after announcing the timetable. Holding a referendum under a coalition government, the larger party in which only allows it to be held in order to retain power and then proceeds to campaign for a ‘no’ vote, looks more like a way of setting the cause back than advancing it. If parties supporting the calling of a referendum cannot even win a majority of seats in the Senedd, then it is highly improbable that a year or so later they will find a majority of the whole electorate for the substance of independence.

I can see why Plaid would want to mobilise all supporters of independence behind one party. After all, polls suggest that a majority of Labour supporters are at least open to the idea, and there’s no doubt that the idea is gaining ground. To succeed in that objective, though, requires that all of those who support independence will see that as their main priority and the key issue in the Senedd election, and will therefore vote with that aim uppermost in their minds. ‘Optimistic’ is one possible word to apply to that (I can think of others); there’s a lot of groundwork to be done first. To date, independentistas haven’t even succeeded in normalising debate on the subject, although Yes.Cymru have done a good job of laying the groundwork. There are, though, no short cuts: winning hearts and minds comes first.

A very English crisis awaits us

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The Prime Minister of England put in another bumbling and incoherent performance on the Andrew Marr show yesterday, including an attempt to answer a reasonable question about a future referendum on the future of Scotland (the relevant clip is available here on Bella Caledonia). In essence, his evasion highlighted his underlying conviction that Scotland is an English possession, and has no democratic route of its own available to choose an alternative future which does not involve the consent of the English Government, which consent will never be forthcoming from him. His assertion that the 41 years between the two referendums on membership of the EU was “a good sort of gap” and is therefore some sort of precedent for determining the frequency of referendums is disingenuous to say the least. The reason that there was no further referendum between 1975 and 2016 wasn’t some great principle that referendums should be infrequent, it was simply that there was no majority in parliament to hold a further referendum. Had there been a majority for a repeat referendum in 1980, there is little doubt that one would have been held. Telling the Scots that it doesn’t matter who they vote for or what the manifestoes of the various parties say, the English Government has an absolute veto on implementing the will of the Scottish electorate is not only undemocratic, but also positively counter-productive for his own side in the debate.

That is not to argue that there are not legitimate questions to be asked about whether and when referendums (on any subject) should be held. They are often blunt instruments, reducing complex and nuanced questions to a simplistic yes/no answer, as we have discovered with the EU referendum, where what ‘leave’ actually meant was ill-defined, to put it mildly. There is surely something wrong with holding a referendum in which a majority can vote for free unicorns for all without anyone being able to say how said unicorns will be sourced. The reluctance of many politicians to get involved in holding repeated referendums on the same subject is also understandable as is their desire to declare a result to be ‘final’ so that we can all move on to other subjects. However, the idea that such arguments can ever trump the democratically expressed wish of voters is profoundly undemocratic. It’s doubtful that many would want to see a referendum on, say, EU membership becoming an annual event, but if that’s what the electorate vote for by electing a majority of MPs supporting such a proposal, by what authority can anyone tell them that they can’t have one? It’s a theoretical question and a highly improbable outcome, of course, but to ask it is to answer it: if a majority of MPs were to be elected on a manifesto pledging another referendum – or even annual referendums – on EU membership, then it would happen. It is a core element of the English constitution that parliament is both absolutely sovereign and can never bind its successors.

And it is that which exposes the underlying attitude of the English nationalists in the Conservative Party (as well as the Anglo-British nationalists of Labour): sovereignty rests indivisibly in Westminster, not with the devolved parliaments, and certainly not with the voters in Scotland (or Wales, come to that). It doesn’t matter how many times the Scots vote for parties committed to holding another independence referendum; unless and until they can gain a majority in Westminster (an impossible ask) or the support of either the English nationalist party or the Anglo-British nationalist party (both unlikely), their votes on the issue of independence count for nothing.

Those who would argue that the UK needs to think a lot more carefully about the use of referendums have a valid point, even if the demand for a lengthy and time-consuming process to do so looks suspiciously like an attempt to kick the Scottish question into the long grass for as long as possible. But if issues are not to be decided by referendums, then they can only be decided by elections or, rather, by those who are elected casting their votes in the parliaments of which they are members. The reluctance of the SNP leadership to consider options other than the ‘gold standard’ of an agreed referendum is understandable and pragmatic in terms of ensuring international recognition for Scottish independence, but if the government of England persists in trying to close off that option, the constitutional crisis which the UK will ultimately face becomes both considerably greater and significantly more likely. The fact that Boris Johnson sees this as a Scottish crisis rather than an English one governs his response - and makes the outcome increasingly inevitable.

Fiddling the rules

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Last week, the Times reported (paywall) that Michael Gove had been ‘enlisting old enemies’ in an attempt to ‘save the union’. The thought of Gove working with George Galloway, former Lib Dem Minister Danny Alexander, and former Labour Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell manages to be both bizarre and entirely credible at one and the same time. That these people all think both that ‘saving the union’ is vital and that they are the people to do it is also entirely credible and more than a little bizarre. On the other hand, to many independentistas it is more likely to look like the dream team they would choose to go up against for the next referendum. Perhaps the unionists actually want to lose. If only they could also persuade Boris to personally lead the crusade against independence, Scottish independence could be more or less guaranteed.

With the polling figures increasingly turning against them, it appears that at least some of them want to try and amend the rules about who can vote. Instead of only those registered to vote in Scotland, Galloway has suggested that the franchise should be extended to Scots living elsewhere in the UK, a suggestion which Gove described as ‘interesting’. The assumption, obviously, is that those Scots who’ve left Scotland to live elsewhere in the UK will be more inclined to vote ‘no’, (although I’m not as certain as they seem to be about the validity of that assumption – ‘Gorau Cymro, Cymro oddi cartref’ as the saying goes) on which basis, the surprising thing is that they’re thinking of restricting it to the UK. Scots living outside the UK might be even more opposed. Leaving aside the ‘minor’ practical difficulty of devising an electoral register across the whole UK which identifies who is Scottish and who is not (have they even thought about how to define that, let alone identify the relevant people?), there is another obstacle as well. If it is to be a vote based on whether a voter is Scottish or not (however that may be defined), on what basis should people who are not Scottish but who choose to live in Scotland be allowed to vote?

Of course, logic and consistency are not words which deserve to be used in the same sentence as Galloway and Gove (unless properly and definitively negated), but the application of that little piece of logic shows that a proposal to base the franchise on the nationality of the voter is a double-edged sword. The only reasonable and fair basis on which to decide whether a territory is to become independent is for the people who are registered as living there to take the decision – whatever their origins. Trying to adjust the electorate to include others on the basis of their nationality is a blatant attempt both to gerrymander the outcome and to turn the debate into one about origins and roots. It’s also likely to be very divisive – so exactly what its proponents want, and something for which they could and would then blame independentistas. The idea is unlikely to disappear as long as the unionists are staring defeat in the face.

Knee-jerk reaction, not strategy

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The tone with which the UK Government seeks to deny the right to hold a further referendum on Scottish independence is becoming increasingly strident; the rhetoric suggests that the current government will never allow one to be held.  Telling the people of Scotland that their votes count for nothing, and that it doesn’t matter how many times they vote for a party committed to holding such a referendum, their votes will simply be ignored anyway doesn’t immediately strike me as the best way of countering the demand and convincing Scots that they are valued partners.  Reminding them regularly that sovereignty lies with the Queen-in-Parliament rather than with the people looks almost like a deliberate attempt to push ever greater numbers into the independence camp. 

There was even a subliminal message in the fact that it was the Foreign Secretary who took the lead on the issue yesterday, although the implicit suggestion that Scotland is now part of the Foreign Office’s brief was, I am sure, entirely unintentional.  I suspect that it hadn’t even occurred to them.  But it did give him an opportunity to add some new reasons for refusing to allow a referendum, in that it might, apparently, encourage similar trends in Italy, France and Spain.  Ah yes, this is the new ‘independent’ British foreign policy at work, now that we don’t need to worry about those Europeans.  At the heart of their stated reasons for refusal, however, remains the way in which they have taken the expression of a personal opinion by Alex Salmond (who thought that the 2014 referendum would be a ‘once-in-a-generation’ opportunity), and turned into a pledge hugely more important and solemn than any suggestions about dying in ditches.

It is the application of double standards on a grand scale: firm pledges by Boris Johnson were just electioneering rhetoric which can be ignored, whilst mere expressions of opinion by the then-leader of the SNP are inviolable commitments; and winning 56% of the seats in the UK on 44% of the vote gives the UK Government an absolute mandate to do whatever it likes, but winning 81% of the seats in Scotland on 45% of the vote gives the SNP no mandate for anything at all except to shut up and do as they are told.  The first is just logically and morally bankrupt, but the second is, of course, constitutionally and legally true.  It is in the nature of devolution that power remains at the centre unless and until the centre decides to share it – and even that sharing can subsequently be revoked at any time.  Power devolved is always and inevitably power retained.

Theoretically, the position in Scotland and Catalonia is very different; in Catalonia, independence is constitutionally illegal, whereas in Scotland (and Wales) there is a legal path to achieving it.  In practice, however, the UK’s constitution leaves the right to choose more theoretical than actual if the English Government (which is what we effectively have) decides to block it.  Many in Scotland have urged the government there to pass legislation to hold a ‘consultative’ referendum on the issue.  Whether that would be legal or not is currently unknown, but we can be certain that it would end up with the Supreme Court having to decide, and even if the courts decided that it was legal, Westminster could easily and quickly change the law to make it illegal before it was actually held.  That leaves the First Minister and her party between a rock and a hard place – undoubtedly the best way to gain recognition for Scottish independence is though a legally organised referendum where opinions are freely expressed through the ballot box.  But such a referendum is entirely in the gift of the English PM, regardless of how many times the Scots vote for a party or parties committed to holding such a vote.

Johnson and his party seem to be pinning their hopes on next year’s Scottish elections.  If they can only spend enough money on propaganda, bypass or weaken the Scottish parliament and implement their own policies directly, and then prevent the SNP from winning a majority next year, perhaps the issue can be made to go away.  It’s not an impossible scenario, but it strikes me as more likely that undermining Scottish institutions will strengthen rather than weaken the support for independence.  And the images of the elected First Minister being repeatedly prevented from holding a referendum for which the Scottish electorate has now voted several times also seems to me to be more likely to strengthen than weaken support. I’m reasonably sure that isn’t Johnson’s intention, but I doubt that he’s thought it through.  He doesn’t seem to do ‘strategy’ – just knee-jerk reaction.

The self-defeating strategy of the unionists

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The logic of the SNP’s position in demanding a second independence referendum is clear and irrefutable: under the rules which govern UK elections, they won a clear – overwhelming, even – majority of Scottish seats in last month’s elections, on a platform of calling for a second referendum to be held this year.  I’m less convinced about the wisdom of an early referendum, to be honest, given that the polls suggest that opinion remains finely balanced and that a second defeat would almost certainly postpone the question for some years.  Whilst it’s possible that the campaign itself would move opinion (which clearly happened during the last referendum), it is by no means certain.  But given their previous statements, their platform for the last election, and the outcome of that election, they have little choice but to pursue the demand for a second referendum as vigorously as they can.

The position of the unionists, including both the current government and the potential new leaders of the Labour Party (who seem to be lining up to explain why the rules governing a mandate in the UK parliament don’t apply to the outcome in Scottish seats, where a majority of the votes is also required, for reasons which they are unable to explain in rational terms) is rather harder to fathom.  Accepting that a mandate exists and allowing the SNP to honour it by holding a referendum is probably their best chance of defeating the independence movement for some years to come; allowing themselves to be seen to be applying different rules in Scotland than they apply to themselves, and using a veto over whether Scotland can even ask itself the question seems almost designed to undermine their message about a ‘union of equals’.  I suspect that it’s based – in Labour’s case particularly – on a belief that support for the SNP is an aberration, and that, given the right leadership and policies, the Scots will eventually return to what the unionists see as their natural political homes. It’s not wholly inconceivable that they are correct, although after a series of successive SNP election victories it’s looking increasingly unlikely.  I suppose, though, for leaders of parties who still believe that they have some sort of right to expect Scots to support them, it’s a perception which they find it hard to escape.

Paradoxically, it means that the SNP is inevitably committed to pursuing a path which has a high risk, if it succeeds, of significantly postponing independence, whilst the unionists are committed to pursuing a path which is likely to persuade ever more Scots of the merits of independence and thus lead to the break-up of the union.  It has long been believed by many independentistas that the demise of the union would ultimately be brought about by the arrogance and intransigence of the unionists in their response to demands from Scotland and Wales, and they seem determined to prove us correct.  I almost find myself egging them on.

Getting over it

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I’ve fought around 20 elections at different levels as a candidate over the years, winning 7 and losing the rest.  Not the best of records, but from experience I can say that, in most cases, the campaigns have been civilised and friendly, with the candidates able to debate and argue in a reasonably calm fashion as they put their case to the electors.  One or two have been rather more acrimonious, of course, where one or more candidates have been particularly objectionable; but as a general rule, it has been possible to end up on amicable terms, with the losers congratulating the winners and looking forward to the rematch.  I was going to say that it’s a bit like a football game, but football fans are often much more tribal than politicians.

With that as background, it’s easy to see why some would argue that, once the dust has settled, we should all accept that the result is as it is, that it will stand for the relevant term of office, and that we can then play the next round.  It becomes a little harder to do when one or more participants are widely perceived to have lied or cheated their way to a victory however, and the ‘reconciliation’ demanded by the PM has to be seen in that light; if it’s difficult to achieve reconciliation, a large part of that difficulty is down to his own cavalier approach to truth and the normal rules of debate.  In any event, reconciliation does not – and cannot – require that people change their views about future directions, nor that they stop campaigning for them.  After an election in which Party X has lost, no-one seriously expects that it will therefore accept all the policies of Party Y and stop putting forward its own views.  And no-one really expects that the ‘opposition’ will cease to oppose, using all the democratic means at its disposal. There is, in short, a difference between accepting the result of the vote and agreeing with the winners.

Why then do some people’s expectations seem to be so different when it comes to a referendum?  The expectation that those of us on the losing side of the EU referendum in 2016 will somehow ‘get behind’ the result is as silly as expecting those who didn’t vote Tory last week to ‘get behind’ the PM.  I don’t expect those who lost the referendum on establishing the Senedd in 1997 to change their views; they have every right to continue to campaign for its abolition if they wish.  And if the 2016 EU referendum had gone the other way, there would have been plenty who, like Farage, saw it as ‘unfinished business’. 

Part of the underlying debate about the EU (and the Senedd, come to that) is that it goes beyond mere differences about policy and starts to impact on the question of identity.  Many opponents of the Senedd saw it as having an unwanted Welsh identity imposed on them, just as many Brexiters (and, interestingly, they’re often the same people) see the EU as imposing an unwanted European identity on them.  Brexit has, to some extent, been driven by a particular view of what it means to be ‘British’, and a corresponding demand that political structures should both reflect that identity and impose it on others.

One of the major successes of the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland was that it established a framework which allowed people with different identities to co-exist, and structures which enabled different identities to be lived and expressed alongside each other.  It sometimes seems that the demand to ‘get over it’ from the English nationalists driving Brexit implicitly requires an acceptance that our identity is what they say it is – no more, and no less.  It isn’t just the delicate balance in the six counties which is threatened by that attitude.

The saga has a long way to run yet

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The television coverage which we generally see from the House of Commons can be very misleading.  On the whole, it’s quite a friendly place; and most clauses in most legislation are entirely uncontroversial.  The coverage that we see concentrates on the areas of difference rather than of agreement; difference is more newsworthy than agreement, and it makes for better television as well.  There are a great number of cross-party friendships – indeed, over the years it has often seemed to me that MPs act, and maybe think, as though they have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of us.  For all the rhetoric and vitriol in the chamber itself, the MPs play together in the various parliamentary sports teams, eat together, and above all, drink together.

That may be why the PM genuinely seems to believe in relation to Brexit that if only we can ‘get it done’ the country can come together again.  It’s a belief (insofar as he believes it – I mostly wonder whether he believes anything he says) which is entirely in line with normal parliamentary procedure.  In the case of Brexit, however, it’s a major category error, and it ignores the extent to which the debate around this issue extends well beyond the boundaries of the parliamentary estate.  Just occasionally our parliamentarians are asked to take decisions which are not just about comparatively minor details of legislation which can easily be reversed in the next parliament, but about issues which will change the direction of the future for a generation or more.  Brexit is such an issue.

It’s not just some sort of giant game at the end of which both sides line up, shake each other’s hands, and wander off to the club for a drink or two.  For those who care passionately about the sort of future we are going to leave for our children and their children, it isn’t a game which ends with everyone accepting the score-line and quietly acquiescing.  And that’s a factor which applies to both sides.  Just as Farage made it clear (entirely properly) before the referendum that if his side narrowly lost, the issue wouldn’t go away, equally those who believe that the future of Wales (or the UK, depending on one’s personal focus) lies in a European context aren’t going to simply go away and accept an insular or US-dominated future either.  There are non-Brexit parallels as well – supporters of devolution didn’t simply give up the battle after the 1979 referendums, and supporters of an independent Scotland haven’t simply given up after the result of the 2014 referendum.  And why should they?

Those who argue that such arguments can somehow be ‘settled’ by a vote in the House of Commons – or even by another referendum – are failing to understand the significance of the issue under debate.  It wasn’t the referendum which caused the polarisation of opinion amongst the population; the difference in opinion existed beforehand, especially within the ruling party itself, which is why we had a referendum in the first place.  The way it was fought and the way in which things have turned out since may have exacerbated the division and hardened opinions on both sides, but it didn’t create those divisions.  Agreement by the House of Commons on the terms of departure won’t change the opinions of those who believe that it’s the wrong decision, and another referendum won’t change the minds of those who choose to see the EU as some sort of evil empire either.

There really is no good way out of the hole into which we have collectively been led, and there is no mechanism for bringing people together, no matter how often the PM claims that a decisive victory for his side of the debate achieves precisely that.  As far as the next week is concerned, imprisoning the PM for contempt of court might please some; agreeing the terms of a deal might please others; yet others will be delighted to get one hurdle out of the way so that they can pursue their dream of what they call a ‘complete break’.  There is nothing that will please all of those groups, and nothing which will put an end to the argument.  This one will, as they say, run and run.