The people of Scotland have spoken. As that sound echoes, here’s what I think its rejection of independence means…
The SNP are strengthened:
45% of the Scottish electorate voted Yes. That’s a far higher figure than many of us would have predicted even a few weeks ago. Yes Scotland’s campaigning, driven by the SNP, has proved far superior to Better Together’s, driven by Labour. If the Nationalists resist the temptation to turn in on themselves they can expect to reap the electoral rewards of their grassroots activity next May. The Scots, by decisively rejecting independence, have lost their negotiating leverage: I expect them to turn to the SNP as an insurance policy against being forgotten about by Westminster. That poses a big threat to Labour, but also to the Lib Dems — after all, one-fifth of our MPs sit for Scottish seats.
The Tories are weakened…
Did Cameron panic or was it one of those things that seemed a good idea at the time? I’m referring to the ‘vow’ he co-signed with Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, published in the Daily Record, promising more powers for Scotland and the safeguarding of the Barnett Formula financial settlement for Scotland. This opens up a whole Pandora’s Box of constitutional questions which are likely to dominate debate at least until Christmas. That part of it won’t bother Cameron: the irresistible logic of devo-max for Scotland is de facto home rule also for England – in other words, English votes deciding English laws – which, given the Tories’ strength in England, boosts their prospects of remaining in power, at least in the short-term. However, the promise to retain the Barnett Formula is another matter altogether. It offers an obvious opportunity to Nigel Farage to exploit: “It’s right that Scotland should have more powers,” he’ll say, “but it’s also right that there’s a fair financial settlement for the English, too. Public money should be allocated according to need.” And the worst of it is he’s 100% right on this, and he’ll now be the lone voice among the four main party leaders able to make that compelling case to the voters in the lead-up to the next general election. The Tories (as well as the Lib Dems and Labour) have placed ourselves on the wrong side of this issue.
… And so too are Labour:
Ed Miliband’s problem is at least as acute. The weakness of the Better Together campaign has shown the extent to which Labour’s support among its traditional working-class base has atrophied. As the SNP has exploited that in Labour heartlands in Scotland, expect Nigel Farage to do so in Labour’s northern heartlands. This may not be too much of a problem for Labour in 2015. It almost certainly will be by 2020, and Labour shows very little sign of being alert to this potent, existential danger. On top of that, Labour looks like it’ll be wrong-footed by the incipient demands for English-votes-for-English-laws which is already gathering a head of steam. Oppose it (as it seems Labour might try to) and the party will find itself having to try to defend the indefensible. Support it and Labour realises its limited chances of winning a majority of MPs in England (Blair landslides excepted) means it will not be in power even if it finds itself in office after May. A future Labour prime minister may have little choice but to hold discussions with a Tory First Minister of England if it wants to get its legislation on the statute books.
The news isn’t much better for the Lib Dems:
It might be tempting to enjoy a touch of schadenfreude at the other parties’ mounting problems. It might also be tempting – as the one party which has been banging on about constitutional issues for more than a century – to look at the momentum towards federalism as vindication of our stance. However, the big question is (1) the principle: will it be done in a liberal way?, and (2) the practical: will any of it help the party to win power? On (1) the principle, simply giving more powers to politicians in Edinburgh, Cardiff and London isn’t the liberal way of devolving power to local communities – however, it’s probably what the Tories and Labour will try and do and what they’ll stop at. The problem we need to address is over-centralisation of power, not simply the capital city where that power is concentrated. And on (2) the practical, the party appears set on signing up to the continuation of the Barnett Formula despite years of opposing it — Ukip exploiting English resentment at that injustice will apply to Lib Dems as well as to Tories and Labour. It’s another reason why Nick Clegg’s use of Little England as an insult has been misjudged.
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Have resignations led to a rethink?
High Fell leaflet watch (2)
No, Leave didn't win the Brexit referendum because of Northern working class voters
Two new Makerfield by-election polls gives Burnham 5 and 12 point leads
Geoffrey Payne
Richard Whelan
David Raw
Tom Reeve
27 Comments
The SNP strengthened ? There were clear majorities for NO in all the local authority areas currently represented in whole or part by a SNP MP at Westminster except for Dundee. In Aberdeenshire and in Perthshire and Kinross the NO vote was over 60%, and there was even a 53.4% NO vote in the Western Isles which the SNP might on general principles have been expected to carry easily.
I’ve largely sat the Scottish Referendum out on this site due to IT problems (but I have donated to Party funds during this time); on whatr happens next I was aghast to hear Nigel Farage attempting to wrap himself in the mantle of ‘Old Man Gladstone’ this AM on Radio 4.
UKIP as the voice of federalism is a horrible scenario for those of us who see federalism as a vehicle for compromise, negotation and respect for diversity.
UK Federalism as a federation of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is also disipiriting as it will create an unbalance federation where the largest partner, England, speaks with wealthy London’s (or the South-East’s) voice and the English regions are sat on. This seems to be what both the Tories and UKIP now want, albeit with nuances.
The LibDem ‘devolution on deman’ plan is possible a way of working within the Tory framework to deliver more of a regional voice, but there seems to be an option missing from what is reported as being on the table, whereby English regions are seen as equal with Scotland and Wales, not as semi-devolved bodies within England; the North of England (for eg) surely cannot operate at the same level of constitutional autonomy as, say, Dumbartonshire or Powys?
Stephen Tall
You make the mistake of confusing the entire campaign for YES and the SNP.
There were plenty of people, including Liberal Democrats who campaigned and voted YES, who are nothing to do with the SNP. The London media has peddled the myth that it was all about Alex Salmond, it ws not.
The Glasgow result illustrates the real problem for Labour. A majority voted YES in ‘The second City of the Empire’. In many so-called Labour heartland seats nobody was listening to Labour. In an election with the highest turnout since 1951 parts of the city that have not voted for years came out to vote , and they were not voting the Labour way.
Myths grow very quickly and one of the big myths that the BBC is running hard to establish is that Gordon Brown’s speech on Wednesday was hugely important and swung it for the NO side. The results in Glasgow and Dundee would seem to point out that this myth has little grounding in fact.
A secondary bit of spin which the BBC is running this morning is that this is all a terrible personal blow to Ed Miliband.
Is this the beginning of the BBC starting to undermine Miliband in the run up to the General Election?
It’s all very well saying Farage is right, but what is his plan for keeping the UK together? Had Farage been PM, what would the result in Scotland have been? Considering that he would have had to rename his party FUKIP.
Phew. Thank you, Scotland! Now for some radical decentralisation all round.
Radical decentralisation must be more than just negatively trimming Scots MPs’ voting rights. That wouldn’t give any more power to the rest of us.
Let’s make the whole UK far less centralised and bring power closer to people. No giant English Parliament: for 53 million people instead of 64 million – would anyone notice the difference?
Liberal Democrats should come out for a constitutional convention and say it’s not up to the Tories, loudly, just as Scotland’s not the property of the SNP. Cameron’s played a blinder this morning for Tory electoral advantage – attacking Labour, appealing to UKIP and demoting Nick Clegg. You may remember he was the Cabinet Minister with responsibility for constitutional reform? As of this morning, unilaterally, it’s William Hague. This is nothing to do with the Coalition and all about the General Election.
On the strength of the SNP: people will hold Salmond to yesterday’s “For a lifetime” despite his this morning’s weaselling “For the moment”. But, yes, it should give them an even bigger electoral boost, temporarily.
The rogue YouGov poll may have helped a lot with the result’s legitimacy: by showing that Yes might win, it’s made 55.3 to 44.7 feel much more decisive than if everyone expected a No walkover.
– too much talk of ‘giving powers to’ when it should be in LD language ‘returning powers to’. Power belongs to the people and the new settlement for England should not be ‘de facto home rule for England’ in an English Parliament in London, but return of all powers to cities, counties, regions.. ie. however localities want to organise themselves, with powers that need to be handled as ‘England’ handed up.. the powers that need to be UK wide handed up to the UK Parliament in its revised format. Many fewer MPs, and a chamber in the round.
In short, now is the opportunity for a wholesale re-think..
Where do the Lib Dems and the constitutional argument go from here? Things cannot remain as they are. Even from the few comments posted so far, the Federalist ‘chop-England-up-into Regions’ group has got their oar in already. This, taken together with the ‘devolution-on-demand’ argument, suggests that they think England should be offered Regional Government if they want it, or nothing if they don’t, and most don’t. The only region offered its own assembly so far, the NE, rejected it by 4-1.
The ‘English votes for English laws’ point is unarguable, any politician or party in England which stands against this principle does so at their peril. It’s now just a question of what shape and form this should take.
We must not make the mistake we made in the AV referendum where this party failed miserably to explain its case: “what problem was AV supposed to solve and how would AV solve it?” If we want to make a case for devolution in any shape or form we have to go back to first principles with the electorate and also explain: “what problems does our basket-case of an unwritten constitution saddle us with and how will the various possible solutions address those problems?” Remember – England has suffered from centralised rule for so long most people think it is normal, we need to widen people’s (and our own) horizons and look at the various ways other countries govern themselves and ask if we can learn any lessons from abroad.
In the final analysis, whatever constitutional settlement we get in England (I am not ignoring Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland, it just seems that devolution in and to England is the most intractable problem) – it has to have a broad consensus of popular support. It is all very well Labour, Tories, ourselves and others entering this debate with clear fixed ideas of what the answer should be, all parties need to accept that the final decision will require compromise and acceptance of something other than what we might ideally want. It’s what the people want that matters.
@ John Tilley
Horrible, aren’t they, these personal myths? A bit like the one where every single problem the Lib Dems have is due to Nick Clegg’s leadership. But somehow people just seem to latch on to them. Funny that.
There can be no wider redistribution of powers without electoral reform. Otherwise we will just be reinforcing local party fiefdoms for the Tories and Labour.
Opposing ‘English votes for English laws’, is not to defend the indefensible, it is to defend the entire notion of democracy. The current House of Commons was elected to represent the nation as it currently stands. In future a separate level of government for England or the regions is justifiable, necessary and inevitable, on equal terms with the other assemblies, but to say that a rump of the uk government is sufficient or democratic to govern England within the uk is nonsense. This campaign to restrict the competences of Scottish and welsh MP’s in the national government is unprincipled opportunistic tribalism. Liberals will lose their claim of democratic champions if they push this agenda rather than a principled federalist position.
Although Cameron has promised a devolution revolution across Britain and all party leaders have promised enhanced devolution for Scotland – I will be very surprised if the three parties do come up with anything that is significant. As usual each leader will be determined to provide a solution that is most advantageous to his party.
It will be interesting to see if NC will continue to work in tandem with Cameron or will insist on a federal solution. In my view this should provide the English regions along with Scotland & WalesI greater [and equal] devolved powers. Objectively, from where we now are, this should provide a fair and long-term solution.
What we need at this time is a statesman – someone who can rise above petty party politics.
It’s a No, but thankfully it is close enough that the problems that have caused this can’t be swept under the carpet. Scotland will get more powers, these should include responsibility for raising money as well as spending it. We have to move away from the story where Westminster imposes bad things on Scotland, and the only way we can do that is to hand some of the difficult decisions down to the most local practical level.
This must come to England as well. The most likely to succeed devolution settlement there is an English Parliament for the rest of England outside of Greater London, with the option for the other great metropolitan areas to get their own London Assembly type bodies. We need to get behind this, because one, its the right thing to do, and second, having UKIP as the most credible party for England is just dangerous.
T-J – so it’s England, the devolved nation with a hole in it?
Just realised I agree with RC, above on electoral reform and party fiefdoms – this needs to be said loud and clear.
It was surprisingly close. Not far short of 1.6 mill voting Yes. It was noticeable that the Yes areas tended to have narrower wins and a lower turn out than No areas which, at least to me, suggest there was more reluctance to endorse independence than it appears.
The position of the various political parties are harder to read because this was about independence not party politics. Pundits tend to see what they want to see. But my guess is there will be a slight return to Labour and the Conservatives in Scotland, whilst the Tories will lose ground to UKIP in England. The problem for the SNP is that they united lots of different voters in the cause of Independence which can range anywhere in the spectrum from hardcore socialists to out and out Nationalists so maybe their vote will dip. People are reluctant to mention it but there is also an element of religious sectarianism involved, the Rangers v Celtic thing is not just about football.
The clearer message is that we can longer rely on the ” business as usual Westminster bubble view” of political “reality” holding sway. We may have to seriously consider lowering the voting age and there may be less preaching to the converted and more interest in engaging with the electorate as a whole.
The Lib Dems totally fluffed what looked like their one chance of meaningful political reform – this result has handed them a lifeline to redeem themselces. Don’t blow it.
That goes for those of us who favour extensive reform as well. No one covered themselves in glory before…
Alex Wilcock and RC
–Alex thanks for reminding us —
—RC – take note —
Nick Clegg was the Cabinet Minister with responsibility for constitutional reform.
Before the last General Election all three party leaders, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Demcrat all promised reform of The House of Lords.
Now in the run up to the next General Electiom we have the three party leaders all promising further radical devolution of powers.
But all we have actually got so far is the appointment of Lord Smith of Kelvin and The Long Grass.
@ rc – “There can be no wider redistribution of powers without electoral reform. Otherwise we will just be reinforcing local party fiefdoms for the Tories and Labour.”
In your opinion, and;
A problem for you perhaps, the wider electorate may not be so bothered.
Very odd comment from Hugh P – at the General Election 2010 the SNP polled 45% in the Western Isles and just over 20% (less than half a million) votes accross Scotland. Over 1.6 million voted yes for independance – clearly many of them won’t vote SNP and may not vote at all come next May but if 200,000 – 300,000 of the 1.1million who voted yes but not SNP in 2010 switch to the SNP in 2015 then the other parties are in trouble.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/region/7.stm
@ John Tilley
“Nick Clegg was the Cabinet Minister with responsibility for constitutional reform. ..Before the last General Election all three party leaders, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Demcrat all promised reform of The House of Lords.”
I’m impressed that you find some way to blame Nick Clegg no matter what the facts. Nick has been pushing constitutional reform hard, unlike the other parties. They’ve been the blockage. On Lords reform the Lib Dems MPs voted in favour and Labour plus Tory rebels voted it down. Yes we haven’t achieved the reforms we’ve wanted but Nick isn’t the reason – it’s Labour and the Tories.
I don’t think the SNP are necessarily strengthened. Particularly if the constitutional settlement goes according to timetable. This would mean the SNP would be unneeded as a “guarantor” of powers – indeed some of their dire predictions about voting No might come back to haunt them.
I agree with you about the Barnett formula. This really annoyed me. The English, Welsh and Northern Irish haven’t had any say in this referendum – understandably, as it was a decision for Scotland. But none of us got to approve this giveaway bribe which will look rather silly once more tax raising powers are given to Scotland. I don’t feel we as a party should be bound by it and I’d happily vote against it at Conference for example.
We are all doomed
Tony
I suggest the return of county government. People have loyalty to their counties which date back to mid Saxon times.
Counties could have sufficient technical expertise such that they could offer support to district councils. Most district councils are too small to offer anything but the most basic technical expertise and RDAs covered too large areas..
Counties have covered the following
1. Education.
2. Roads up to motorways . In the 1960s motorways were designed by county councils.
3. Landfills/refuse
4. River boards – water supply and sewerage.
5. Minerals.
6. Army regiments.
7. Cathedrals.
8. Police force.
9. County courts and prisons
I think people would be comfortable with counties providing enhanced services.
All the posturing which the PM did in front of cameras yesterday – looks like nonsense to me. How can UK be organised democratically with a new constitution, agreed by the people, giving equality to all the areas of UK – before the next General Election? It is simply not possible. The people did not give MPs this power at the last election so how can it be justified? Cameron will either be shown to be a fool or a tyrant ramming through his Tory majority over the English.
As for demoting Clegg and moving Hague into this powerful sub-tyrant position – thank goodness LDs are not going to be hung by this one! It cannot be delivered properly within one parliament let alone the last days of a government.
p.s. Any Tory controlling constitutional reform, which this is about, will swing the whole of England into Tory control for as long as all of us will know in our lifetime. Boundary changes by another name too. You want to vote for the second Norman invasion based on domination? It is not a land-grab it is the second wave of control – and coming late in a government poses huge stress on the English who must vote on it. How is the vote to be executed?
We must resist Tory domination and N Clegg should resign the Deputy PM position now! And begin to focus on LD principles at Conference – not on supporting Cameron’s vote-grab. And will that happen? We can only guess as NC supports small state – and that means more of what? More private domination? That usually means Tory.
Are the regions to have more actual control or just the responsibility to carry out more reductions passed down from the Tory party – usually the reductions made by charging those who have no powers other than their vote occasionally? So shall we have 10 year parliaments to prevent problems of allowing the people to vote? I’m just a teeny bit sceptical. And all this in our name?
I agree with Charlie, more or less. At any rate, County-level devolution should be seriously considered along with the alternatives. In my earlier post I called for us to look overseas for ideas, and overseas we will find examples that reinforce the argument that County-level devolution if a practical proposition. There is obviously a level of support for Regional Assemblies among the governing classes and they will be keep to dismiss all rival ideas, but like the Scottish vote, this is a once in a generation (or more) chance to create a better system of government and heaven knows we need one. We must not squander the opportunity.
@ RC “There can be no wider redistribution of powers without electoral reform. Otherwise we will just be reinforcing local party fiefdoms for the Tories and Labour.”
You can’t have electoral reform. You had a referendum on that too and the pro-electoral reform camp did badly in that too, far worse than the Yes campaign did.
I voted No independence and spoiled my ballot on AV by writing ‘I want PR on it’. No way was I going to vote to replace one unfair system with another.
Thing is, if the Lib Dems had stuck their guns on PR instead of accepting a “miserable compromise” that would have replaced a two party system with a three party system I’d have voted Yes to PR and I think the country would have too. This is the mistake the Lib Dems make time after time, compromising on their core essential principles. Doing that leads to having no real long-term ‘solid support’ like the SNP have.
Anyway, you can forget about any chance of electoral reform now. Proportional representation? No. Going. To. Happen.