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danieldwilliamFor some time now I’ve given up the Yes to Independence campaign as lost. (1)
No are out polling Yes by about 2 to 1 and based on my learning from the AV referendum I’ve thought that that was too much of a gap for the Yes campaign to close. There are still still significant don’t knows but I’ve thought, not enough, not enough.
However, I have very recently had the benefit of some chat from Professor Charlie Jeffries, a politics professor at Edinburgh University.
Drawing on his own research and from social attitude survey research by Prof John Curtiss he set out a more nuanced view of the election and one that is more optimistic for the Yes campaign.
Broadly the people of Scotland are split into three camps on the question of instiutional constitutional reform. One third are for indepedence, one third for the status quo and one third for significant additional powers for the Scottish Parliament including significant financial autonomy.(2) There are only two options (formally) on the table. (3) There are two ways to spread these three preference over two choices. You can say that 2/3rds of the population want to remain in the Union. You can say that 2/3rds of the population want significantly more self-determination for Scotland. Both are correct.
This is where the question becomes one that is still up for grabs. An intransigent No campaign, that offers no credible dependable additional devolution risks becoming the campaign for the 1/3rd who want no change. The 1/3rd who want significant autonomy but want to remain in the UK might decide that if they can’t have what they both bits of what they want, what they prefer is more self-determination over remaining in the Union. Similarly, if the Yes campaign are able to position indepedence to look more like self-determination they can pick up votes from the middle 1/3rd.
If you layer on the economic argument, where polling suggests a small change in economic welfare makes many people switch from sides the election and the differences of opion between England and Scotland on immigration and the EU and the prospect of a Tory party following UKIP down that Poujadist route the election seems much more open than the current 2:1 polling suggests is the case.
And currently we can see the Yes campaign pitching an Indepedence Light option. Scotland disolves the political union but retains the monetary union, the union of crowns, the BBC, a whole range of supra-national joint memberships. In essence a technically sovereign Scotland opting to pool some sovereignty with England. On the other side we begin to see the various bits of the NO campaign trying to piece together an acceptable offer of more powers that leaves the Union intact.
However, Jeffries suggests, the indepedence referendum in Scotland is a bit of a sideshow. Unless we vote Yes in 2014 we are going to find our constitutional postion within the Union driven more by a growing sense of Englishness, English regionalism (both the regions of England and England as a region) and English nationalism. Our neighbours seem unhappy with their constitutional lot (4) and want something done about it.The most popular schemes seem botched and partisan but even the best options for addressing what the English see as a democratic deficit int their own country unbalance the constitution again. Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland will need to respond to a new status quo and this in turn may well feed the sense of injustice that feeds, in part, English nationalism.
So, if we vote to remain in the Union we can expect more changes, driven from our southern flank, over the next decades which will, in turn, require us to change our position. Again.
(1) For the record I am a firm Yes but it turns out it’s not a high valancy issue for me. I have some reservations about the post-indepedence landscape re the democratic process. I would probably take a federalist, localist participative UK over a centralised, run-for-and-by-the-Central-Belt Free Scotand.
(2) Fiscal autonomy is the middle ground. Most people in favour of independence have significant fiscal autonomy as their second choice. Most people who would rather retain the status quo would rather the Scottish Parliament had more powers than see it abolished or see Scotland become independent.
(3) Perhaps the best option would have been to use AV to rank 4 or 5 options. No Scottish Parliament, Status Quo, Some Additional Power, Fiscal Autonomy, Sovereign Independence. Then we could have made a nuanced decision and settled the matter for a generation. As it is we’ll be shilly shallying about this for decades. Which is okay but there other things I’d like us to discuss.
(4) and what exactly where they expecting when everyone else voted for change?
No are out polling Yes by about 2 to 1 and based on my learning from the AV referendum I’ve thought that that was too much of a gap for the Yes campaign to close. There are still still significant don’t knows but I’ve thought, not enough, not enough.
However, I have very recently had the benefit of some chat from Professor Charlie Jeffries, a politics professor at Edinburgh University.
Drawing on his own research and from social attitude survey research by Prof John Curtiss he set out a more nuanced view of the election and one that is more optimistic for the Yes campaign.
Broadly the people of Scotland are split into three camps on the question of instiutional constitutional reform. One third are for indepedence, one third for the status quo and one third for significant additional powers for the Scottish Parliament including significant financial autonomy.(2) There are only two options (formally) on the table. (3) There are two ways to spread these three preference over two choices. You can say that 2/3rds of the population want to remain in the Union. You can say that 2/3rds of the population want significantly more self-determination for Scotland. Both are correct.
This is where the question becomes one that is still up for grabs. An intransigent No campaign, that offers no credible dependable additional devolution risks becoming the campaign for the 1/3rd who want no change. The 1/3rd who want significant autonomy but want to remain in the UK might decide that if they can’t have what they both bits of what they want, what they prefer is more self-determination over remaining in the Union. Similarly, if the Yes campaign are able to position indepedence to look more like self-determination they can pick up votes from the middle 1/3rd.
If you layer on the economic argument, where polling suggests a small change in economic welfare makes many people switch from sides the election and the differences of opion between England and Scotland on immigration and the EU and the prospect of a Tory party following UKIP down that Poujadist route the election seems much more open than the current 2:1 polling suggests is the case.
And currently we can see the Yes campaign pitching an Indepedence Light option. Scotland disolves the political union but retains the monetary union, the union of crowns, the BBC, a whole range of supra-national joint memberships. In essence a technically sovereign Scotland opting to pool some sovereignty with England. On the other side we begin to see the various bits of the NO campaign trying to piece together an acceptable offer of more powers that leaves the Union intact.
However, Jeffries suggests, the indepedence referendum in Scotland is a bit of a sideshow. Unless we vote Yes in 2014 we are going to find our constitutional postion within the Union driven more by a growing sense of Englishness, English regionalism (both the regions of England and England as a region) and English nationalism. Our neighbours seem unhappy with their constitutional lot (4) and want something done about it.The most popular schemes seem botched and partisan but even the best options for addressing what the English see as a democratic deficit int their own country unbalance the constitution again. Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland will need to respond to a new status quo and this in turn may well feed the sense of injustice that feeds, in part, English nationalism.
So, if we vote to remain in the Union we can expect more changes, driven from our southern flank, over the next decades which will, in turn, require us to change our position. Again.
(1) For the record I am a firm Yes but it turns out it’s not a high valancy issue for me. I have some reservations about the post-indepedence landscape re the democratic process. I would probably take a federalist, localist participative UK over a centralised, run-for-and-by-the-Central-Belt Free Scotand.
(2) Fiscal autonomy is the middle ground. Most people in favour of independence have significant fiscal autonomy as their second choice. Most people who would rather retain the status quo would rather the Scottish Parliament had more powers than see it abolished or see Scotland become independent.
(3) Perhaps the best option would have been to use AV to rank 4 or 5 options. No Scottish Parliament, Status Quo, Some Additional Power, Fiscal Autonomy, Sovereign Independence. Then we could have made a nuanced decision and settled the matter for a generation. As it is we’ll be shilly shallying about this for decades. Which is okay but there other things I’d like us to discuss.
(4) and what exactly where they expecting when everyone else voted for change?
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no subject
Date: 2013-09-05 08:23 pm (UTC)I think that Independence is inevitable, although I find it unlikely that it will happen this time around. I do agree that post-vote the landscape will change repeatedly again.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-06 08:09 am (UTC)I wonder if we won’t arrive at a point where the decision between independence and more autonomy has become irrelevant because of a shift in power from Westminster to the EU before we reach the point where we are ready to vote for independence.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-06 09:18 am (UTC)I also don't see Europe adopting multinaitonal benefits/welfare any time soon, which is one thing I'd much rather have moved to Scottish competency.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-06 10:41 am (UTC)Yeah – we could have negotiated further but we didn’t. So now we’re going to have a fight to discover what we probably already knew; that most Scot’s want more autonomy but want to remain in the UK for the time being. Two teams, sitting in trenches shooting at each other, both slowly realising that everyone else in the No Man’s Land they’ve created.
I think if one were a Unionist one might be irritated with one’s senior leadership who have turned a sitution where they could have had a vote on greater devolution within the UK and won by about 75% to 25% and turned it into a situation where the best possible outcome they will get is the highest ever vote for independence and looking like they’ve been scared into granting as few extra powers as they think they could get away with.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-06 09:45 am (UTC)Your (1) pretty much sums up my feelings too.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-06 10:31 am (UTC)What I think he’s saying is that, actually, the Don’t Knows are largely the middle 1/3rd and are trying to make up their mind between two mutually exclusive positions, Indepedence and Not Indepedence both of which contain elements they like, more autonomy and remaining in the Union. Whichever campaign is best able to convince those middle 1/3rd voters they will get an outcome that looks most like what they want will be able to convert the Don’t Knows into Yeses or Noes.
The closer the polls get, he suggests, the more likely we are to see the No Campaign talks about devolution.
So every time a High Tory says “No extra powers for Scotland.” or Nicola Sturgen says “We’ll keep the pound and the queen and the EU and NATO.” a floating voter becomes a Yes. Likewise, everytime Johann Lamont talks about additional devolved powers or the Lib Dems talk about a federal UK a Don’t Know becomes a No.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-06 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-09 06:14 pm (UTC)