Crisis? What Crisis?

The UK is in deep constitutional crisis, with an unprecedented foreign customs border down the Irish sea, continued agitation for independence in Scotland, a collapsed government in Northern Ireland, a stagnating economy, rampant corruption including the sale of seats in the upper house of Parliament, the rotting sore of Brexit and the loss of a role in the wider world. The constitution cannot stand.

The SNP is trapped in two worlds - in one we cut the Gordian knot and leave for normality and the EU.

In the other, acceptance of our independence by rUK is critical to EU accession.

The SNP strategy has been Voluntary Union by request may we have a Section 30 referendum? and is a Holyrood referendum legal?

The Party meets in March to thrash through the its strategy: currently election-as-referendum. (Obviously this was written pre-Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation and the cancellation/postponment of the special conference - in my opinion election-as-referendum is now a dead duck, we will see.)

In the run up to the autumn conference I wrote extensively (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), about questions that we need to clarify:

  1. Which election is the referendum? next Holyrood?, Special Holyrood?, next Westminster? And what is the referendum-election question? Should Scotland be independent or Does Scotland have the right to an indyref?
  2. Under what circumstances would the SNP participate in a Labour-led constitutional process if it brought PR and reformed the Lords?
  3. Under what circumstances would the SNP-Green government trigger a Holyrood Special Election in defence of devolution?
  4. Under what circumstances, if at all, would the SNP government move to open defiance of Westminster?

Those questions still stand.

But the SNP doesn’t need a strategy it needs a whole suite of tactical approaches. Our strategy of the sovereignty of the Scottish people is correct.

We should continue trying to establish a voluntary union. Another No Voluntary Union this way is not a setback but a spur to growth of our support.

Lets complement election-as-referendum with an approach where the Scottish Government is as the adult in room, engaging with other governments and political actors in the UK and Commonwealth with a view to putting the Union on a statutory, constitutional and voluntary basis. Success in this would be success for the SNP, as would failure.

A start must be made, and a draft Act of Voluntary Union is a start. It defines a constitutional process.

It is not the last word, it is the first word. In the world of TikTok and remixes it is available freely for anyone, SNP or not, to take and remix, rewrite, adapt. To get a constitution you need to agree a process. This Bill, based on long standing UK precedents is one way, it would be better with other input, criticisms and experience being applied to the draft.

Further Reading

This draft bill is based, for good reasons, on the Northern Ireland Constitution Act (1973) but the mechanism for the Northern Ireland border poll is a bad precedent.

There is method in the madness of an SNP member writing a draft Act of Union.

The best framework to consider Gordon Brown’s constitutional proposals is by comparison with Donald Dewar’s approach to devolution. His proposals are at best delaying tactics until Labour can squeeze into power in Holyrood.

Further Work

This is part of a wider project to encourage Scottish civil and political society to write draft Members and Private Bills with a view to getting them introduced in the Scottish Parliament. To that end I am seek collaborators to work on a Draft Bill of the Scottish Parliament to provide autonomy for the Gàidhealtachd based on the Åland Islands Autonomy Statue. Are you interested in helping?