BALLOT FATIGUE
With local, national and Euro elections on the cards, the business of voting is disrupting normal life
Alan Cochrane is sick and tired of democracy and casting his vote
The old TV announcements used to read ‘Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible’ whenever there was breakdown in transmission. Which, as older readers might recall, happened fairly often.
However, as we enter what is bound to be one of the most frenetic periods of politicking we’ll ever see, can we really believe that ‘normal’ life will ever be resumed in Scotland?
One of Winston Churchill’s most famous maxims was that democracy was the worst form of government – apart from all the others. But in this country, we appear ever ready to test that theory to destruction given that we’re almost always being urged to go to the polls.
No sooner had the independence referendum campaign ended in 2014 than we got stuck into the general election campaign of May 2015. Less than a year later, we’ve got a Scottish Parliament election in May, followed by the EU referendum in June. Even when we get those two out of the way, can we be sure that this will be it for a while? Not exactly, because First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has pledged that if Scottish voters register a ‘Remain’ verdict, but are outvoted by those supporting ‘Leave’ in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – thus taking the UK out of the EU – that might trigger another independence referendum.
Prime Minister David Cameron disputes this, saying that since Scotland voted to remain part of the UK, what we’re being asked to decide on June 23 is whether the UK as a whole, and not its constituent parts, should stay in Europe.
But if the Leave campaign succeeds, my money is on Cameron not remaining as PM for long. In that case, and given the political turmoil likely to engulf Britain, I’m not sure that an incoming premier could resist the SNP’s demand for another vote to break up Britain if the majority of Scots voted to Remain.
Cameron has said that the possibility of a repeat Scottish independence referendum is another reason to vote against Brexit, a view echoed by Tony Blair.
Mind you, all that depends upon Sturgeon persisting with her view that Britain leaving the EU would result in Scotland voting for independence within the EU. She has threatened another referendum in such circumstances, but has not promised one because the only certainty is that she must be as sure as possible that she’ll win before she summons us to the polling booths again.
Gordon Wilson, who led the SNP in the 1980s, has warned that a vote to leave the EU against Scotland’s will would not necessarily lead to increasing support for independence. Wilson, author of the ‘Scotland in Europe’ SNP policy, suggests that, with secessionist movements in Spain, Belgium, France and Italy, the EU is not necessarily a friend of the SNP.
Where I agree with Wilson is when he says that perhaps the biggest black mark against another referendum would be the ‘irritability factor’. After the last seemingly endless referendum campaign, how much of the electorate would welcome a repeat performance?
A year from now, we will return to the booths to elect local councils. And – assuming we’re still in it – we will have the European Parliament elections two years after that.
So there it is: town and county councils, a Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, a UK parliament at Westminster, a referendum on Europe and, if we vote to Remain, a European Parliament. And, potentially, another ballot on Scottish independence.
The problem with all this voting is that it gets in the way of governing – you know, improving the essentials of life, like education, the health service and our transport network. As we make our way to the polling booths, we may agree that democracy really is a great institution. But don’t you sometimes ask: do we really need so much of it?