Union campaign plans to target angry No voters
time” and failed to say if an independent Scotland would rejoin the EU. The European Commission indicated it would have to apply for membership.
Labour’s Pat McFadden, of the Open Britain group, said the “headlong rush to hard Brexit” had boosted the Nationalists, adding: “Ministers now need to deal with the very real prospect of the break-up of the Union, that many of us thought we had secured the future of in 2014.”
Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood said a vote for independence could signal “the end of the UK as a state”, adding that would mean “Wales would need to decide its own future.”
The Scotland in Union group will today launch a campaign aimed at No voters who feel angry their vote in 2014 has been ignored. Chief executive Graeme Pearson will argue a second referendum “is not inevitable” if enough people speak out. WITH the First Minister’s announcement, the next referendum campaign has begun.
The pro-independence parties have several things going for them. Brexit is being imposed on Scotland against a majority of Scottish voters.
The SNP did say in its last election manifesto that this would justify another referendum so soon after the last one. The Scottish Parliament may not have the power to call an independence referendum, but there is a precedent in the Edinburgh Agreement of 2012 for Westminster to allow them to have it.
The UK Government has opted for a hard Brexit, outside the EU single market and customs union. The Scottish Government’s proposals for a differentiated Brexit, with Scotland staying in the single market while the rest of the UK comes out, were not formally rejected but it is clear the UK was not going to accept them,
The independence side starts this long campaign at nearly 50 per cent, against the low 30s last time round. The opposition to independence is fragmented and weak. The Scottish Conservatives have staged a modest revival and may corner the core Unionist vote, but are still doing worse than they did under Margaret Thatcher.
Yet the Nationalists by no means hold all the cards. Westminster can legally refuse a Section 30 Order allowing the Scottish Parliament to hold the referendum.
The public finances are not in a good state (either in Scotland or the UK). The oil price is down and production levels are unlikely to return to their old levels. The SNP still lacks a credible plan for the currency. The idea of using the pound is even more difficult if the UK is outside the EU and Scotland is in. With Scotland in the EU and the rest of the UK outside, there would be a hard economic border between them. The whole aim of the independence in Europe strategy was to avoid this outcome on the assumption that the two parts would fall into the European safety net.
We know from our work that throughout these years Scottish voters have moved less than the headline figures would suggest. They are located somewhere in the devolution-max/ independence-lite part of the spectrum. Brexit and its hard interpretation by the UK Government have destroyed that middle ground. If the 2014 referendum represented a difficult decision, this one will be even more so. Michael Keating is Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen and Director of the Centre on Constitutional Change.