What are Nicola Sturgeon's immediate goals?

Is the press still misreading the first minister's intentions?

Common Space published the following opinion piece on Friday afternoon:

Why we should pay attention to Sturgeon's "common cause" with London remark

If we agree that this analysis of Nicola Sturgeon’s statement is correct, and at this blog we do, perhaps we should be reading the actual words in the first minister's address in more detail; in a way that the media and politicians from other parties either aren’t doing, or are pretending not to, especially given her latest gambit: "Nicola Sturgeon says MSPs at Holyrood could veto Brexit".

Here's her statement from Friday morning in full.

"As things stand, Scotland faces the prospect of being taken out of the EU against our will."

Key words: "taken out" – Translation: we're still in.  We want to stay that way.

"I regard that as democratically unacceptable"

Translation: we're using the large majority within the area of a devolved polity as our justification for that polity to stay in the EU.

"Starting this afternoon Ministers will be engaged in discussions with key stakeholders - particularly the business community"

Translation: This is aimed at you: pay attention. We're keen to retain access to the single market for you. Interested?

"emphasise that as of now we are still firmly in the EU. Trade and business should continue as normal and we are determined that Scotland will continue now and in the future to be an attractive and a stable place to do business."

Translation: Stable place. Still in EU. Do you read, business community?

"Secondly, I want to make it absolutely clear that I intend to take all possible steps and explore all options to give effect to how people in Scotland voted - in other words, to secure our continuing place in the EU and in the single market in particular."

Translation: for the slow to latch on, I’ll repeat this bit. And pay attention, I’m saying all options. So not just Indy, do you follow me?

"I will also be communicating over this weekend with each EU member state to make clear that Scotland has voted to stay in the EU - and that I intend to discuss all options for doing so."

Translation: all options. Not just Indy.

"I should say that I have also spoken this morning with Mayor Sadiq Khan and he is clear that he shares this objective for London - so there is clear common cause between us."

Translation: Just in case you still don't get this, I'm addressing these hints to the UK-wide business community, not just Scottish business. I'm saying 'how about if Scotland tries to stay in the UK and in the EU? You'd still have access to the single market.'.

On indyref 2 she says:

"It would not be right to rush to judgment ahead of discussions on how Scotland’s result will be responded to by the EU."

Translation: I've got this card but I'm not playing it yet, and maybe I don't need to.

"And we said clearly that we do not want to leave the European Union.

I am determined that we will do what it takes to make sure that these aspirations are realised."

Translation: My priority here is to stay in the EU, not necessarily independence, though I do have that option if necessary.

So she's said lots of times. "All options", indyref2 "on the table" (along with other options), and that it may be "highly likely", but if we move quickly enough maybe it's not inevitable.

She's planning an EU member region of the U.K. That's her first preference. If it has to be a stop gap, fair enough, but it doesn't have to be. That's her message, and she's sending it to UK business and European leaders, not the press.

This is intended as a message of stability to European leaders, because it potentially keeps UK business in the EU and avoids the breakup of a neighbouring state. Because the immanent alternative is UK business outside of the EU and the breakup of the UK.  Which would be more attractive to European leaders?

Remember, Denmark has two home nations outside of the EU - the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Is this slightly different? Of course. But we're not in a hypothetical situation, this is real. Here’s the idea. What do you say guys? That's her message.

To the business community in the UK, she's saying: we can keep open your access to the single market.  This is the continuity and period of calm you require.

Her biggest issue is whether the party faithful will buy the idea of Scotland as an EU member region of the UK.  But the notion that an indyref2 would automatically be won is a risky basket to put all your eggs in.  Can we be certain enough No voters were EU enthusiasts? And can we be certain that enough Yes voters will stay Yes voters in a scenario that will have a lot of challenges not relevant last time?

My best guess is that her position will eventually transpire to be that we need to steady the ship first and foremost.  That once we set up this EU-member region of the UK we can decide whether the time is right for indyref2.  We don’t yet know what effect Brexit will have on the EU.  So let’s take this a step at a time.  Will the party faithful remain gung ho for indyref2?  That’s the balancing act she needs to perform, and is perhaps partly what she had in mind when she talked about the difficulties of leadership in her statement.

The Inferiorisation of a Scottish Currency: the BBC and belittling the Pound Scots.

For time to time an article appears that shouts its subtext louder than its ostensible contents. Just such an article appeared today on the BBC News website.

It’s a piece about Prof. Gavin McCrone’s evidence to Holyrood today, giving his view that an independent Scotland should opt for a separate currency, pegged to Sterling, rather than Currency Union, as the Scottish Government prefers. So far so good, and I actually agree with McCrone on this. However, now look at the article. [Link].

The version I’m looking at is date and time stamped 7 May 2014 at 07:23.

The title of the piece is “How many unicorns do you earn?”, and below that is a large fantasy fiction style picture of the mythical beast.

After asking “How many unicorns would it take to do your weekly shopping?”, the piece begins: “This sounds like the start of a bad joke”.

The Unicorn was a gold coin used in Scotland for only 41 years, until 1525, and named for the Scottish heraldic symbol used on its obverse face. When Scotland joined the Union in 1707, the coin had been out of use for the best part of two centuries. Gavin McCrone has not suggested the Unicorn be re-introduced. Nobody has. So why bring it up? Why name an article on a modern Scots currency “How many unicorns do you earn?”, and why illustrate the piece with a large picture of the beast? (Why, if mentioning it at all, not depict the coin?)

The article was trailed on Twitter with the words: “Unicorn, groat, penny and merk. Could Scots currency make a come-back?” And again the mythical beast was pictured.

Unicorn, groat, penny and merk. Could Scots currency make a come-back? #indyref http://t.co/1OBghYO99U pic.twitter.com/BdQhu6CHNS
— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) May 7, 2014

I have covered before on this blog the practise of calling a Scots currency “Groats”. Scotland’s currency was never “Groats”. When last used in Scotland, Groats were in fact a Sterling coin. Last minted in the UK in 1856, Groats were worth four pence. They were used until withdrawn in the 1880s. They were never the name of the currency north or south of the Border. Why would Scotland call its currency “the fourpence”?

Prior to Union there was also Scots coin called the Groat, and there were variations of the name in coinage throughout Europe - The Dutch Groot, the Tyrol Groschen etc. It was a term for a thick coin, derived from the Latin adjective meaning thick or heavy, grosso. It is an antiquated coin type, once common across Europe.

People pretend they think a Scots currency would be called the Groat to belittle and ridicule the idea, and make the notion of a Scottish economy seem antiquated and obsolete. It's just a cheap shot by people who want to suggest an independent Scotland would be backwards, and a Scottish currency crude and naive.

The Unicorn was introduced to the story not by McCrone, but by BBC reporter Jamie Ross. The imagery is clear enough: the idea of having our own currency is a fantasy, and – as the opening remark tells us – “a bad joke”. This is all very familiar to those who have read Frantz Fanon; Jamie Ross is telling us that once left to our own devices by our Westminster saviours, Scotland “would at once fall back into barbarism, degradation and bestiality” (p169, Fanon, 1967, "The Wretched of the Earth"). Is he doing it on purpose? Possibly, but more likely he just knew what sort of thing would go down well: a jokey, fatuous, and patronising piece. The sort of thing no BBC reporter would ever turn in on Sterling.

Groat, Angel, Double Leopard, and Mark are all old English (and/or British) coins, of varying vintages. No BBC piece on modern Sterling would ever use up space discussing those, or illustrating the piece with pictures of angels from mythology (rather than the coin). Such an article would never get anywhere near the BBC website. But for Scottish stories, that sort of thing is exactly what is wanted. The patronising and cringe-inducing defence policy animation is another case in point.

McCrone has long advised a separate currency for an independent Scotland. He does so in his recent book “Scottish Independence: Weighing Up the Economics” (2013). It’s well worth a read. And he was quoted by the Scotsman as having favoured “the restoration of the pre-1707 pound Scots, or indeed the Merk, and it could be pegged against Sterling initially on a one-to-one basis as Ireland’s currency was.”

Why mention Merks? A merk was a Scottish silver coin, worth ⅔ of a Pound Scots. It wasn’t the name of the currency (that was Pound Scots). Perhaps McCrone was searching for a good Scots word to name the new currency, and it’s the same name the Germans used for their currency until joining the euro, after all. However he needn’t have bothered; there’s already a guid Scots word for Pound: Pund. McCrone’s slight linguistic diversion, though, is as nothing compared to the patronising flight of fancy that the BBC News website goes on. And not for the first time.

The Selective Reading of Jose Manuel Barroso by the Media and the No Camp

Like a lot of people, I didn’t see Jose Manuel Barroso live on the Andrew Marr Show on 16th February, so I initially had to go on media reports of what he had said. It therefore came as something of a surprise to me that most of what he had to say wasn’t about Scottish independence at all. It was quite a long way from just being an “intervention on the independence referendum”. He had a lot to say about the current UK government’s plans, too.

It's interesting, therefore, that the only part of what Barroso had to say that was picked up by the media was on an independent Scotland. If his opinion carries such weight, why are we not hearing about all the things that would be “difficult” or “impossible” for Cameron, too?

For example, he said it would be “difficult” and “not possible” for Cameron to renegotiate free movement of peoples, or change rules on welfare spending on migrants.

He said that "deeper fiscal union" of Bank of England with the euro was “unavoidable”.

He said Cameron’s EU referendum is “extremely difficult” and requires the unanimity of 27 countries.

He said Cameron seeking to put a cap on the number of EU citizens who can come into Britain is "complete contradiction" of the single market.

These matters that Barosso has pronounced upon have implications for Cameron now, as well as for all Unionists if there is a No vote. Why is the media not pursuing the No side on what Barroso has to say about the future of the UK?

In short, if Barroso's word is to be taken so seriously on independence, why is it not taken seriously on all these things (and more), too? And, what's more, where is all the media coverage telling us the Tories' plans on all these things are in tatters? To use BBC Radio Scotland Morning Call’s phrase, is it not a “game changer” for those matters, too?

There has been a very selective reading of Barroso, by both the media and the No camp. If he is to be taken seriously on one thing, then why not on the rest?

Here's the transcript of the full interview on the Andrew Marr Show. See for yourself: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/1602141.pdf

The BBC headlines and the Currency Shenanigans

The BBC is getting it all wrong again. To the extent of misrepresentation. The headline they have is:

Independence vote: 'Yes' means no Scottish pound, says Osborne
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26166794

No it doesn't.

1. First of all, an independent Scottish currency could be called the Pound, after all that's what it was called before 1707. Several countries call their currency the Pound. Ireland did from 1928 until they joined the Euro, changing over to Euro coins and notes in 2002. (Irish pound in English, Punt Éireannach in Irish).

Were Scotland to opt for a separate currency it would probably be called the Scottish Pound (in English), or Pund Scots (in Scots). So if Osborne gets his way, that means there would be a Scottish pound. (It's only if he doesn't that there wouldn't).

2. Even if the headline means Pound Sterling, it is still wrong. Scotland could use Sterling without formal currency union, all that would mean is that the Bank of England would not be the lender of last resort, and there would be no financial or fiscal regulation by the central bank.

3. What Osborne is actually saying is that he will veto formal currency union, effectively he will not let Scotland use the Bank of England as a lender of last resort.

4. Several commentators (including former Scottish Labour leader Henry McLeish) don't believe him anyway: there are good reasons he would reverse that post Yes. The SNP certainly says it thinks he will change his mind if there is a Yes vote.

From that BBC link:

Labour's former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish criticised the intervention by the three pro-union parties, and said Scots "shouldn't be fooled" by the suggestion that a currency union could not be worked out.

He told BBC Scotland: "This is entirely political and of course consistent with the unionist campaign. This is negative, it is about spreading fears and scare stories.

"What we require from the unionist parties is a bit of statesmanship and quite frankly their behaviour so far falls well short of that."

Iain Macwhirter, in the Herald, says that the Bank of England "doesn't want a separate currency in Scotland undermining the UK balance of payments". The Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, made it quite clear he would make currency union work if that's what both parties wanted.


So, BBC, please aim for more accuracy in your headlines and reporting.

UPDATE: the headline has now been changed to the more accurate "Yes vote 'means no money union'". Good. Missed the morning rush, though.

Cameron's Stay Speech: Ted and Dougal, or cynical Eurosong boss?

By now, you’ll have seen David Cameron’s Please Stay, Scotland, speech.

It seems so obviously counterproductive to many people that I've heard at least twice independently since Friday the theory that Cameron's actual intention was to drive people into the Yes camp. The theory goes that the Tories want to increase their chances of a majority at Westminster but have to be seen to be trying to save the Union.

It's like the Father Ted episode, "A Song for Europe". Cameron's speech is the equivalent of My Lovely Horse, original non-plagiarised version.

Surely, Cameron knew how it would play? Or did he?

So the speech might be My Lovely Horse, but the thing we need to know is this: do we have David Cameron in the role of the cynical Irish Eurosong boss, Charles Hedges, who is trying to throw the competition so that Ireland doesn’t have the expense of hosting the competition, or is he the self-unaware Ted and Dougal, caught up in Eurosong fever, who actually think they can win?

Which would you rather the prime minister was?



Tories, nil points.
Tories, nada.
Tories, keine Punkte.
Tories, nurda proken.
Tories, nil punten.
Tories, nurda purda.
Tories, niet puntalete.

We Can Defend the Welfare State: We Can Vote “Yes”.

I have no great faith in politicians. They seldom live up to the hopes of the electorate, but instead spend their time and effort in protecting privilege and thwarting democracy.

When progress is made, it is usually made despite politicians, as a result of an unstoppable tide of demands they can no longer stem, at moments in which the state realises that compromise is necessary.

The Welfare State is a case in point. It was won through pressure from ordinary working people who returned from war seeking a new settlement, determined that post-war Britain would be different, and that as a result of fighting and beating fascism, they had also won the right to protection from “Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness”.

The state had no option but to acquiesce to this compromise between labour and capital; the decades of struggle by ordinary working people had laid the groundwork, but the moment that those concessions were won was when the state realised that the determination of people emerging from war, whether abroad or on the Home Front, was not something they could resist.

The Welfare State is indeed an achievement to be cherished. But it is coming undone. The recent assault on it by the Coalition government, starting with Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review in 2010 – but which he has promised to deepen and extend – is but the latest round of attacks on that hard-won post-war settlement.

The attacks began in the 1970s, deepened under Margaret Thatcher, and were continued by Blair and Brown.

However, while both Blair and Brown showed that they could not be trusted to defend the post-war settlement, the current Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition has shocked with the ferocity with which it has privatised and cut. The Royal Mail was sold off at a bargain basement price; the NHS in England is being sold off bit by bit to companies that many government ministers have stakes in, and the protections that the post-war generation won for us are being dismantled.

The firestorm rages on. And yet election after election and poll after poll amply demonstrates that public opinion in Scotland does not support any of this.

Let me back up here for a moment. I’m talking about “the people of Scotland”, so what do I mean by that? I simply mean people who live in Scotland, wherever they may have been born.

But what can people who live in Scotland do to stop these attacks on the post-war settlement? For three decades and more every Westminster government – Tory, Labour, or Tories aided by Lib-Dems – has continued the assault.

However, we do have an opportunity in front of us. The independence referendum provides us with a tool that could be used to defend the welfare state in Scotland.

I am not naive enough to think that Scottish politicians area different breed. But I do think that a Yes vote will be another of those moments when politicians will be faced with the determination of the people. They will see that a Yes vote is as much a reaction against the culture of privatisation as it is anything else. They will see that the major driver behind the desire for independence is a rejection of the rightward drift of British politics. No incoming government of an independent Scotland will be able to turn back that tide.

What of those who might say that we who live in Scotland are abandoning those who live in England; that we may be defending ourselves, but what of our friends in England? Well, that is a counsel of despair; a race to the bottom. It does none of us any good to lie down together to resign ourselves all to decades more of continued state withdrawal from social welfare provision, privatisation and ever rightward drift. We can and should call a halt here. We have only ourselves to blame if we do not take this opportunity.

A Yes vote is, then, a major step in defence of ordinary working people in Scotland. But it is also something else: it is a beacon of hope for people in England, who will see that it is possible to resist the rightward advance of British politics; that the determined will of the people can win concessions; and that the post-war settlement can be defended. It is therefore not only to ourselves here in Scotland that we owe the responsibility to take this stance; to vote “Yes” and defend the welfare state. We must do it for all in these islands.

Reviewed: Jim Sillars' In Place of Fear II

By choosing the title In Place of Fear II, Sillars is deliberately positioning himself on the Bevanite left, which will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Sillars’ history. In the book he specifically says that his programme is designed to be to the left of anything the Labour Party has done in government. He says this to place distance between himself and those former Bevanites who later led Labour Governments.

As a personal statement it may make sense, but as a public statement it’s puzzling as to why Sillars has chosen this language. I doubt that many people still read In Place of Fear, and yet many of the terms Sillars uses depend upon the reader being familiar with the 1952 original.

Sillars writes that his intention is to “replace the weakness and latent insecurity of labour by controlling capital in the interests of the general community” (p21). To that end, he proposes a mixed economy with nationalisation where strategically necessary (for example, in the unlikely event that whisky manufacturers were to walk away), or where necessary as a tool for redistribution, but resurrects Bevan’s notion of state control of the “commanding heights” of the economy rather than a full-scale policy of nationalisation. He acknowledges that the economy today differs from that of Bevan’s day, but suggests that there are still “important heights” to be conquered in the “workers’ interests”. In a Bevanite turn of phrase, he says “[...] audacity in the face of orthodoxy can make a difference in the power equation between capital and labour.”(p23).

As an example of this control of the commanding heights, arguing that the oil take needs to be greater than what comes from taxes alone, Sillars proposes a Scottish National Oil Corporation, with the right to a stake of 10% in the production and profit from each company operating under licences “up to and including the 27th Round. Thereafter, in any future Round, the stake will be 25%”. (p58). He says that the “idea that when challenged via taxation or regulatory policies or laws to protect workers, all global companies will up stakes and depart for elsewhere, is infantile.” (pp18/19).

Sillars’ language is rooted in the era of Bevan. He doesn’t talk about neoliberalism, but refers always to capitalism. He writes: “When workers withdraw their labour, there is a great stramash with warnings of the economic cost to the national GDP. A ‘strike’ of capital is hardly remarked upon”. (p20). For Sillars, the lesson of the October 2013 INEOS ‘closure’ at Grangemouth is that “the socialist ethic of public good above all must again be embraced”.

His goal is to analyse where power lies, and how in an independent Scotland workers can take power into their own hands. In this, like Bevin, he aims to be “realistic” and to make sure that his proposals are “achievable”. The answers he comes to are not always the ones I’d come to. But his stanch condemnation of global capitalism is refreshing to read. He remains that rare bread, a conviction politician. Time and again he refers to the moral purpose of socialism, and to the principles of redistribution of both wealth and control.

As well as the Bevanite programme, Sillars believes that Salmond’s policy of a Sterling Zone currency union is an own goal. He points out that businesses in Scotland will trade via Sterling if they want to, currency union or not. He argues for Scottish membership of EFTA rather than the EU (he has revised his “Independence in Europe” view, which he says fitted conditions in the 80s but not now). He argues for renationalisation of the railways, endorsing Kevin Lindsay in the Red Paper on Scotland 2014: “simply wait until the TOC franchise runs out, and take it into public ownership at no cost” (p80).

He does not, however, argue for all public utilities to be taken back into public control, not, it seems, because he is averse to the principle, but because “these companies obtained their positions legitimately in law” and that there is no “prospect on cost grounds alone for wholesale nationalisation”. Instead there will be “commanding heights” stakes of 15% in electricity and gas companies and a new Act to change company law. This is a taste of the measures Sillars suggests. I won’t enumerate them all here.

This little book is a manifesto, but it is a manifesto with a difference: there is no party proposing it as a programme. It differs a great deal from the SNP white paper, although Sillars remains an SNP member. And yet here is the intriguing part: the book mentions Sillars’ old SLP several times, and he thanks former SLP comrades, although not his old SLP side-kick, Alex Neil, now very much part of the Salmond project. Sillars specifically says that a Yes vote is not necessarily an endorsement of the SNP and a vote for “change but no change”.

Sillars is putting forward an old school democratic socialist programme, the type of programme that many once looked to the Labour Party to implement (and which, as Sillars points out, they always failed in power to achieve). But who is he hoping will carry it into being? I think he is staking out the ground for a split in the SNP post “Yes”. His mention of old SLP comrades is telling: he is saying to the socialists of the SNP: “ditch the Salmond project once a Yes vote has been delivered. Here is a direction we can take instead”.

Reading:

Jim Sillars, (2014), IN PLACE OF FEAR II, Glasgow: Vagabond Voices.

Drucker, H. M.,(1978), Breakaway: The Scottish Labour Party, Edinburgh: EUSPB.