Saturday, August 21, 2021

Some thoughts on Schrodinger's Coalition

After the election in May, I was one of the very few Alba supporters who were reasonably positive about the prospect of an SNP-Green deal.  By any objective psephological standard, the SNP had just enjoyed an astoundingly good election result - on the constituency ballot, it was the best performance ever by any party in the history of the Scottish Parliament, and was also strikingly similar to the SNP landslide in the 2015 Westminster election.  But of course the London media and political establishment are always quite happy to shift the goalposts to suit themselves, and they decreed that the fact that the SNP had won 64 seats rather than 65 somehow made all the difference and prevented there being a clear-cut mandate for an indyref.  To the extent that this was a problem, it seemed to me it could be solved very simply by forming a coalition, and then, hey presto, you'd have a majority pro-independence government that clears every hurdle in terms of an unimpeachable mandate.

But the election was the best part of four months ago, and the narrative has moved on since then.  If the media and our imperial masters do not currently take the prospect of a referendum seriously, it's no longer because the SNP are one seat short of an absolute majority, it's now because the Scottish Government themselves don't seem to have much interest in a referendum at the moment.  Until that changes, then, the impact of yesterday's deal on the prospects for independence is fairly neutral.  Having a majority government may yet help the cause when and if a bit of urgency is eventually injected - although the eagerness of both sides to eccentrically portray the coalition as a non-coalition undermines any benefit, because it needlessly raises question marks over whether the government actually has majority or minority status.

There are two pieces of fiction here.  The first is that this is not a coalition government, and the second is that the 'non-coalition coalition' wheeze is unprecedented in the UK.  A coalition is simply when there are two or more parties in government together, as the SNP and Greens now will be.  It's a rather painful insult to the reader's intelligence to be told that the agreement is between the Scottish Government and the Green group, when in fact the Scottish Government will incorporate the Green group.  Treaties concluded with oneself are always the easiest sort, although it must be a concern for SNP members that, strangely, their own party is technically not even part of the agreement at all.  And there is in fact a clear precedent for this sort of Schrodinger's Coalition in the UK - in 2016, the Welsh Liberal Democrats went into government with Labour, but both parties were insistent that the arrangement fell short of a coalition.  (That was code for a coalition deal in which the Lib Dems had sold themselves very short.)

As for the content of the deal, it's good that there's a clearly-stated commitment to hold an independence referendum within the five-year term, and also with a preference for it to be within the first two-and-a-half years.  That could be important, given that the text of coalition and confidence-and-supply agreements seem to have an informal constitutional status in the Westminster system equivalent to a majority party's manifesto (ie. as part of the Salisbury Convention).  But naturally what really matters is whether there is a genuine intention to honour the pledge, or whether it is merely a nominal 'political commitment'.  The word that makes me slightly sceptical is 'secure' - the government will 'secure' a referendum, implying that it has to be granted from elsewhere, which provides a useful get-out clause if nothing ever happens.  I'd feel happier if they'd simply promised to 'hold' a referendum.

I wondered aloud yesterday whether a formal deal would really make any difference to the obsessive identity politics agenda, given that there's clearly a parliamentary majority for it anyway.  However, the commitment to reform the GRA within one year may make a difference.  If these hugely controversial plans were ever going to be scuppered, it would probably have been due to internal pressure from within the SNP to compromise and keep the party together.  But now that's less likely to happen because the SNP are bound by a two-party agreement to see it through - which of course suits the leadership down to the ground.

One of the policy areas specifically excluded from the deal is regulation of the selling of sex - the topic of the most recent Scot Goes Popcast.  That might seem like a slightly random exclusion, but as I've mentioned before there's a weird overlap between views on the trans debate and views on the Nordic Model criminalising the purchase (but theoretically decriminalising the selling) of sex.  Gender critical feminists tend to be gung-ho in favour of the Nordic Model, and trans rights activists tend to be viscerally opposed to it.  The Greens are playing their designated role, but the SNP have somehow found themselves committed on paper to both the Nordic Model and self-ID for trans people.  It could all get incredibly messy, and there certainly won't be any unity on the subject within Schrodinger's Coalition.

Different perspectives on the deal are of course also available, and our dear old friend Chris Deerin is purple with rage about the entry into government of the "most left-wing party ever to hold power in the UK" and an agreement which supposedly has the sole purpose of bringing about independence.  Such thrilling thoughts, Chris, if only I could believe a word of them.  He fumes that the deal is "unnecessary", and has only come about because Nicola Sturgeon needs more numbers to get her parliamentary business through - which is a rather odd definition of "unnecessary". In fact it's the rationale for just about every coalition government in peacetime history.

10 comments:

  1. A possible future.

    This sham of an independence seeking government will say they tried to secure a referendum but the bad boys in Westminster stopped them.

    WGD will continue to write numerous articles complaining about the bad boys in Westminster.

    At the next Scottish election the SNP will say we need a super majority of independence supporting MSPs to persuade the bad boys in Westminster to grant us a referendum so please vote both votes SNP.

    There will be no super majority of independence supporting MSPs but the numpties on WGD say great Indyref2 next year (2027) or the following year (2028).

    Eventually the penny drops even for the numpties but by this time nearly two decades have been wasted since 2014 and a good percentage of the numpties are dead.

    Other possible futures are available if you want to change course.

    ReplyDelete
  2. THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT AND SCOTTISH GREEN PARTY DRAFT SHARED POLICY PROGRAMME

    WORKING TOGETHER TO BUILD A GREENER, FAIRER, INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND

    Now if you are an independence supporter you might think sounds great. However, when you look at the contents to find the Section on Indeoendence what do you find:

    1. Introduction

    2. A democratic outward - looking Scotland

    3. Responding to the climate emergency

    4. Economic recovery and infrastructure

    5. A fairer Scotland

    6.Public services recovery and reform

    7. Our natural environment

    Independence does not merit its own section!!!!!! Indeed all we get are a few sentences in the Democratic outward looking Scotland section.

    There is however great detail on all manner of other things.

    The SNP and Greens are fraudsters gathering votes from people who want independence. They have no intention of delivering independence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is truly remarkable how numpties on WGD, like yesindyref2, can cling on to believing Sturgeon will deliver independence based on a few sentences about independence in a 51 page DRAFT policy document. Quite remarkable.

      What would they be like if there was even a half page on independence.

      Delete
    2. What is the numpty response to the fact that the policy document contains next to nothing about how independence will be achieved. You are a Unionist for questioning the lack of detail is what they say- the default response of the standard WGD numpty. The same numpties who were saying Indyref2 was coming next year in 2017, 2018, 2019,2020 and now in 2021 - who the hell knows. The SNP have made so many statements on this matter that they have covered all bases but still the numpties get all excited by a few sentences in a draft document and Russell's name on a horsebox.

      Delete
  3. It ocurs to me James that if Alba had been able to attract enough votes to win some seats then they would have wanted to be exactly where the Greens are today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not really sure what point you're making: there's nothing strange about any party seeking power or influence, although in this particular case you're wrong, because Alba specifically said they didn't want to be in government, which would have precluded this sort of deal.

      Delete
  4. NUMPTY QUOTE OF THE WEEK

    Thanks to Dakk on WGD for this:

    " The public also don't like people who make fake allegations against others. Especially against innocent people such as the incumbent PM"

    Dakk is that you Liz Lloyd.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You took me back to WGD for the first time in a long time; help ma Boab, BTL is even more of a nuthouse than I remembered..

      "Campbell, Murray, Bell, Kelly.

      You boys have taken a helluva beating being exposed as liars.

      It’s beyond embarrassing now."


      It's like Lord Of The Flies

      Delete
    2. Your quote is another Dakk attack.

      Here is another from the nutjob that is Dakk:

      "Even if any of all that Dangerfield shite was remotely believable it would still have been unforgivable."

      So this nutjob cannot refute any of the evidence but says even if is true it should just be ignored. So Sturgeon and her cronies can carry out any crime and independence supporters according to Dakk are supposed to just condone it. Not acceptable to decent people.

      Delete
  5. The numpties on WGD are complaining that the bad MSM and Alba are telling lies in saying the policy document says it will be 5 years until Indyref2. The numpties say it will be in the first half of this parliamentary term. What is the truth? Both are correct and wrong. In typical Sturgeon style the paragraph is written in such a way that it can mean anything and everything.

    Here is the paragraph:

    Therefore we will Secure a referendum on Scottish independence after the Covid crisis. This would be within the current parliamentary session on a specific date to be determined by the Scottish parliament. If the Covid crisis has passed, our intention is for the referendum to be within the first half of the five- year parliamentary session.

    What it really says is Covid will dictate the timescale. Who decides if the Covid Crisis has passed? What is the criteria for making this decision. Nothing on these questions in the document!! Some would argue the crisis has passed right now as nightclubs are open.

    Sturgeon must be having a right laugh as people argue over what this ridiculous paragraph actually says/means. Note to numpties Sturgeon is pulling your chain but you deserve each other.

    ReplyDelete