So just a quick postscript to the previous post about the ludicrous misreporting of the independence figures from the Progress Scotland poll. I was taking a peek at Conservative Home yesterday, and I stumbled across an article from the chap who mans their Colonial Desk (ie. he writes an occasional round-up of what might loosely be described as "news" from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so that no-one else has to acknowledge the existence of a UK beyond England). Towards the bottom of the piece was a mention of a mysterious poll that purportedly shows a "collapse" in support for Scottish independence - and yes, it turns out that I was far too generous to the Sun newspaper the other day, because at the time I was only aware of an article in which they had falsely claimed that the poll shows a "drop" in Yes support. Thanks to ConHome, I now realise there was another one that really did claim the poll shows a "dramatic collapse" for Yes.
The reality, as you'll recall, is that the Progress Scotland poll asked about independence in a completely new way, meaning there are no baseline figures to measure trends from. It's literally impossible to tell from the poll whether support for independence has gone up, down, or stayed static. Claiming a "dramatic collapse" on that basis is rather akin to saying that Neil Armstrong was much fatter than the previous man to have walked on the moon. But our plucky ConHome correspondent wasn't about to let troublesome things like facts get in his way - oh no, he was perfectly content to accept the Sun's outlandish claims as genuine, and gleefully seized upon the poll as proof that the "fragile Union" narrative is actually a "myth". You reach the stage where all you can do is point and laugh at these people. If the only comfort blanket they've got is a tabloid newspaper telling porkies about an opinion poll, they're really not in a good place. It's no more or less risible than Anas Sarwar brandishing his famous "top secret document" prop when all else failed.
Someone called "CMac11" left a comment on the previous blogpost and effortlessly solved the mystery of why the question format used by Progress Scotland appeared to produce lower support for independence than what we're used to from more conventional polling. He/she pointed out that no fewer than 17% of Yes voters in the poll rated themselves as ten on a scale of zero to ten, which supposedly indicated that they "completely support Scotland staying part of the UK". Self-evidently, that is an utterly implausible figure. In the whole five years since the independence referendum, I've met literally one single person who has converted from being a Yes voter in 2014 to being a committed Brit Nat now, and he only made that journey because of an idiosyncratic obsession with the named person scheme. Much more likely is that people who are no longer sure about indy would place themselves somewhere in the middle of the zero-to-ten scale. We can see how improbable a swing from one extreme to the other is from the fact that just 3% of No voters placed themselves at zero on the scale, meaning that they "completely support Scotland becoming independent".
Normally we can only speculate about the causes of seemingly illogical poll results, but this is an exception. It's blindingly obvious what's happened here. A significant minority of Yes voters clearly misread the question and thought they were indicating total support for independence (rather than total opposition) by rating themselves as ten on the scale. Why did only Yes voters make that mistake? Because it's natural to think that the higher end of the scale is intended to represent the maximum support for your own preferred position. No voters who made that assumption were correct, while Yes voters who made the same assumption were wrong. If the figures are adjusted on the reasonable assumption that approximately 14% of Yes voters mistakenly rated themselves as ten on the scale, that in itself would mean the poll underestimated support for independence by around 5% - enough to take us into roughly the same territory as the conventional polls.
So it's not just that it's impossible to compare this poll with previous independence polls and detect a trend. The poll itself is also an outright dud - albeit only in respect of the key question on support for indy, where something appears to have gone very badly wrong by complete accident. The next time you see a journalist or unionist politician point to this dud poll as proof that their "precious Union" is safe, do please try to keep a straight face.
Saturday, April 6, 2019
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Clueless Sun newspaper left red-faced after being caught wrongly telling readers that support for independence has "dropped"
A couple of nights ago, someone left a comment on this blog asking me to write about the numbers from the new Progress Scotland poll on support for independence. I wasn't sure what he/she meant, because none of the reporting I'd seen on that poll mentioned any direct question about independence. I checked the Progress Scotland website and there was no clue there (and frustratingly there was no link to any datasets). The mystery deepened when The Sun started reporting that the poll supposedly showed Yes support had "dropped below 40%". At that point my propaganda detector started buzzing very loudly and I was fairly convinced that things were not quite as they seemed, but obviously it was hard to comment until I actually saw the relevant part of the poll. I was finally pointed in the right direction by Denise last night - the datasets had been on the Survation website all along. (In fairness to myself I had already looked there, but the archive section is a bit confusing.)
And the verdict? You probably won't faint with amazement upon learning that The Sun have been telling you porkies. The lie is not the suggestion that the poll shows support for independence at below 40% - that can just about be justified at a stretch, albeit it's somewhat misleading. No, the lie is the claim that Yes support has "dropped" in the poll, and that there are serious implications for Nicola Sturgeon, indyref2, etc, etc. This implies that there are comparable polls from the recent past which showed much higher support for independence - in fact, there haven't been any such polls. The Progress Scotland poll asked respondents about their views on independence in a novel way, and also asked them to give their answers in a novel way by rating their support or opposition to independence on a scale of 0 to 10. There is nothing to compare the results to - which means that support for independence may have risen, or it may have fallen, or it may have stayed exactly the same. The poll gives us absolutely no clues to trends whatsoever. But what we do know is that a Survation poll a few weeks ago, which asked the independence question in the conventional Yes/No manner, showed Yes support holding steady in the mid-40s. It's therefore not unreasonable to work from the assumption that nothing much has changed, at least until we see the slightest scrap of evidence to the contrary. The likelihood is that a conventional independence poll conducted now would show a no change position, and that a poll with a 0-10 format conducted a few weeks or months ago would have produced much the same results as the Progress Scotland poll.
Now, let's be fair - it's theoretically possible that there has been a sudden and inexplicable drop in the Yes vote in the few weeks since the Survation poll. But there are two possible explanations for the Progress Scotland numbers being so different from the norm - a) a real drop, and b) the use of a radically different question and answer format. As b) is so obviously the simplest and most natural explanation, the onus must surely be on The Sun to substantiate their outlandish claims. My own question would be whether they were deliberately pulling the wool over their readers' eyes, or whether they really were totally oblivious to the fact that they were comparing apples with oranges. I've learned from experience never to exclude the possibility of utter journalistic cluelessness.
So why might the different poll format have such a dramatic effect on people's answers? It may be the reference to "staying part of the UK" - there are plenty of precedents for polls that use that sort of language producing much more No-friendly results. Or it could be that soft voters in the middle, or undecided voters, react differently when they're not presented with a binary choice. Either way, we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that the poll is picking up underlying resistance to independence in a way that conventional polls have not. If the Yes/No polls had been that far out in 2014, the eventual Yes vote would have been nowhere near as high as 45%. It's true that the polls did overestimate Yes, but not by much, and it's possible that some or all of that discrepancy can be very simply explained by differential turnout.
Oh, and as for Pamela Nash and Scotland in Union taunting Progress Scotland for selectively withholding the least favourable results from the poll, the words pot, kettle and black spring to mind.
* * *
I was contacted on Twitter last night for my views on whether SNP voters in the forthcoming Leith Walk by-election should use their lower preferences. Answer: yes! Your lower preferences will not be taken into account unless the SNP candidate is eliminated before the final two, but in the unlikely event that it pans out that way, I'm sure most of us would have a view on whether we'd rather have a Green councillor or a unionist councillor. (The Greens are strong in the ward.) The rule of thumb is always the same with the STV voting system - use as many preferences as you feel able to, because you'll never be doing any harm, and you'll sometimes be doing a lot of good.
And the verdict? You probably won't faint with amazement upon learning that The Sun have been telling you porkies. The lie is not the suggestion that the poll shows support for independence at below 40% - that can just about be justified at a stretch, albeit it's somewhat misleading. No, the lie is the claim that Yes support has "dropped" in the poll, and that there are serious implications for Nicola Sturgeon, indyref2, etc, etc. This implies that there are comparable polls from the recent past which showed much higher support for independence - in fact, there haven't been any such polls. The Progress Scotland poll asked respondents about their views on independence in a novel way, and also asked them to give their answers in a novel way by rating their support or opposition to independence on a scale of 0 to 10. There is nothing to compare the results to - which means that support for independence may have risen, or it may have fallen, or it may have stayed exactly the same. The poll gives us absolutely no clues to trends whatsoever. But what we do know is that a Survation poll a few weeks ago, which asked the independence question in the conventional Yes/No manner, showed Yes support holding steady in the mid-40s. It's therefore not unreasonable to work from the assumption that nothing much has changed, at least until we see the slightest scrap of evidence to the contrary. The likelihood is that a conventional independence poll conducted now would show a no change position, and that a poll with a 0-10 format conducted a few weeks or months ago would have produced much the same results as the Progress Scotland poll.
Now, let's be fair - it's theoretically possible that there has been a sudden and inexplicable drop in the Yes vote in the few weeks since the Survation poll. But there are two possible explanations for the Progress Scotland numbers being so different from the norm - a) a real drop, and b) the use of a radically different question and answer format. As b) is so obviously the simplest and most natural explanation, the onus must surely be on The Sun to substantiate their outlandish claims. My own question would be whether they were deliberately pulling the wool over their readers' eyes, or whether they really were totally oblivious to the fact that they were comparing apples with oranges. I've learned from experience never to exclude the possibility of utter journalistic cluelessness.
So why might the different poll format have such a dramatic effect on people's answers? It may be the reference to "staying part of the UK" - there are plenty of precedents for polls that use that sort of language producing much more No-friendly results. Or it could be that soft voters in the middle, or undecided voters, react differently when they're not presented with a binary choice. Either way, we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that the poll is picking up underlying resistance to independence in a way that conventional polls have not. If the Yes/No polls had been that far out in 2014, the eventual Yes vote would have been nowhere near as high as 45%. It's true that the polls did overestimate Yes, but not by much, and it's possible that some or all of that discrepancy can be very simply explained by differential turnout.
Oh, and as for Pamela Nash and Scotland in Union taunting Progress Scotland for selectively withholding the least favourable results from the poll, the words pot, kettle and black spring to mind.
* * *
I was contacted on Twitter last night for my views on whether SNP voters in the forthcoming Leith Walk by-election should use their lower preferences. Answer: yes! Your lower preferences will not be taken into account unless the SNP candidate is eliminated before the final two, but in the unlikely event that it pans out that way, I'm sure most of us would have a view on whether we'd rather have a Green councillor or a unionist councillor. (The Greens are strong in the ward.) The rule of thumb is always the same with the STV voting system - use as many preferences as you feel able to, because you'll never be doing any harm, and you'll sometimes be doing a lot of good.
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
The reason why nobody can agree on what Theresa May just said is that she said everything and nothing simultaneously
I now understand why Tory MPs come out of meetings with Theresa May and can't agree on what she said, because her statement tonight was full of ambiguities and half-contradictions, and everyone is remembering only the bits they want to remember. For instance...
* She said that a further Article 50 extension would have to be very short, and any solution agreed would have to be legislated for by 22nd May to avoid holding European elections. But she also said the extension should last until a deal has been passed. So will the request be for an open-ended extension, or another very short cliff-edge extension? If the EU rejects the 22nd May deadline, is she saying she would accept a longer extension? And if the answer to the latter question is "no" or "don't know", how can anyone say that No Deal has been ruled out?
* She said that if she and Corbyn can't agree on a specific blueprint, they'll instead try to agree on a range of options to be put before parliament. She also said that she would abide by any decision parliament makes. But is she only committing to accepting parliament's wishes if they're expressed during the government's own proposed process, or does the promise also apply to go-it-alone initiatives by the Commons, such as Letwin's indicative votes?
My speculation last night about a general election on 23rd May didn't survive long, because there won't be enough time for that after May has tried this latest approach. But one thing that was clear from her statement is that any agreement with Corbyn would have to be a bolt-on to the existing withdrawal agreement. And the DUP have already stated that if the withdrawal agreement is passed with the backstop intact, they will withdraw support for the government. So whichever way Brexit is heading, it's hard to see how an election can be long delayed.
* She said that a further Article 50 extension would have to be very short, and any solution agreed would have to be legislated for by 22nd May to avoid holding European elections. But she also said the extension should last until a deal has been passed. So will the request be for an open-ended extension, or another very short cliff-edge extension? If the EU rejects the 22nd May deadline, is she saying she would accept a longer extension? And if the answer to the latter question is "no" or "don't know", how can anyone say that No Deal has been ruled out?
* She said that if she and Corbyn can't agree on a specific blueprint, they'll instead try to agree on a range of options to be put before parliament. She also said that she would abide by any decision parliament makes. But is she only committing to accepting parliament's wishes if they're expressed during the government's own proposed process, or does the promise also apply to go-it-alone initiatives by the Commons, such as Letwin's indicative votes?
My speculation last night about a general election on 23rd May didn't survive long, because there won't be enough time for that after May has tried this latest approach. But one thing that was clear from her statement is that any agreement with Corbyn would have to be a bolt-on to the existing withdrawal agreement. And the DUP have already stated that if the withdrawal agreement is passed with the backstop intact, they will withdraw support for the government. So whichever way Brexit is heading, it's hard to see how an election can be long delayed.
Tonight's votes reveal that the SNP are not uncompromising Remain ultras - they just have red lines, which they've rightly stuck to
So a few quick thoughts on tonight's parliamentary votes. I was surprised that all four motions were voted down, because with Labour whipping in favour of three of them it seemed likely that at least one would scrape through, or possibly two, or possibly even three. But those three were all pretty close.
The customs union only proposal was defeated by three votes, with TIG and the DUP voting against, the SNP abstaining, and the Lib Dems splitting three ways. Given the SNP's red lines, I wouldn't have thought there's any prospect of them switching to outright support for this motion if it comes back (and rightly so), although it could pass if either TIG or the DUP switch to abstaining. It was so close to being a dead heat tonight that in theory it wouldn't actually need an entire party to switch - even just a couple of individual MPs changing their minds could swing the balance. On the other hand, there would be nothing to stop the SNP voting against next time to make sure it doesn't pass.
The referendum proposal failed by just 12 votes, with the SNP, TIG and the Lib Dems all voting in favour, as you'd expect, and the DUP voting against. It's much harder to see where the extra votes are going to come from to get this one over the line, because there is no party that is realistically going to reverse its position. The closeness of tonight's vote seems a bit artificial in any case, because the Cabinet were instructed to abstain, and presumably they would break (either wholly or mostly) against a referendum if it ever came to a binding vote.
The Common Market 2.0 proposal, which is better described as the softest Brexit on offer tonight, was defeated by 21 votes, and strangely enough the SNP and TIG voted in opposite ways on this one - the SNP actively voted in favour and TIG actively voted against. So Kenny "Devo or Death" Farquharson will be disappointed at this vivid demonstration that TIG, and not the SNP, are the real Remain ultras. The SNP are perfectly prepared to compromise on a soft Brexit that is actually consistent with their red lines, which the customs union-only proposal is not. Theoretically if TIG change sides on Common Market 2.0 it would pass by 1 vote, although a) it's hard to imagine that they will back off from their distinctively hardline stance, and b) there's no guarantee that everyone else will vote in exactly the same way if the motion does come back. Once again, the Lib Dems were split three ways on this vote, which is a peculiar division on strategy and principle for a traditionally pro-European party.
The requirement-to-revoke proposal was doomed to defeat as soon as Labour declined to whip in favour of it, and sure enough it failed by 101 votes. Keir Starmer will have lost a lot of friends tonight with his condescending (and frankly baffling) reply to Joanna Cherry when she challenged him on Labour's stance.
Having an interest in political history, I quite enjoyed watching Nick Boles theatrically announce his departure from the Conservative party and then physically walk away from the Tory benches. I believe he's the first MP to cross the floor in that very literal sense since Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected from the Tories to the SDP in 1981. (I said on Twitter that it was in 1982, but according to Wikipedia it happened a year earlier.) There may have been a more recent example than that, but I can't think of one off the top of my head. Although according to Boles' tweet, he's going to continue calling himself an "Independent Progressive Conservative" rather than joining a different party or group, so it remains to be seen whether he'll return to the Tory benches out of habit or sit with the opposition.
Either way, the Commons arithmetic has just got even tighter...
Conservatives 314
Labour 245
SNP 35
Independent Group 11
Liberal Democrats 11
DUP 10
Sinn Féin 7
Plaid Cymru 4
Greens 1
Independents 11
Excluding the abstentionist Sinn Féin, that works out as...
Conservatives + DUP: 324
Combined Opposition: 318
Even on the confidence and supply arrangement which the DUP happily ignore when it suits them, that's an effective government majority of just six. A Labour win in the Newport West by-election is likely to reduce it to five. In days of old, anything below ten wasn't really considered a "working majority" at all. Whatever happens from here, a general election before this calendar year is out is surely going to be extremely hard to avoid. This parliament is simply not viable.
* * *
UPDATE: Just a passing thought - if Theresa May feels she has no option left but to seek a further Article 50 extension for the specific purpose of calling a general election, I wonder if we might end up going to the polls on 23rd May, ie. the same day on which the European elections would take place if they're held. Probably the most effective way of minimising the embarrassment of having to hold European elections is to drown out coverage of them with a general election campaign.
If both elections are on the same day, it would also hugely boost turnout for the Euro-election, which might prevent UKIP and Farage's new Brexit Party from reaping the benefits of a differential turnout.
The customs union only proposal was defeated by three votes, with TIG and the DUP voting against, the SNP abstaining, and the Lib Dems splitting three ways. Given the SNP's red lines, I wouldn't have thought there's any prospect of them switching to outright support for this motion if it comes back (and rightly so), although it could pass if either TIG or the DUP switch to abstaining. It was so close to being a dead heat tonight that in theory it wouldn't actually need an entire party to switch - even just a couple of individual MPs changing their minds could swing the balance. On the other hand, there would be nothing to stop the SNP voting against next time to make sure it doesn't pass.
The referendum proposal failed by just 12 votes, with the SNP, TIG and the Lib Dems all voting in favour, as you'd expect, and the DUP voting against. It's much harder to see where the extra votes are going to come from to get this one over the line, because there is no party that is realistically going to reverse its position. The closeness of tonight's vote seems a bit artificial in any case, because the Cabinet were instructed to abstain, and presumably they would break (either wholly or mostly) against a referendum if it ever came to a binding vote.
The Common Market 2.0 proposal, which is better described as the softest Brexit on offer tonight, was defeated by 21 votes, and strangely enough the SNP and TIG voted in opposite ways on this one - the SNP actively voted in favour and TIG actively voted against. So Kenny "Devo or Death" Farquharson will be disappointed at this vivid demonstration that TIG, and not the SNP, are the real Remain ultras. The SNP are perfectly prepared to compromise on a soft Brexit that is actually consistent with their red lines, which the customs union-only proposal is not. Theoretically if TIG change sides on Common Market 2.0 it would pass by 1 vote, although a) it's hard to imagine that they will back off from their distinctively hardline stance, and b) there's no guarantee that everyone else will vote in exactly the same way if the motion does come back. Once again, the Lib Dems were split three ways on this vote, which is a peculiar division on strategy and principle for a traditionally pro-European party.
The requirement-to-revoke proposal was doomed to defeat as soon as Labour declined to whip in favour of it, and sure enough it failed by 101 votes. Keir Starmer will have lost a lot of friends tonight with his condescending (and frankly baffling) reply to Joanna Cherry when she challenged him on Labour's stance.
Having an interest in political history, I quite enjoyed watching Nick Boles theatrically announce his departure from the Conservative party and then physically walk away from the Tory benches. I believe he's the first MP to cross the floor in that very literal sense since Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler defected from the Tories to the SDP in 1981. (I said on Twitter that it was in 1982, but according to Wikipedia it happened a year earlier.) There may have been a more recent example than that, but I can't think of one off the top of my head. Although according to Boles' tweet, he's going to continue calling himself an "Independent Progressive Conservative" rather than joining a different party or group, so it remains to be seen whether he'll return to the Tory benches out of habit or sit with the opposition.
Either way, the Commons arithmetic has just got even tighter...
Conservatives 314
Labour 245
SNP 35
Independent Group 11
Liberal Democrats 11
DUP 10
Sinn Féin 7
Plaid Cymru 4
Greens 1
Independents 11
Excluding the abstentionist Sinn Féin, that works out as...
Conservatives + DUP: 324
Combined Opposition: 318
Even on the confidence and supply arrangement which the DUP happily ignore when it suits them, that's an effective government majority of just six. A Labour win in the Newport West by-election is likely to reduce it to five. In days of old, anything below ten wasn't really considered a "working majority" at all. Whatever happens from here, a general election before this calendar year is out is surely going to be extremely hard to avoid. This parliament is simply not viable.
* * *
UPDATE: Just a passing thought - if Theresa May feels she has no option left but to seek a further Article 50 extension for the specific purpose of calling a general election, I wonder if we might end up going to the polls on 23rd May, ie. the same day on which the European elections would take place if they're held. Probably the most effective way of minimising the embarrassment of having to hold European elections is to drown out coverage of them with a general election campaign.
If both elections are on the same day, it would also hugely boost turnout for the Euro-election, which might prevent UKIP and Farage's new Brexit Party from reaping the benefits of a differential turnout.
Monday, April 1, 2019
In a post-ideological world, what brings politicians together in a common endeavour? Apparently, it's the name "Alexander".
You might remember that after the launch of the Independent Group a few weeks ago, Chris "in the works" Deerin penned a notorious article that revealed the breakaway Labour MPs understood full well that they would need a "different strategy in Scotland" and that they had even invited Ruth Davidson to be their leader. Obviously they had made the schoolboy error of believing the journalistic propaganda that Davidson is some kind of "centrist" bridge-builder, rather than the tribalistic zealot we all know and love. Having got nowhere with an obviously doomed Plan A, we now know what the wacky Plan B for a "different strategy in Scotland" is - and it looks suspiciously like putting four political has-beens in a room together and calling them a political party.
Today's Scotsman reveals that Labour siblings Douglas Alexander and Wendy Alexander (former Shadow Foreign Secretary and Scottish Labour leader respectively), their Lib Dem namesake Danny Alexander (former Chief Secretary to the Treasury), and the former Tory MEP Struan Stevenson, have all left their parties to form a loose new grouping known temporarily as "the Scottish Independents", which will now seek formal registration with the Electoral Commission as a fully-fledged party, with a permanent name to be determined. The Scotsman piece is predictably breathless in portraying the new outfit as more "heavyweight" than the Independent Group, boasting as it does two former UK Cabinet ministers and a former party leader. Well...up to a point, Lord Copper. What matters far more is that none of them are current elected representatives, which makes the whole "breakaway" concept a bit phony and very easy for the general public to ignore.
Douglas Alexander, who appears to be the group's unofficial spokesman/leader, has innocently dismissed any suggestion that they are a Scottish front organisation for the Independent Group, but admits that they were "inspired" by the actions of Chuka and co, and that it would be "prudent" for the Independent Group and the Scottish Independents to avoid standing candidates against each other, and that "it may be appropriate to consider" a CDU-CSU type relationship. Decoded, that appears to mean that in the unlikely event that the Scottish Independents get candidates elected as MPs, they would sit as part of the Independent Group in parliament, but would be free to pose as a nominally separate party in their occasional forays home and in election campaigns.
As you'd expect, Alexander has also provided some vacuous, waffly quotes about people from different political "traditions" coming together to break free from the shackles of "increasingly outdated ideologies", although it appears the one dated ideology that hasn't yet outlived its usefulness for him is rabid British nationalism. You do have to wonder: if these self-styled centrists truly believe we're living in a post-ideological world, what is the common denominator that will in future bring politicians together under the same umbrella? In this case 'having the same surname' seems to be the only obvious commonality - which must leave poor Struan Stevenson feeling like a second class citizen.
My ears pricked up when Alexander mentioned a specially commissioned YouGov poll that supposedly shows considerable public appetite for a new centrist, anti-independence party in Scotland. I've managed to track the poll down in an obscure corner of the YouGov website, and you won't be surprised to hear that the results are not quite as Alexander portrays them - just 18% of respondents say they would "consider" voting for the Scottish Independents, while 52% would not. That's strikingly close to the percentage of people who said in a similar poll back in 2007 that they would "consider" voting for Archie Stirling's Scottish Voice party. If you've never heard of Scottish Voice, there's a good reason for that.
I was particularly tickled by this supplementary question...
There is currently a fashion for the names of new political parties to echo the names of their founders. For instance, the French governing party En Marche has the same initials as Emmanuel Macron, and the new British party Change UK has the same initials as Chuka Umunna. Which of the following names for Scotland's new party do you prefer?
DA Party: 4%
Alexandria: 7%
Alexanders the Great: 2%
I do not believe that the name should be a nod to the fact that two of the party's founders have the initials DA, or that three of them share the surname Alexander: 61%
I have to say the Alexanders would be well advised to listen to the public on this one. If they're crazy enough to call themselves "DA Party", they'll be inevitably dubbed "yer da". And as for "Alexanders the Great"...well, where do you even start?
* * *
Just a quick note to let you know that you can see a sneak preview of my column for the latest issue of iScot, along with information on how to purchase a digital or print copy, by clicking HERE.
Today's Scotsman reveals that Labour siblings Douglas Alexander and Wendy Alexander (former Shadow Foreign Secretary and Scottish Labour leader respectively), their Lib Dem namesake Danny Alexander (former Chief Secretary to the Treasury), and the former Tory MEP Struan Stevenson, have all left their parties to form a loose new grouping known temporarily as "the Scottish Independents", which will now seek formal registration with the Electoral Commission as a fully-fledged party, with a permanent name to be determined. The Scotsman piece is predictably breathless in portraying the new outfit as more "heavyweight" than the Independent Group, boasting as it does two former UK Cabinet ministers and a former party leader. Well...up to a point, Lord Copper. What matters far more is that none of them are current elected representatives, which makes the whole "breakaway" concept a bit phony and very easy for the general public to ignore.
Douglas Alexander, who appears to be the group's unofficial spokesman/leader, has innocently dismissed any suggestion that they are a Scottish front organisation for the Independent Group, but admits that they were "inspired" by the actions of Chuka and co, and that it would be "prudent" for the Independent Group and the Scottish Independents to avoid standing candidates against each other, and that "it may be appropriate to consider" a CDU-CSU type relationship. Decoded, that appears to mean that in the unlikely event that the Scottish Independents get candidates elected as MPs, they would sit as part of the Independent Group in parliament, but would be free to pose as a nominally separate party in their occasional forays home and in election campaigns.
As you'd expect, Alexander has also provided some vacuous, waffly quotes about people from different political "traditions" coming together to break free from the shackles of "increasingly outdated ideologies", although it appears the one dated ideology that hasn't yet outlived its usefulness for him is rabid British nationalism. You do have to wonder: if these self-styled centrists truly believe we're living in a post-ideological world, what is the common denominator that will in future bring politicians together under the same umbrella? In this case 'having the same surname' seems to be the only obvious commonality - which must leave poor Struan Stevenson feeling like a second class citizen.
My ears pricked up when Alexander mentioned a specially commissioned YouGov poll that supposedly shows considerable public appetite for a new centrist, anti-independence party in Scotland. I've managed to track the poll down in an obscure corner of the YouGov website, and you won't be surprised to hear that the results are not quite as Alexander portrays them - just 18% of respondents say they would "consider" voting for the Scottish Independents, while 52% would not. That's strikingly close to the percentage of people who said in a similar poll back in 2007 that they would "consider" voting for Archie Stirling's Scottish Voice party. If you've never heard of Scottish Voice, there's a good reason for that.
I was particularly tickled by this supplementary question...
There is currently a fashion for the names of new political parties to echo the names of their founders. For instance, the French governing party En Marche has the same initials as Emmanuel Macron, and the new British party Change UK has the same initials as Chuka Umunna. Which of the following names for Scotland's new party do you prefer?
DA Party: 4%
Alexandria: 7%
Alexanders the Great: 2%
I do not believe that the name should be a nod to the fact that two of the party's founders have the initials DA, or that three of them share the surname Alexander: 61%
I have to say the Alexanders would be well advised to listen to the public on this one. If they're crazy enough to call themselves "DA Party", they'll be inevitably dubbed "yer da". And as for "Alexanders the Great"...well, where do you even start?
* * *
Just a quick note to let you know that you can see a sneak preview of my column for the latest issue of iScot, along with information on how to purchase a digital or print copy, by clicking HERE.
Friday, March 29, 2019
The Clackmannanshire result demonstrates the limits of unionist tactical voting
Local by-elections in Scotland are conducted by Single Transferable Vote (which to all intents and purposes functions like the Alternative Vote if only one councillor is being elected), meaning that the SNP's huge 9% lead over Labour in the first count in Clackmannanshire Central did not guarantee them victory. Labour and the Tories had almost 52% of the first preference vote between them, which means that Labour would have won with a bit to spare if every Tory voter had ranked Labour higher than the SNP in their lower preferences. In practice, it would have been obvious as soon as the result of the first count was announced that the SNP were going to hold on for the win. Really big first preference leads are rarely overturned, due to the fact that a lot of voters don't bother using their lower preferences. Nevertheless, it's striking just how few Tory voters took the action necessary to prevent an SNP victory.
When the Tory candidate was excluded, he had 447 votes. More than two-thirds of those votes (68%) were non-transferable, while 25% went to Labour and 7% to the SNP - which means that more than one-fifth of Tory voters who expressed a preference between the SNP and Labour plumped for the SNP. Admittedly these numbers are slightly complicated by the fact that the Tory transfers will have included a small handful of voters who backed UKIP, the Greens or the Lib Dems with their first preferences and then transferred to the Tories. But of the 419 people who gave their first preferences to the Tories, an absolute maximum of 112 ended up in the Labour column on the decisive count. If it's so hard to get Tory voters to give a lower preference to another unionist party even when it causes no harm to their first choice, you have to wonder how many of them would be prepared to tactically switch their one and only vote from Tory to Labour in a first-past-the-post general election if they live in a battleground SNP-Labour marginal seat.
The substantial minority of Tory voters who prefer SNP to Labour shouldn't be such a surprise. In the 70s, it was taken as read that most Tory supporters would prefer to have an SNP MP if the only other alternative was a Labour MP, and that any Tory tactical voting would favour the SNP. Given the leftward drift of Scottish Labour since the 2017 general election, the same logic would apply now if it weren't for the constitutional issue. OK, the constitutional issue isn't going away any time soon, so Labour will remain the net beneficiaries of Tory tactical voting - but the greater ideological gulf between the two main London parties may mean that the benefit to Labour will be smaller in scale in any election this year than it was in 2017.
By the way, it's just as well that David Coburn has left his old party, because he would have been appalled at what UKIP voters did with their lower preferences yesterday. Of those that transferred, 41% went to the SNP (answers on a postcard, please?), 41% went to the Tories and 18% went to Labour.
* * *
So a couple of quick thoughts about the government's defeat on the third meaningful vote this afternoon. There were 34 Tory rebels, but 6 of those were actually hardcore Remainers. Even if every single Brexiteer Tory rebel had switched sides and backed the deal (in the realms of fantasy given that we're talking about the real die-hards), the government would still have been defeated by 2 votes. So if Theresa May has any path at all to an improbable majority, it can only run through the Labour benches. (Unless of course she considers a grand bargain with the SNP and offers Devo Max and/or a Section 30 order, but she's far too stubborn and unimaginative to contemplate that for even a micro-second. All the same, though, today was the first time a meaningful vote could theoretically have gone the other way if the SNP had voted differently.)
Meanwhile, there are all sorts of contradictory rumours swirling around about what Theresa May's strategy is (the most plausible of which is that she doesn't actually know herself). A few people have suggested that the government is plotting a run-off vote between the May deal and whatever emerges from the indicative votes process. If anything does emerge from the indicative votes, it's likely to be a softer Brexit, which would force the Brexiteers to back the May deal in the run-off. I don't see how that sort of jiggery-pokery would work, though, because it would just strengthen the Brexiteers' resolve to subsequently vote against the legislation required to implement the deal. So unless Labour change their attitude to the deal, we'd just end up back where we started after a slight detour.
When the Tory candidate was excluded, he had 447 votes. More than two-thirds of those votes (68%) were non-transferable, while 25% went to Labour and 7% to the SNP - which means that more than one-fifth of Tory voters who expressed a preference between the SNP and Labour plumped for the SNP. Admittedly these numbers are slightly complicated by the fact that the Tory transfers will have included a small handful of voters who backed UKIP, the Greens or the Lib Dems with their first preferences and then transferred to the Tories. But of the 419 people who gave their first preferences to the Tories, an absolute maximum of 112 ended up in the Labour column on the decisive count. If it's so hard to get Tory voters to give a lower preference to another unionist party even when it causes no harm to their first choice, you have to wonder how many of them would be prepared to tactically switch their one and only vote from Tory to Labour in a first-past-the-post general election if they live in a battleground SNP-Labour marginal seat.
The substantial minority of Tory voters who prefer SNP to Labour shouldn't be such a surprise. In the 70s, it was taken as read that most Tory supporters would prefer to have an SNP MP if the only other alternative was a Labour MP, and that any Tory tactical voting would favour the SNP. Given the leftward drift of Scottish Labour since the 2017 general election, the same logic would apply now if it weren't for the constitutional issue. OK, the constitutional issue isn't going away any time soon, so Labour will remain the net beneficiaries of Tory tactical voting - but the greater ideological gulf between the two main London parties may mean that the benefit to Labour will be smaller in scale in any election this year than it was in 2017.
By the way, it's just as well that David Coburn has left his old party, because he would have been appalled at what UKIP voters did with their lower preferences yesterday. Of those that transferred, 41% went to the SNP (answers on a postcard, please?), 41% went to the Tories and 18% went to Labour.
* * *
So a couple of quick thoughts about the government's defeat on the third meaningful vote this afternoon. There were 34 Tory rebels, but 6 of those were actually hardcore Remainers. Even if every single Brexiteer Tory rebel had switched sides and backed the deal (in the realms of fantasy given that we're talking about the real die-hards), the government would still have been defeated by 2 votes. So if Theresa May has any path at all to an improbable majority, it can only run through the Labour benches. (Unless of course she considers a grand bargain with the SNP and offers Devo Max and/or a Section 30 order, but she's far too stubborn and unimaginative to contemplate that for even a micro-second. All the same, though, today was the first time a meaningful vote could theoretically have gone the other way if the SNP had voted differently.)
Meanwhile, there are all sorts of contradictory rumours swirling around about what Theresa May's strategy is (the most plausible of which is that she doesn't actually know herself). A few people have suggested that the government is plotting a run-off vote between the May deal and whatever emerges from the indicative votes process. If anything does emerge from the indicative votes, it's likely to be a softer Brexit, which would force the Brexiteers to back the May deal in the run-off. I don't see how that sort of jiggery-pokery would work, though, because it would just strengthen the Brexiteers' resolve to subsequently vote against the legislation required to implement the deal. So unless Labour change their attitude to the deal, we'd just end up back where we started after a slight detour.
As Ruth Davidson would say, "Well done, Clacks!" - SNP storm past Labour to win bellwether by-election
In the aftermath of the 2017 general election, there was a string of local by-elections in former Labour heartland areas in which the SNP suffered swings to Labour that were significantly in excess of anything the national opinion polls would have led us to expect. The obvious concern was that there were regional trends going on beneath the radar that could create a nasty shock at the next general election, especially given that there are so many ultra-marginal SNP-Labour marginal seats. Yesterday's Clackmannanshire Central by-election was exactly the sort of contest where you might have expected to see that trend show up again, because it took place in a part of the central belt where Labour had once been completely dominant. But this time the opposite happened - there was a hefty swing against Labour, and the SNP came from second place to win the seat. (Technically it was an SNP hold, but that's just a quirk of the STV voting system - Labour won the popular vote in the ward in 2017.)
Clackmannanshire Central by-election result (28th March 2019):
SNP 40.9% (+2.6)
Labour 31.9% (-8.0)
Conservatives 19.8% (+3.2)
UKIP 3.3% (n/a)
Greens 2.5% (-2.6)
Liberal Democrats 1.7% (n/a)
That's a swing of 5.3% from Labour to SNP, which if extrapolated to the whole country for "just a bit of fun" would see Scottish Labour once again reduced to just one seat at Westminster (Ian Murray in Edinburgh South). Which adds to the building impression that the storm clouds have now passed for the SNP in the former Labour heartlands - perhaps partly because of the impact of the Independent Group split, but mostly because of the sheer clarity of the SNP's message on Brexit, which a hopelessly divided Labour can't hope to compete with at the moment.
As ever, not too much should be read into the increase in the Tory vote, because the Tories are traditionally better than other parties at getting their supporters to the polls in local by-elections.
By the way, I hope you'll appreciate my restraint, because I very, very nearly titled this blogpost 'SNP crack it in Clacks as Leonard's lousy Labour languish limply'.
* * *
It's often said that a No Deal exit "can't happen" because the House of Commons wouldn't ever allow it to. I don't agree with that - for as long as No Deal remains the default outcome in both domestic and EU law, it has to be taken seriously as a real possibility. Nevertheless, the indicative votes on Wednesday night did once again prove that there is a massive natural majority in the Commons against No Deal, which was voted down by 400 votes to 160. But probably equally important, and certainly far more astonishing, is the fact that Tory MPs voted in favour of the catastrophe of a No Deal exit in just two weeks from now by an overwhelming majority of 157 to 94. That helpfully illustrates why no Tory government can deliver a soft Brexit regardless of parliament's wishes - it would split the party apart, probably quite literally. Brexiteer ringleader Steve Baker has already been openly threatening to resign the Tory whip. And maybe we're also seeing cause for scepticism that the Tories would do as well in a snap general election as the polls currently suggest - they've basically turned into UKIP, and there's a reason why UKIP have never won a general election.
In other circumstances we'd be shocked to learn that one Scottish Tory MP voted for No Deal, and that four others abstained on the subject. But compared to their colleagues south of the border, that makes them look like a relatively Remainy bunch - perhaps because they simply have to be for reasons of self-preservation in a very Remain country. And one of the four abstentions wasn't meaningful anyway, because as a Cabinet minister David Mundell was instructed to abstain on every vote. (20 Cabinet abstentions also put the relative closeness of the vote on a second referendum into perspective.)
Clackmannanshire Central by-election result (28th March 2019):
SNP 40.9% (+2.6)
Labour 31.9% (-8.0)
Conservatives 19.8% (+3.2)
UKIP 3.3% (n/a)
Greens 2.5% (-2.6)
Liberal Democrats 1.7% (n/a)
That's a swing of 5.3% from Labour to SNP, which if extrapolated to the whole country for "just a bit of fun" would see Scottish Labour once again reduced to just one seat at Westminster (Ian Murray in Edinburgh South). Which adds to the building impression that the storm clouds have now passed for the SNP in the former Labour heartlands - perhaps partly because of the impact of the Independent Group split, but mostly because of the sheer clarity of the SNP's message on Brexit, which a hopelessly divided Labour can't hope to compete with at the moment.
As ever, not too much should be read into the increase in the Tory vote, because the Tories are traditionally better than other parties at getting their supporters to the polls in local by-elections.
By the way, I hope you'll appreciate my restraint, because I very, very nearly titled this blogpost 'SNP crack it in Clacks as Leonard's lousy Labour languish limply'.
* * *
It's often said that a No Deal exit "can't happen" because the House of Commons wouldn't ever allow it to. I don't agree with that - for as long as No Deal remains the default outcome in both domestic and EU law, it has to be taken seriously as a real possibility. Nevertheless, the indicative votes on Wednesday night did once again prove that there is a massive natural majority in the Commons against No Deal, which was voted down by 400 votes to 160. But probably equally important, and certainly far more astonishing, is the fact that Tory MPs voted in favour of the catastrophe of a No Deal exit in just two weeks from now by an overwhelming majority of 157 to 94. That helpfully illustrates why no Tory government can deliver a soft Brexit regardless of parliament's wishes - it would split the party apart, probably quite literally. Brexiteer ringleader Steve Baker has already been openly threatening to resign the Tory whip. And maybe we're also seeing cause for scepticism that the Tories would do as well in a snap general election as the polls currently suggest - they've basically turned into UKIP, and there's a reason why UKIP have never won a general election.
In other circumstances we'd be shocked to learn that one Scottish Tory MP voted for No Deal, and that four others abstained on the subject. But compared to their colleagues south of the border, that makes them look like a relatively Remainy bunch - perhaps because they simply have to be for reasons of self-preservation in a very Remain country. And one of the four abstentions wasn't meaningful anyway, because as a Cabinet minister David Mundell was instructed to abstain on every vote. (20 Cabinet abstentions also put the relative closeness of the vote on a second referendum into perspective.)
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Westminster rocked as the SNP at last exercise a decisive role in the hung parliament
When the SNP lost 19 of their 54 seats at the 2017 election, one of the saving graces was that it seemed logical they would exercise far more influence with 35 seats in a hung parliament than they had done with 54 seats in a parliament with a Tory majority. They were still comfortably the third largest party, and we imagined Theresa May and the Tory media sweating over which way they would vote in each close division. But it hasn't really worked out that way, partly because the Tory-DUP alliance has often shut them out, and partly because May is so intransigent on the subject of Scotland that there hasn't been any scope for bargaining - not even the whiff of an offer of a Section 30 order in return for SNP support on the meaningful votes, for instance. So that's left the SNP taking an all-out opposition posture, which means they've been on the losing side most of the time - and even when they've been on the winning side nobody has credited them with swinging the balance, because their votes were just taken as read.
But the indicative votes tonight were a very different story. The SNP had a genuine dilemma over how to vote on some of the motions (the ones that proposed different types of soft Brexit), and the decision they reached actually did determine the final outcome. If they had voted for Kenneth Clarke's proposal for a customs union, that would have been the only option that secured a majority. As it was they abstained, and the customs union idea was defeated along with the other seven motions. So at last, after two years, here it is: the SNP taking advantage of a hung parliament to influence the destiny of the United Kingdom.
Kenny "Devo or Death" Farquharson is spitting synthetic fury about the way they jumped, but it makes perfect logical sense - if your objective is to remain in the EU, you have to try to prevent any proposition that falls well short of that from emerging as the most likely consensus. (And as it happens, the Independent Group seem to have reached exactly the same conclusion - they actively voted against the Clarke motion.) Even if the SNP now downgrade their objective to their previous preferred compromise of single market and customs union membership, it would still be logical not to vote for any option mentioning a customs union only, because doing so would increase the chances of parliament coalescing around a compromise that does not involve single market membership, and that would therefore be wholly inadequate. And in respect of the ultimate goal of independence, it would from a tactical point of view be nonsensical to champion a compromise that you don't think is remotely good enough, if the first thing that will be said to you after it's delivered is: "What are you complaining about? We've given you exactly what you asked for. You don't need an independence referendum now."
So a job well done - the SNP have demonstrated to the Westminster village that their voting power does pack a punch after all, and they've done so in a way that is consistent with their strategic aims.
But the indicative votes tonight were a very different story. The SNP had a genuine dilemma over how to vote on some of the motions (the ones that proposed different types of soft Brexit), and the decision they reached actually did determine the final outcome. If they had voted for Kenneth Clarke's proposal for a customs union, that would have been the only option that secured a majority. As it was they abstained, and the customs union idea was defeated along with the other seven motions. So at last, after two years, here it is: the SNP taking advantage of a hung parliament to influence the destiny of the United Kingdom.
Kenny "Devo or Death" Farquharson is spitting synthetic fury about the way they jumped, but it makes perfect logical sense - if your objective is to remain in the EU, you have to try to prevent any proposition that falls well short of that from emerging as the most likely consensus. (And as it happens, the Independent Group seem to have reached exactly the same conclusion - they actively voted against the Clarke motion.) Even if the SNP now downgrade their objective to their previous preferred compromise of single market and customs union membership, it would still be logical not to vote for any option mentioning a customs union only, because doing so would increase the chances of parliament coalescing around a compromise that does not involve single market membership, and that would therefore be wholly inadequate. And in respect of the ultimate goal of independence, it would from a tactical point of view be nonsensical to champion a compromise that you don't think is remotely good enough, if the first thing that will be said to you after it's delivered is: "What are you complaining about? We've given you exactly what you asked for. You don't need an independence referendum now."
So a job well done - the SNP have demonstrated to the Westminster village that their voting power does pack a punch after all, and they've done so in a way that is consistent with their strategic aims.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Not in this day and age, unless someone drags us back
I've belatedly caught up with the blogpost Jason McCann wrote a couple of days ago in response to the eye-opening exchange I had with him and a couple of his friends from Ireland, which revealed the path of 'revolution' that they would like the Scottish pro-independence movement to go down. Having had a quick skim through Jason's post, I wasn't going to bother responding, because it mostly covers ground that I've already dealt with in my own blogpost about the exchange. However, I should have realised that Jason wouldn't have been able to resist saying something outrageous and deeply offensive about me personally, and sure enough, on closer inspection there it was.
"One pro-independence blogger even went as far as saying that the suggestion that this might actually happen was 'incitement' on the part of those suggesting it. Entrenching himself in this assertion, he went on to imply that the Irish background and the religious beliefs of those suggesting it need further interrogation – because, you know, Irish Catholics are inherently violent."
That's only a very marginally more polite version of the allegation he repeatedly made on Saturday morning that I am an "anti-Irish, anti-Catholic bigot". I may as well just call a spade a spade here: of all the wild attacks that have been made on me over the years that I've been blogging, this is without doubt the most mind-bogglingly stupid one of all, because you only need to look at my name to guess with confidence that I am, just like Jason, a Roman Catholic of Irish decent. If you go back far enough, I don't have any Scottish ancestry at all as far as I'm aware - it seems to be three-quarters Irish and one-quarter French-Canadian, and even the French-Canadian bit is firmly Catholic. I still have relatives in Donegal, right on the edge of the Gaeltacht, that my family are vaguely in contact with - I visited them when I was nineteen, and they told me to my surprise that my dad used to spend his summers there.
Essentially Jason is accusing me of an extreme form of self-loathing. If he wants to make such an improbable charge stick, he'll have to flesh out what he thinks my motivations could possibly be.
Needless to say, Jason's claim that I "implied" that Irish people from my own religious denomination are "inherently violent" is a downright and intentional lie. All I did was state that Ireland has a recent history of political and communal violence and Scotland does not. That was simply a statement of plain, irrefutable truth, and it was not said to make anyone feel uncomfortable - although the fact that it seems to have had that effect on Jason may well be because of the sensitivities he feels over his current membership of a political party that supported violence during the Troubles. I don't criticise him for his affiliation - indeed, if I lived in Northern Ireland, it's not impossible that I'd vote for Sinn Féin myself (it would be a difficult choice between them and the SDLP). But if I did so, it would be in spite of their pre-1994 history, not because of it. I wonder if Jason can say the same? That's merely a question, but it's not an unreasonable one given the stridency of his views about Irish history and the cue that he believes Scotland should take from it.
The other obvious point here is that my reference to the fact of communal violence in recent Irish history cannot possibly be taken to imply a specific criticism of Catholics, because that violence was - as everyone knows - committed by both Catholics and Protestants.
The rest of Jason's post is basically a warning to us all not to be naive about the possibility of British state violence, and a reminder of the occasions when people in various countries have incorrectly thought "it couldn't happen again, it can't happen here". All I would say is that history is littered with people learning the wrong lessons from history. If you take Jason's strictures to their logical conclusion, you'd think that Germany is likely in the near future to elect a fascist government and invade Poland, just because it's happened once before.
Contrary to what Jason believes, I didn't actually 100% discount the possibility of future political violence in Scotland, but he might not like my verdict on how it would be most likely to happen. I think we'd only get into dangerous territory if we listen to the siren voices of those on the fringes who whip up paranoid hysteria about the supposedly murderous intentions of the British state, and who try to get us to respond to that "threat" by developing a "revolutionary consciousness".
There is a conventional political path available to us that can take us to our desired destination. Let's do ourselves a big favour by sticking to it.
"One pro-independence blogger even went as far as saying that the suggestion that this might actually happen was 'incitement' on the part of those suggesting it. Entrenching himself in this assertion, he went on to imply that the Irish background and the religious beliefs of those suggesting it need further interrogation – because, you know, Irish Catholics are inherently violent."
That's only a very marginally more polite version of the allegation he repeatedly made on Saturday morning that I am an "anti-Irish, anti-Catholic bigot". I may as well just call a spade a spade here: of all the wild attacks that have been made on me over the years that I've been blogging, this is without doubt the most mind-bogglingly stupid one of all, because you only need to look at my name to guess with confidence that I am, just like Jason, a Roman Catholic of Irish decent. If you go back far enough, I don't have any Scottish ancestry at all as far as I'm aware - it seems to be three-quarters Irish and one-quarter French-Canadian, and even the French-Canadian bit is firmly Catholic. I still have relatives in Donegal, right on the edge of the Gaeltacht, that my family are vaguely in contact with - I visited them when I was nineteen, and they told me to my surprise that my dad used to spend his summers there.
Essentially Jason is accusing me of an extreme form of self-loathing. If he wants to make such an improbable charge stick, he'll have to flesh out what he thinks my motivations could possibly be.
Needless to say, Jason's claim that I "implied" that Irish people from my own religious denomination are "inherently violent" is a downright and intentional lie. All I did was state that Ireland has a recent history of political and communal violence and Scotland does not. That was simply a statement of plain, irrefutable truth, and it was not said to make anyone feel uncomfortable - although the fact that it seems to have had that effect on Jason may well be because of the sensitivities he feels over his current membership of a political party that supported violence during the Troubles. I don't criticise him for his affiliation - indeed, if I lived in Northern Ireland, it's not impossible that I'd vote for Sinn Féin myself (it would be a difficult choice between them and the SDLP). But if I did so, it would be in spite of their pre-1994 history, not because of it. I wonder if Jason can say the same? That's merely a question, but it's not an unreasonable one given the stridency of his views about Irish history and the cue that he believes Scotland should take from it.
The other obvious point here is that my reference to the fact of communal violence in recent Irish history cannot possibly be taken to imply a specific criticism of Catholics, because that violence was - as everyone knows - committed by both Catholics and Protestants.
The rest of Jason's post is basically a warning to us all not to be naive about the possibility of British state violence, and a reminder of the occasions when people in various countries have incorrectly thought "it couldn't happen again, it can't happen here". All I would say is that history is littered with people learning the wrong lessons from history. If you take Jason's strictures to their logical conclusion, you'd think that Germany is likely in the near future to elect a fascist government and invade Poland, just because it's happened once before.
Contrary to what Jason believes, I didn't actually 100% discount the possibility of future political violence in Scotland, but he might not like my verdict on how it would be most likely to happen. I think we'd only get into dangerous territory if we listen to the siren voices of those on the fringes who whip up paranoid hysteria about the supposedly murderous intentions of the British state, and who try to get us to respond to that "threat" by developing a "revolutionary consciousness".
There is a conventional political path available to us that can take us to our desired destination. Let's do ourselves a big favour by sticking to it.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
The SNP will be eyeing up Stirling to ensure a net gain from the Tories at the next election
Media coverage of support for independence in opinion polls often seems to be a case of 'heads I win, tails you lose', and you'd have to say that Jeremy Corbyn suffers the same problem at the hands of a hostile press at UK-wide level. When the Tories have a big lead it's portrayed as a catastrophe for Corbyn, but when the race is closer to being even-stevens he doesn't get any credit for it - the story swiftly changes to "the opposition party should have a big lead at a time when the Tories are in such disarray". Well, for what's it's worth, we're hearing the latter narrative at the moment, because after the Tories opened up what looked like a potentially decisive lead in the aftermath of the Independence Group breakaway, they've now been pegged back. Take, for example, the latest Opinium poll...
Britain-wide voting intentions (Opinium):
Conservatives 36% (-2)
Labour 35% (+1)
UKIP 9% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 7% (-1)
SNP 5% (n/c)
Greens 4% (+1)
Plaid Cymru 1% (n/c)
Scottish subsample: SNP 46%, Conservatives 26%, Labour 17%, UKIP 6%, Liberal Democrats 4%, Greens 1%
It's not that Labour have really recovered from their post-breakaway slump, it's more that disgusted Brexiteer voters have turned away from the Tories (at least for the time being) and towards UKIP. I suppose some would argue that once an election campaign is underway, the Tories would be able to squeeze the UKIP vote, but that's not necessarily a silver bullet, because there's a significant Green vote there for Labour to squeeze as well.
I said recently that the fallout from the Independent Group breakaway had left the SNP almost assured of victory in Scotland at the next Westminster election. That's probably still correct, because Scottish Labour have too much of a deficit to realistically make up. Nevertheless, if Labour start the election campaign within striking distance of the Tories at UK level, there would be more cause for concern for the SNP, because any momentum for Corbyn in England could bring Labour back into the game in Scotland. We all remember what happened in 2017 - the swing from SNP to Tory was not a massive surprise and was factored into our expectations, but the real problem was the late swing from SNP to Labour, which nobody had really seen coming and was purely caused by momentum generated south of the border.
One thing that became clear in 2017 is that the post-election media narrative is driven mainly by the expectations game and by direction of travel. You had otherwise sensible commentators portraying a landslide SNP victory as a "disaster for Sturgeon" simply because the SNP had lost seats and underperformed expectations. That provides an opportunity this time around, though, because 39 or 40 seats would have to be reported as a good result, even though exactly the same outcome would have been considered a setback two years ago. I think it's particularly important that the direction of travel is not just seen to be towards the SNP but also against the Scottish Tories, ie. the SNP need at least a small net gain of seats from the Tories and not just from Labour. At a minimum that would mean regaining Stirling and holding onto Perth & North Perthshire.
I don't think these are questions for the distant future either - I'm coming round to the idea that there is a greater than even chance of an election this year. Stephen Bush said yesterday that the Prime Minister's implied threat of an election to avoid a soft Brexit doesn't make sense because there isn't enough time to hold an election before the 12th April cliff-edge. But what we know about Theresa May is that she wants her legacy to be the delivery of Brexit, and she won't regard continued customs union and/or single market membership as being a 'real' Brexit. If an impractical option like an immediate general election is the only way of salvaging that legacy, I could imagine her doing it. Another possibility is that the deal will pass, and that whoever is Prime Minister for the next phase of negotiations will feel that an election is unavoidable if we don't want deadlock further down the road.
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