AFTER a drowsy winter, the independence debate appears to be quickening again, just as the SNP’s spring conference approaches. Activists who marched in their thousands last summer are looking to Nicola Sturgeon for a sign
As she’s been promising an update “in a few weeks” for almost half a year, that may be some time.
But conference abhors a vacuum, so her SNP deputy Keith Brown has ridden to the rescue this weekend with a suspiciously fuzzy plan on a new currency after independence.
If it was serious, it would be pitched at the electorate. It isn’t. It’s pitched at an internal audience.
In particular, it’s pitched at those many SNP members who are suspicious of the leadership’s Growth Commission, the hair-shirt economic blueprint for an independent Scotland written by former MSP turned corporate lobbyist Andrew Wilson.
A heresy against the 2013 White Paper, the Commission’s report recommended spending Decade One after a Yes vote driving down debt and keeping a tight grip on public spending. It also backed keeping the pound – at least for now.
Ms Sturgeon declared herself delighted, the membership less so. Besides the whiff of austerity, there was that plan to keep sterling and UK monetary policies. Former SNP MPs such as George Kerevan politely but firmly laid into it.
After hosting a series of National Assemblies to hear the views of SNP members, Mr Brown will put a motion to April’s conference backing most of the Commission’s 50 recommendations, but with a more gung-ho line on currency.
Writing for the home crowd in The National yesterday, Mr Brown said: “We will propose that it should now be party policy that an SNP government in an independent Scotland would establish an independent currency.” So far, so clear. But then the fog descends.
“Of course, until that can be done safely and securely, our currency would continue to be the pound sterling. It must be done at the right time, in a way that affords necessary protection for our nation’s economy and for people’s personal finances.
“The aim of an SNP government would be to complete preparations in time for the newly independent Scottish Parliament, informed by assessments and information from the Central Bank, to take a decision on establishing a new currency by the end of its first term.
“This will ensure that the use of sterling is not an open-ended commitment – an issue raised at the National Assemblies.”
The language is new. But at best, the leadership has moved from agnosticism on a new currency to a highly caveated inclination. Yet something that heavily caveated isn’t really a belief in anything. It’s a fudge. It’s also a muddle.
For example, Mr Brown seems to suggest evidence and economics would count, but also that Holyrood would decide to back a currency on a set timetable regardless.
A politically brave idea, as it would make the following election a referendum on whether to follow through with that decision.
Mr Brown also reminds me of someone daydreaming about how they’ll spend their lottery millions before they’ve even bought a ticket. It may be enjoyable, but there’s the small matter of winning first. It was noticeable he didn’t offer a timetable on actually securing independence.
The audience for this mush is clear from the last line, where he says activists at the party’s National Assemblies didn’t like the idea of an open-ended commitment to sterling.
They must be a conspiratorial lot. The Growth Commission never made an open-ended commitment to sterling. It said it should be used until something else made more sense, as did the SNP Government’s Fiscal Commission before the 2014 referendum. Both said sterling was best initially because the UK and Scottish economies were so aligned.
But both were open to a new currency if the economies diverged. The Commission proposed six tests on credibility, markets, debt, trade, reserves (at least £30bn needed according to one study), and public appetite. Explaining the process to voters before a referendum was an “absolutely necessity”, it said. Both were also clear context was all. There was no dogmatism about having or not having a new Scottish currency. It all came down to the circumstances. They definitely did not say, ‘Let’s do this in the first term of an independent parliament to keep the troops happy.’
But it seems National Assembly-goers live in dread of an indefinite backstop on the currency, and want to put a time limit on it, whether it’s rational or not. How very ERG-like.
I suspect that, behind the fudge, the SNP hierarchy is keeping faith with the Growth Commission, because it sees sense in it, while talking more warmly about a new currency to mollify the members.
This could backfire on several fronts. The members could see straight through it and get more disgruntled. It was interesting how much scepticism there was from senior SNP figures who want a new currency yesterday. The leadership is not trusted on this. Even vague talk of a new currency could become a giant bullseye for Unionists, who would use to it attack the SNP as reckless and flaky. The party has, after all, backed the euro, the pound, and now, sort of, a third currency.
It does not seem driven by long-term national interest, but by short-term party management. The Tories have their Eurosceptics to placate, the SNP their sterling-sceptics.
The key thing is whether it helps the cause. But who does this idea appeal to outside the 45 per cent?
Will a mystery currency move a single No voter to Yes? Did people reject independence because the last currency offer wasn’t radical enough? Did they object to their wages and pensions staying in sterling? Were they crying out to take a punt on a Scottish pound?
Mr Brown seems to think so. “I believe this approach will maximize support for an independent Scotland,” he wrote yesterday. I believe he may be disappointed.
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