Independence doesn't look so appealing in this dangerous world

The UK Defence Secretary said three months ago that Britain was “moving from a post-war to a pre-war world”. The head of the Army drew an analogy with the summer of 1914. Ministers and officials from countries geographically close to Russia, including Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and Germany, have warned that Putin could invade another European nation, including Nato members, the latest being Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk four days ago who also declared Europe was in a “pre-war era”. They are preparing their electorates for increased defence spending, but they are also expressing genuine fears.

Two years after invading Ukraine, President Putin is not as strong as his defiance makes him appear, but he has put Russian industry on a war footing, in contrast to his western near-neighbours. With faltering support for Ukraine in some countries, the possibility of a second Trump presidency and war in Gaza further dividing the international community, old assumptions about Europe’s security are fading.

How different from 10 years ago when Scotland’s first independence referendum campaign was under way. Then Barack Obama was the US President, Donald Trump was a blowhard talk show host, no one had heard of Brexit and Russia threatened to spark World War Three only on Netflix spy thrillers. Questions about independence and defence focused almost exclusively on where Trident submarines would be relocated to and the SNP’s local difficulties over Nato.

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The SNP’s independence white paper focused in its chapter on external affairs overwhelmingly on economic concerns. It painted a self-regarding picture of a small, respected nation being welcomed like an eminence grise onto the world stage, using its “soft power” to “build coalitions”.

The paper indicated that Scotland would spend proportionally less on defence than the UK Government was doing at the time. A more “appropriate” level of defence spending would free up an “independence defence dividend” which could be spent on social policy.

It really was another world.

The Scottish Government’s latest independence discussion paper, on defence, published last month, puts having the capability to “protect [our] citizens” in the second sentence. A commitment to spend two per cent of GDP on defence is up front. It notes that Ukraine’s experience shows “hostile nations still pose a catastrophic threat to democratic values and our way of life”. It places strong relationships with the UK, Europe and Atlantic allies at the heart of its defence strategy.

This focus on “collaboration and building collective security” in the face of marauding threats is shared by all our European neighbours, but here, in a paper about creating an independent Scotland, it hints at something else: a desire to counter public fear of being small, alone and suddenly much less powerful in a scary world.

It's not the most straightforward idea to sell.

What Scottish voters feel about all this is not clear, admittedly, but we know from UK-wide tracker polls that the number of people who think there will be a major world conflict within the next 20 years has risen dramatically in the last three years, from 55 to 75 per cent (the Scottish sample were equally pessimistic). It doesn’t automatically follow that people will feel more hesitant about constitutional change if the international outlook deteriorates, but it would be surprising if they didn’t.

One thing that doesn’t help the Yes side is that Russia favours anything that causes the UK problems and has tried to stir up trouble over Scottish independence before. According to a 2020 report by Westminster’s Intelligence and Security Committee, which includes an SNP MP, there was “credible open source commentary suggesting that Russia undertook influence campaigns in relation to the Scottish independence referendum”.

This is hardly surprising: we know Putin regards the UK as one of Russia’s chief enemies and wants to see it weakened. In the eyes of allies and enemies alike, Scotland becoming independent would weaken what remained of the UK.

The UK has, of course, undermined its own international standing with Brexit and cuts to aid spending. But that’s not much of an argument for independence. The counter to it is that small nations even in large alliances have diminished influence compared to big economies, especially big economies with the status of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

If it comes to another vote on independence, people will be asking themselves whether, for all their misgivings about the UK, they want this stable democracy to be weakened in the eyes of the world, when totalitarian regimes are on the rise.

Politics for many of us is an instinctive business. Where we put our cross on the ballot paper often comes down to a feeling. And as the world becomes less secure, will people really feel this is the moment for Scotland to go it alone?

The arguments will play out. The SNP will carry on making the case for an independent Scotland diverging from Britain on foreign policy.

The world seemed a very different place at the time of the independence referendum (Image: Newsquest)

Trident would be removed (ministers believe this would be no bar to Nato membership) and UK armed forces on Scottish soil would be drawn down gradually.

The inescapable logic of independence though is that sooner or later Scotland would lose the full extent of the UK’s sophisticated intelligence, counter-terrorism and military resources and be unable fully to replicate them. If Scotland wished to remain under the UK’s defence and intelligence umbrella, it might find it was not so easy to plot a divergent course on foreign policy.

And there’s this: if Labour wins the election, offering a vision of Britain in the world that better reflects the desires of SNP voters, the yearning for divergence may reduce.

It’s often said that foreign not domestic affairs decide the fate of Prime Ministers. They may also one day determine the fate of a future independence referendum.