Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Sunday, 19 August 2012
To be or not to be – but what is the second question?
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, saw it clearly – or at least Will Shakespeare saw it clearly for him. “To be or not to be – that is the question.” Hamlet asked himself whether he wanted to live or die – to exist or not to exist.
I considered exploring this in more depth in relation to the referendum, only to quickly be faced with the blindingly obvious realisation that Shakespeare has an unparalleled understanding of human nature and the human condition and I don’t.
There was no second question for Hamlet. In some way I feel that fact is significant to Scotland’s choice in 2014, but without Will’s help I do not have the capacity to develop the concept. This will regrettably be no barrier to those equally lacking in capacity but also seriously deficient in judgement who will latch on to the quote and take it further.
I can only shudder at what the Daily Mail, The Times, or Johann Lamont or Ian Davidson, or his partner in The Coalition against the Independence of Their Native Land (BetterTogether) Ruth Davidson might do with it. Perhaps that master of pompous – and vacuous - neo-Churchillian cadences, William Hague might wrap his rhetorical gifts around the idea.
Iain Macwhirter had his own question today in the Sunday Herald – Has Salmond said yes to no second question?
While lacking the eternal nature of To be or not to be? this question has a catchy, journalesy feel to it, and is undoubtedly relevant. Well, has he, in private or otherwise? Here’s what that well-known figure, a spokesperson for the First Minister said today -
“We have always said that we have absolutely no objection to a Section 30 Order in regard to the referendum, and the UK Government has to understand that the terms and timing of the referendum must be decided in Scotland, by the Scottish Parliament – not dictated by Westminster – and that includes a possible ‘more powers’ option. It is only right that these matters are carefully and properly considered, which is exactly what the Scottish Government are doing in our consultation.”
The ‘We’ is not the Royal ‘We’, it means the Scottish Government. If I may be so bold as to translate the statement, it means something like this -
‘We don’t need the UK’s legal approval to hold our referendum or frame our question – or questions – but if a Section 30 order helps to avoid the nuisance of legal challenges, that’s OK with us.
But we won’t be told by the UK government how many questions we will have, nor will we accept that as a quid pro quo for a Section 30 order, but since we are not hell-bent on having a second question (despite outrageous statements about the nature of our relationship with Civic Scotland, Future of Scotland and the SCVO, and the fact that everything we do and say seems to suggest just that) we still have the opportunity of the consultation outcome, and its interpretation, to justify a decision to go for a single YES/NO question, opinion polls permitting, of course.
Such a decision would, of course, be completely unrelated to the granting of a Section 30 order.’
I wonder what the Prince of Denmark – somewhere in literary eternity - will say after the referendum about all of this – and whose skull he will be contemplating as he considers the result?
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Unhappy tweeting time – devo-max
Tweets
Peter Curran The voice of the people of Scotland is heard at the ballot box, and if necessary, on the streets, e.g. the poll tax resistance. Listen to it
Beware of equating some of the institutions of Civic Scotland with the people of Scotland - some are the vehicles for powerful individuals.
Who are the real advocates of devo-max/devo-plus? Powerful corporate and financial interest groups with a heavy stake in perpetuating the UK
With a YES vote majority the UK has no choice but to negotiate the terms of independence. With a devo-max vote, Scotland must go cap in hand
The devo-max argument: if we promise to be nice and not demand our independence, will you be nice and give us a little more power? Please?
Federalism, home rule, devo-max and devo-plus are all euphemisms for continued UK control - the power to grant or remove power from Scots.
The Scotland Act is an instrument of UK power. It conferred devolution: it can take it away gradually or totally. Devo-max is a Trojan horse
Some advocates of independence favour gradualism. Vote for devo-max and gradualism may mean gradual claw-back of powers. Only independence!
The Scotland Act can remove powers as easily as it confers them. Devo-max is a trap - UK holds power over what to grant, what to take away.
Imposition of the Stamp Act by Britain led the American people to fight for independence. Scots are vulnerable to Scotland Act impositions.
Friday, 2 March 2012
Consultation, devo this and devo that …
The factoid has taken root, and is now stated as fact – Alex Salmond wants a second question, and is happy to accept devo-something as second best – a consolation prize if independence fails to win a majority. The Scottish electorate are now safely marginalised - having shown disturbing signs of being a sovereign democratic voice – and the future of Scotland will be determined by Civic Scotland, Reform Scotland, and the outcome of the referendum consultation. In fact, there is no real need for a referendum at all, since a series of unelected bodies, representative of nothing but the agenda of those who lead them, and the outcome of a self-selecting online questionnaire will determine how we are governed.
When we get right down to it, anyone who wants to start up a body that they claim represents Scottish opinion can launch their own consultation on Survey Monkey. All this is very heartening – we can dispense with all the political parties, manifestos, elected officials, etc. and simply claim to speak for the people, whom we can rely on to remain safely silent.
Well, not quite – the forms of democracy must be maintained so as not to frighten the horses, so a referendum will be held, with a ballot paper so confusing that the outcome will be contentious enough to be dismissed, unless of course it gives the right answer, namely – anything but independence.
The world will be safe for WMDs, Trident will stay in the Holy Loch: death in foreign fields, the Labour Party gravy train and the House of Lords will continue, the poor, the vulnerable and the sick will still be the scapegoats for all our ills: the Tory conspiracy against ordinary people can press on relentlessly to destroy the NHS and the welfare state, and the military/industrial complex can expand the killing machine again. The parade of coffins draped in the Union Jack can continue, fat old men in berets, blazers and badges can revel in the death of the young, and the Last Night of the Proms will acquire a new resonance.
The scales have fallen from my eyes – I see it all clearly now, and can spend my declining years reading old copies of Boy’s Own Paper and singing Rule Britannia. Oh, happy Empire day!
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Civic Scotland, devo max and politics
Let’s start with a question - who is pushing devo max?
If you listen to the unionist parties and commentators, it’s Alex Salmond, who they claim wants it as a fall-back if Scots say NO to independence. Senior SNP figures have repeatedly said their commitment is to independence and a clear, single question on that: individual nats have varying positions on it, but a very vocal group of unknown size is totally hostile to a second question, believing it to be a trap set by unionists, who in spite of repeatedly saying they don’t want it, are somehow engaged in Machiavellian double bluff, and hope that it will win, and can then be denied to the Scots.
All of this is complicated by assertions that “nobody knows what devo max means” and the various wee and big brothers of Max, including Nae Max at All, Wee Max, Max Plus and Max Minus - this last one espoused by a party of two, Lord Forsyth and Tam Dalzell who wish to return to a pre-devolution state of powerlessness.
The official SNP position, judging by numberless media statement, interviews and responses to the endless questions is this, at least as I interpret it -
1. The SNP wants independence and a single, clear cut question, and they have offered their question.
2. The term devo max is a media term coined to explain full fiscal autonomy, i.e. a devolved Scotland remains part of the UK, and runs everything except defence and foreign policy. The UK Parliament remains sovereign, and the Scotland Act defines what the devolved Scottish Parliament may do. All or part of this can be revoked at any time by Westminster through amendments to the Scotland Act.
3. The new referendum consultation document says this -
While the Scottish Government’s preferred policy is independence, it recognises that there is considerable support across Scotland for increased responsibilities for the Scottish Parliament short of independence. One option, full devolution (or “devolution max”) was set out in some detail in the Scottish Government white paper Your Scotland, Your Voice published in 2009.
The Scottish Government has consistently made it clear in that paper Your Scotland, Your Voice white paper, Nov. 2009and its 2010 consultation paper on a draft referendum Bill that it is willing to include a question on further devolution in the referendum. That remains the Scottish Government’s position. It will listen carefully to the views and arguments put forward on this issue in response to this consultation.
That was pretty damned clear to me at the time - I gave my response to the consultation in some detail, including my concerns about the wording of the questions, the sequencing of the questions and the ballot paper(s), concerns which I elaborated on in my blog.
In summary then, the Scottish Government’s preferred policy is independence but it recognises there is considerable support across Scotland for increased powers to the Scottish Parliament, and it will consider these in a nation-wide consultation exercise, then decide of whether such an option should be offered in the referendum in addition to the independence question.
All the polls before and since have indicated that there is a very substantial percentage of the Scottish electorate who wish for such a settlement. It would be undemocratic of the Scottish Government to ignore such a body of opinion.
The degree of devolution desired - from zero to full devolution, i.e. everything except defence and foreign policy (devo max) may vary across this body of opinion. The only way to determine what this might be is the consultation process: it is clearly impracticable to put to the electorate every aspect of government, every power of government that may be devolved, except under broad headings, as for example they are defined in the Scotland Act on devolved powers and Westminster reserved powers.
All of the above should be clear enough for an intelligent 12-year old, but it is not clear enough for the combined unionist parties nor for most of the media - or alternatively, it is abundantly clear to them, but they just don’t want to believe it.
MY POSITION
My position, for what it is worth - the view of a single Scottish voter - is that I want independence, I want a single question, but I recognise as a democrat that if a wider choice is demanded by a significant number of my fellow Scots, that choice somehow has to be enabled in the referendum.
But I warn those who want significantly more devolution under such an option that, if it won the day in a referendum, there is no guarantee that it will be delivered, in part or at all, by the Westminster government, who retain total control. The irony of devo max is that only full independence can guarantee to deliver it.
THE UNIONIST PARTIES
The three unionist parties, Tories, Labour and LibDems, now united in a Coalition against the independence of Scotland, are more or less as one on their view of a second question and devo max and their press supporters are also united - devo max is a Salmond-initiated ploy to snatch a kind of victory from a referendum defeat on independence. David Cameron, the Leader of the Labour and LibDem parties (he is also the Leader of the Tory Party) is against a second question and devo max.
Today’s Telegraph nonsense illustrates the official line -
By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor
6:00AM GMT 31 Jan 2012
A coalition of organisations, including the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), yesterday announced a campaign to discuss changing the constitution. This was a blow to Alex Salmond, who is keen for a second question appear on the ballot paper. It has been likened to his ‘consolation prize’ in case Scots reject full independence.He is relying on civic groups to agree on the definition of a ‘more powers’ option after all three main opposition parties backed a single, straight question on independence.
Party leaders last night urged the coalition to resist any pressure from the First Minister to “manipulate the debate” and create a false consensus.
The LibDems waffle about federalism (some unionist media commentators masquerade as federalists or home rulers these days, in the hope that this will make them seem objective - and hedge their bets if independence wins!) but like most of what the LibDems say, this is meaningless.
Labour declaims that they have always been the party of Home Rule, and the ghost of Keir Hardie is summoned in evidence, but they too are against a second question and devo max.
They justify this by a tortuous process of reasoning - listen to any of Johann Lamont’s comments - that tries to separate the concepts of independence and devolution - in other words “Let’s kill the independence nonsense by a NO vote to a single referendum question, then Labour can consider devolved matters under the Scotland Act, and will influence Westminster to grant any more powers that may be required.”
This maintains the fiction that Labour and Scottish Labour - the tame puppets of the London Party - can somehow influence Westminster and the British Establishment.
Labour, while in government for thirteen years, managed to -
widen the poverty gap, becoming more Tory than the Tories
launch two wars, one of them illegal, devastating two countries in the process and destabilising the Middle East
wreck the UK economy while enriching its Scottish politicians - those that weren’t jailed in the process
protest Labour pacifism and internationalism while wrecking the country of Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of innocents
bleed the UK armed services to death by over-extending and under-equipping them (M.O.D. incompetence) in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan
In the light of this, the Scottish people can be forgiven for dumping them unceremoniously in May 2011 and returning with a massive majority a party committed to the independence of Scotland.
CIVIC SCOTLAND
And so we come to Civic Scotland, and its long-awaited launch. Well, this ship ran shakily down the slipway, birled around a few times, and now seems to be pointing exactly nowhere, with rumours that down in its bowels, officers are fighting over the compass.
One might have thought that Civic Scotland, comprised of unions, churches, think tanks, voluntary organisations, etc. would have learned something from the fiasco over the Scottish CBI’s claims - out of the mouth of Iain McMillan - that Scottish industry consensus existed that Scotland’s independence plans were damaging business confidence.
The Scottish CBI and the referendum
This should have demonstrated the dangers of a non-democratic body and its leader claiming to speak on a political matter for all of its members, but no, they’re all at it again under the rather wobbly, leaky umbrella of Civic Scotland. One body among them can claim a kind of democracy - the STUC - but even that is deeply compromised by its affiliation to a single party, Labour, and the inadequacies of its own consultative and democratic procedures. Another body in Civic Scotland invented itself - the think-tank Reform Scotland.
Insofar as it is possible to determine any central theme from Civic Scotland, its raison d'etre seems to be something like this -
The politicians are obsessed by the process of the referendum and no real discussion or debate has taken place over policies, or what government and political parties are trying to do in Scottish society.
The manifest weakness of this position is that it is only nine months since we had a Scottish Parliamentary election, one which was preceded by an intensive campaign in which the parties produced manifestos, and spoke long and passionately about their policies in the press, in the media in general, and in a series of unprecedented television debates, not to mention by leafleting, and on the doorsteps.
This had been preceded by four years of a Scottish Parliament, televised intermittently on BBC Channel 81, highlighted weekly by FMQs from Holyrood, and intensively covered in daily television programmes, including Newsnight Scotland and various other Scottish and national media programmes and news bulletins.
To suggest that none of this was about policy, vision, and the direction and shape of Scotland, economically, socially, fiscally, etc. is the most arrant nonsense.
It’s called democratic politics - it’s the way the free world is run - more or less - but Civic Scotland, whatever it is, seems uneasy and dissatisfied with this, or at least, the leaders of its component parts are. Just how they consulted their employees, church members, trades union members etc. is unknown to me, but they clearly don’t like the process of consultation that government is currently engaged in, and feel it to be in someway inadequate, narrowing the debate.
Here are some of the thing various people in civic Scotland have said -
Rev. Ian Galloway in an interview with Isabel Fraser: “The Church of Scotland does not have a position of devolution, it doesn’t have a position on independence, it doesn’t have a position on the status quo.”
Reform Scotland - “an independent, non-party think tank that aims to set out a better way to deliver increased economic prosperity and more effective public services based on the traditional Scottish principles of limited government, diversity and personal responsibility” - in contrast, has very definite views and supports what it calls devo plus.
Martin Sime 0f the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) in an interview with Isabel Fraser: “I think what we’ve heard in the last few weeks is from a whole lot of people, mostly politicians, who seem to know what the answer is, and are trying to restrict the question to get the answer that they want.”
Elected politicians (elected by us, Martin) either propose or oppose independence: how exactly are they to proceed except by campaigning for the answer they want ? That is how democracies operate.
As for restricting the question to get the answer they want, this is patently untrue of the Scottish Government, who have offered a single question, but have made it clear that they are prepared to consider other questions, and the wider views of the Scottish body politic and the Scottish people, and have launched a major exercise to attempt to determine these views by consultation and debate.
It does appear to be true of the Westminster Government, of the anti-independence coalition of the Westminster unionist parties and of the Scottish unionist party leaders, but not of elder statesmen like Henry McLeish
Martin Sime: “What this new coalition is doing is trying to open out the debate, and we’ve found very widespread support from among non-government organisations of all kinds, including business leaders, faith groups and students to try and take this debate out a bit before we get down to the brass tacks of what options there should be.”
That of course is exactly what the Scottish Government’s consultation process is about, and it is why they declined to be stampeded into an immediate referendum by strident calls from the unionist parties - and the CBI in the apparently unrepresentative voice of Iain McMillan.
Isabel Fraser: “Martin, is it not inevitable that if you’re looking for alternatives that have no already been proposed, that you end up with the devo max issue - and that intensely politicised already. You cannot keep this non-political, can you?”
Martin Sime: “Well, we’re not campaigning for any particular option in this debate ..”
Reform Scotland are, Martin - devo plus. But carry on …
Martin Sime: “ .. and we’re certainly not a ginger group for devo max.
That’s clear enough.
Martin Sime: “ .. we’re quite resolute that the debate needs opened up, rather than closed down, so we’re opposed to the proposition that at this stage there should be a decision to simply go forward with a YES/NO question ..”
And so is the Scottish Government, Martin, even though that is their favoured position, and that is why they are opening up the debate with a wide-ranging consultation process. In contrast, the Tory/Labour/LibDem anti-Scottish independence coalition is trying to do exactly as you say and close down the debate and “.. simply go forward with a YES/NO question ..”
This was before the launch. Yesterday, we had the launch of Civic Scotland, and their core message was that other options to a single YES/NO question should be considered. Let me reiterate - that is also exactly the Scottish Government’s position - it has repeatedly said so, even though it has a preferred option of independence, and that is why a major consultation exercise has been launched.
Ben Thomson - Reform Scotland: “We think the most important thing now is for Civic Scotland actually to have a voice and move away from this highly politicised debate …”
I’ve got news for you, Ben - the independence of a country is probably the most highly politicised debate a country can have - it is initiated by politics - the politics of a sovereign people - and it can only be peacfully resolved by the democratic politics of political debate and the elected representatives of the people.
Civic Scotland has no such elected representatives - but the leaders of the component organisations of this disparate coalition have a right to be heard, as informed individuals, but not as the voice of every employee, church member, union member etc. of their organisation. They have already spoken through casting their votes on May 5th 2011. The CBI and Iain McMillan have already demonstrated the dangers of such claims.
Both Sime and Thomson repeatedly claim that the debate, as reflected in the media, has been narrow and has been about process rather than purpose. I don’t believe this to be true, unless you restrict the perception to the debate to the period since Alex Salmond recently launched his consultation document.
In fact, there has been a very broad, yet very detailed debate going on for the last six years, before that since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, and before that for decades - a progressive, vital debate that led to devolution, the Scottish Parliament, the first SNP minority government, and the new SNP majority government. The people of Scotland have participated in that debate throughout, it has influenced their democratic voting patterns, and they understand very clearly what it’s all about.
But among the great and the good, the Westminster Parliament and the metropolitan media, there has been a mixture of denial of reality, and sheer blinkered ignorance. They are now waking up and trying to catch up with the people of Scotland.
Good luck to you, Civic Scotland - get in on the act belatedly - you are very welcome to offer views. Just don’t get in the way of a sovereign people and its Parliamentary democracy.
And don’t and try and shift the debate out of the political arena and into the hands of an unelected professional elite - it’s that sort of thing Scotland is trying to escape from.
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Popping the question: the space between words - the Referendum question - or questions?
I have had this little 48 second clip up since the 15th of January, but kept it private on YouTube because I still don’t know what to make of it.
Let’s examine the exchange verbatim - questions put, questions answered. Or are they?
Isabel Fraser: So. Are the politicians letting us down this week? Is party politics taking too much of a role when they should be looking at the wider interests of Scotland, do you think?
Question type and the formulation of questions - meat and drink to a negotiator like me - are all the rage this week, so let’s analyse this one, or rather these ones, since Isabel Fraser poses three questions in her statement, albeit within a single theme -
Are politicians letting us down this week?
Is party politics taking to much of a role?
when
they should be looking at the wider interests of Scotland?
The first is a closed question demanding a YES/NO answer, as is the second, and the third is technically a statement of fact that assumes a YES to the first two and offer an value judgment of what politicians should be doing, or invites a NO to the first two which implies a YES to the third proposition, which is in fact also a question.
Before I analyse further, here’s how I would have answered Isabel’s deceptively simple, but in fact complex bundle of questions. Bear with me in a lengthy digression - I have never been know to use a short word when a long one will do, or choose brevity over a prolix mode, except under duress on Twitter …
PC: “No, they are not letting us down, because it is impossible to separate party politics from the wider interests of Scotland. We live in a democracy, the interests of the people in that democracy are served by elected politicians who operate mainly within a frame of party, and it is the primary role of politicians in that democracy, whether in government or in opposition, to attempt to serve the interests of all of the people within the context of their party policies and beliefs.
There is no objective body that stands apart from party politics that has a greater right to speak or decide. Churches, civic leaders, business and commercial leaders are not apolitical - they act within a frame of belief and self-interest, and are also in the main, politically aligned as well.
Bodies such as Civic Scotland are political groupings - they have a viewpoint, they are comprised of people who in the main have party political views and who voted according to them in democratic elections. Their voice can therefore only be advisory - it cannot be democratic, and they have no right to compel political decision.
There is of course, the Law, which in theory stands outside of, and above party politics. A brief look at the composition of either the Westminster Parliament or Holyrood immediately demonstrates that, while the concept of the rule of law and the processes of the law should be free of influence, the lawyers themselves are not - they are in fact highly politicised.
The Advocate General of Scotland, Lord Wallace demonstrated this in the BBC debate this week. He is a former politician, now an unelected Lord: he is a political appointee representing the Crown: he therefore technically represented the Queen, but in reality the Tory/LibDem Coalition, and was in practice in the debate aligned with the Labour/Tory/LibDem coalition formed to fight against the independence of Scotland and to secure a NO vote in the referendum.”
(If you doubt that the law is politicised, consider this - Tommy Sheridan is being released from prison this week after serving a year of his sentence. Sheridan, one of the most charismatic campaigning politicians Scotland has ever seen, will not be allowed to speak in public after his release. He is, of course, a committed advocate of Scotland’s independence, and an opponent of the nuclear deterrent. Many, including me, saw his prosecution for perjury as a political prosecution, and many will see the ban on him engaging in political activity at this crucial point in his country’s history as a gagging stratagem. A legal justification for the gag has of course been presented and can be defended under the law.)
Isabel may be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief that she didn’t have me on the programme instead of the admirable Joyce McMillan. But here we have the essence of the problem - television, limited by format and by timescale, can rarely do justice to such questions and concepts, even assuming their panellists understand them in the first place. Brevity, concise exchanges and ten minute exchange slots are what television is about, except in rare instances.
Of course, in reality, I would have given a briefer answer -
“No they’re not letting us down. This is about party politics and the electorate want the politicians to fight the corners they elected them to fight. Other individuals and bodies can advise, but that’s all - if they want to do more than advise, let them stand for election and run for office.”
WHAT DID JOYCE SAY? AND WHAT DID ISABEL DO NEXT?
Joyce McMillan: Well, I think - just to put it bluntly - I think no one who really cares about the future of Scotland could want to keep the devolution max or the devolution plus option off the ballot paper.
Oh, really, Joyce. So anybody who doesn’t agree with you doesn’t care about Scotland? There are many who do care deeply about Scotland who seem to want to do just that. I’m not one of them - I want a single question because I think the devolution max question is a trap for nationalists, but as a democrat, I agree with you, with great reluctance, and I have offered a ballot paper which covers all reasonable bases, an analysis to support it, to which no one has paid a blind bit of notice. Anyway …
Joyce McMillan: It’s quite clear that that’s the kind of option that most Scottish voters would feel, or the largest minority of Scottish voters, would feel most comfortable with - at the moment.
Isabel Fraser: Should it be a direct independence versus devo max question?
Joyce McMillan: No - absolutely not.
Now that answer is crystal clear - it should not be a direct independence versus devo max question. Or is it?
Joyce McMillan: It should be a question which allows people who want to opt for independence to opt for independence - and then, for those who have not opted for independence to say - well, what short of independence, would you like to open negotiations for devo max.
Joyce McMillan has just confirmed a YES to Isabel Fraser’s question, in spite saying absolutely not to it initially. Since a YES answer to any referendum question is a mandate to the Scottish Government to open negotiations for that choice, what Joyce has just said is that there should be two question, and if you say NO to independence, you also - or is it then - get a devo max choice, in which case it is “a direct independence versus devo max question”.
The confusion arise because not enough consideration is being given to the sequence and structure of the ballot paper and whether there should be conditionality between questions. I have addressed this at length, and doubtless tediously for those who don’t want to come to grips with the complexity that lies beneath apparent simplicity of any ballot paper. I have offered a ballot paper recently that I think covers all the reasonable bases, except the atavistic Tam Dalyell/Michael Forsyth option of reverting to a pre-devolution Scotland.
I am rather giving up hope than anyone will read or listen until the merde hits the fan, which it is already beginning to . If a 48 second exchange requires this kind of analysis, God Save Scotland - or Somebody Save Scotland …
MY BALLOT PAPER as posted earlier in the week
CONSULTATIVE REFERENDUM
Answer only one question - tick only one box.
If you answer more than one question, your ballot paper will be null and void. CHOOSE ONLY ONE OPTION - GIVE ONLY ONE ANSWER
I want a fully independent, sovereign Scotland.
I want Scotland to remain in the UK with no increased in current devolved powers to Scotland.
I want Scotland to remain in the UK with some additional powers devolved to Scotland.
I want Scotland to remain in the UK with all powers devolved to Scotland except defence and foreign policy.
N.B. If you have answered more than one question, i.e. ticked more than one box, your ballot paper will be null and void.
________________________________________
COMMENT
A minority, presumably led by Lord Forsyth, may call for a fifth question - a reversion to pre-devolution status. I believe there is no evidence for other than a tiny Tory minority asking for such an option, and that it therefore should not be offered. (A caller on Call Kaye this morning asked for just that!)
Some nationalists - how many I do not know - might want devo max as a fifth fall-back question if independence fails. I do not believe such an option should be offered, because it would require a transferable vote option.
Is it too complex? I do not believe it is. There are no gradations of independence - independence delivers devo max and negates the other options. The last three questions are all the reasonable options for those who do not want independence.
Some might argue for a YES/NO on independence, but that again would require a conditionality clause, and answering more than one question, e.g
If you say YES to independence, do not answer any other questions. If you say NO to independence, choose one, and only one of the following two options
I want Scotland to remain in the UK with some additional powers devolved to Scotland.
I want Scotland to remain in the UK with all powers devolved to Scotland except defence and foreign policy.
This is too complex and confusing, in my view, especially since the first question, the independence question would be a YES/NO, but the other two would be box tick answers.
Doubtless, some will argue over the sequencing of questions, i.e. the order they are set out on the ballot paper. Since it is a referendum with the overarching theme of independence, I believe the order I have set out is reasonable.
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