Jamie Hepburn is my local MSP and I’ve met him twice – he came to my front door on referendum day in 2014, and then the following year I was one of a group of local SNP members he arranged to go to FMQs. He seems like a very friendly, decent, diligent person, but if he was quoted accurately in the Daily Record yesterday (always a big question mark in Scotland’s most disreputable newspaper) his role as “Minister for Independence” seems to be to prevent independence by all means available. And he’s making a fine fist of it.
A few weeks ago, The National reported that the Yousaf leadership had completely changed the purpose of the special independence conference to become solely about “securing a legally-binding referendum”. That by definition excludes all discussion of Nicola Sturgeon’s de facto referendum plan, which the conference had originally been called to thrash out the details of. Within hours, the leadership were rowing back on the briefing they had quite plainly given to The National, saying that “of course” the conference could discuss a de facto referendum because that was a perfectly legal option. Whether this was a pre-planned “good cop, bad cop” routine to get SNP members used to the idea that independence was slipping off the agenda, while still leaving them with a measure of false hope for now, or whether the leadership were genuinely shocked by the reaction to the ditching of the de facto referendum and felt they had to repair some of the damage, is not clear. But either way, there’s now little doubt that the leadership allowing discussion of a de facto referendum at the conference is a sham. They’re only allowing it so they can instruct (sorry, “advise”) delegates to reject the option. Hepburn in his Record interview spoke about the de facto referendum firmly in the past tense, as if it was something he had unenthusiastically gone along with under the previous leadership but was now relieved to have put behind him.
“I thought it was a plausible course of action,” he said, without much enthusiasm.
So naturally if Yousaf and Hepburn thought the de facto referendum plan was so God-awful, they’ll have a ready-made and cunningly brilliant plan for winning independence to replace it? Er, no. What they’re replaced the Sturgeon plan with is a string of public lamentations about how regrettable it is that they don’t have a plan, and are struggling to think of a plan. “Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely if we had a plan? Wouldn’t it be lovely if we had a plan that could work? Oh, wouldn’t it be simply splendid if the world worked that way!” If you think I’m exaggerating, here’s the relevant section of the interview –
Hepburn appears wedded to a referendum strategy, but does not having the answer on how one can be secured:
“A referendum would certainly, I think by anyone’s estimation, be the most straightforward manner in which we could determine this.”
He added: “There isn’t an easy or straightforward process. I wish there were, but whatever path we take to achieve independence, it’s going to be based and predicated on an electoral process. And that, for me, the next national election is going to be the general election.”
So we have to go back to begging for a Section 30 order because that’s the “straightforward” way of doing it, but we also have to accept it isn’t going to work because it’s not “easy or straightforward”. Yup, that makes perfect sense, Jamie.
The one glimmer of hope Hepburn offers the independence movement is that if Labour need SNP support to form a government, the SNP will use that leverage to try to get….a Devo Max referendum. You know, that Devo Max referendum we’ve all been dreaming of for so many long years. And just to emphasise that he wants a Devo Max referendum for the purpose of actually getting Devo Max, he starts waxing lyrical about how Devo Max would be such a step forward for Scotland.
Here’s a wild thought, Jamie – if you envisage being in negotiations with Labour, why not start by demanding the thing you’re supposed to want, ie. independence or an independence referendum? Yes, Labour might then negotiate you down to a multi-option referendum featuring a Devo Max option, but let them do that work, don’t do it for them a year in advance. Otherwise Labour will quite understandably say “well, it’s Devo Max and a Devo Max referendum the SNP really want, we don’t want to give you that, so let’s compromise on Devo Nano”. You certainly wouldn’t want Hepburn playing poker with your money, would you? Unless, of course, he’s a brilliant poker player and the opponent he’s currently trying to hoodwink is the SNP’s own membership.
But the much bigger problem is that it’s extremely unlikely that the SNP will actually have any leverage over Labour after the general election, so if this is literally the only plan the SNP have for winning Devo Max, let alone independence, they’re betting the house on a long-shot. There have been twenty-one UK general elections since the end of the Second World War, and only three of them have resulted in hung parliaments – that’s a strike rate of just 14%. But it’s even worse than that, because not any old hung parliament will do – you need one in which no government is arithmetically possible without SNP support. That was not the case in the hung parliaments of 2010 and 2017, when the Tories were able to form a two-party majority excluding the SNP with the help of the Lib Dems and the DUP respectively. In the real world, the chances of the SNP holding the balance of power are probably no better than around 5%. So Hepburn is inviting us to put our faith in a one-in-twenty chance, and even if he wins that lottery, he’s already thrown away his negotiating position. Doesn’t sound too promising, does it?
I’ve got a better idea. The SNP should replace Yousaf with a new leader who is actually interested in winning independence. Let the mistake of March be just a blip, a stupid error that was swiftly corrected with no harm done. Don’t let it be the end of the SNP’s proud 80-year history as a genuinely pro-independence party.
“This is totally unsustainable! Scotland’s voice CAN and WILL be heard!” seems to have been replaced with “There’s no easy path forward, I’m a bit stumped to be honest, but some magic pixie dust might fall from the sky, and we must be ready to take partial advantage of it.”
— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) June 10, 2023
Incidentally, I’ve just seen a clip of Yousaf on the Kuenssberg show this morning, and he was asked a question based on the false premise that independence support is falling back in the polls. Instead of challenging that false premise and pointing out that two of the last three polls have shown an increase in Yes support, and that the other one showed a clear Yes majority anyway, he went along with it by launching into his well-rehearsed monologue about how independence support isn’t high enough, and gratuitously added “independence is clearly not the consistent settled will of the Scottish people” (his own deputy Keith Brown repeatedly used to say it was, by the way). Why the hell would you voluntarily say that sort of thing?
It’s barely four months since I criticised my own party, the Alba Party, for using an Ashcroft poll to talk down independence support (“it’s been set back a generation” was the line) as a weapon in a partisan fight against the SNP, thus missing the bigger picture that it’s independence we’re supposed to be fighting for. Well, here we have the leader of the SNP going on a flagship UK-wide politics show to talk down independence support. Yousaf has no larger pro-indy rival party to chip away against, so what possible motivation can he have for doing this? There’s only one plausible explanation: he’s talking down independence support ‘because he doesn’t want to deliver independence – or more accurately, because he doesn’t want any pressure on him to take action to deliver independence, which he has already decided not to do for however long he remains leader. To which the only rational reaction can be: “Yousaf’s time in office must be as short as possible”.
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