The Times - UK (2020-08-03)

Longer self-isolation may

do patients no favours

Libby Purves

Page 25

likely to consider this reason enough

to grant the SNP a fourth term.

Even so, there are straws worth

clutching at. The SNP’s arguments

for life after independence are not

persuasive. Demography is not

destiny. The Treasury has a money

cannon ready to fire funds north.

Something may turn up. More

tantalisingly, perhaps the SNP will

destroy itself.

This is possible: the fall-out from

Alex Salmond’s trial — and acquittal

— on multiple charges of sexual

assault continues. A parliamentary

inquiry at Holyrood will examine

the Scottish government’s

investigation into the complaints

made against Salmond and, grimly,

the prospect of an uncivil war

between pro-Salmond and pro-

Sturgeon nationalists is arguably

Unionism’s best hope this year.

Nevertheless, this “awesome

foursome” — to use the prime

minister’s infelicitous term for the

UK — feels less awesome and less of

a foursome than at any point in

recent memory. This is not merely a

matter of revolting Scots. English

resentment at the endlessly whining

Jocks is evident too: if the Scots wish

independence, let them have it good

and hard. Assailed north of the

border and largely ignored south of

it, these are chilly and lonely times

for the more devout kind of Scottish

Unionist. Mr Johnson may know he

has a problem but his other problem

is that he is a large part of it, and I

doubt he can do much about that.

Clare Foges is away

Scotland problem is out of Johnson’s control

The Conservatives have never been more gloomy about the Union but an SNP implosion could yet come to their rescue

accused of not doing his utmost in

taking the fight to Ms Sturgeon

while also being too passive in terms

of his relationship with a UK party

and prime minister who remain

liabilities in Scotland. His likely

successor, Douglas Ross, the MP for

Moray, is expected to offer a more

belligerent opposition.

But he must do so while still being

chained to Mr Johnson and his

government. Mr Ross cannot

criticise Ms Sturgeon’s handling of

coronavirus without also implicitly

condemning the record of the

government in which he briefly

served. Merely doing “better than

England” may be an impoverished

level of ambition but so long as the

Scottish government can show it is

performing marginally better than

Mr Johnson, Scottish voters are

Next year’s Scottish election is likely

to hasten a second independence vote

Even less plausibly, perhaps Mr

Johnson could be persuaded to

resign and be replaced by a less

polarising, less toxic figure? (Ideally,

this would be Sir Keir Starmer.)

That such fanciful propositions are

even half entertained is itself a sign

of the despair evident in Unionist

circles. North and south Britain

increasingly feel like members of an

estranged family. “I can barely

remember where Downing Street is,”

says one prominent Scottish Tory,

“except that’s where the Union is

being lost.” The case for

independence, then, is being made

more forcefully in London than in

Edinburgh. Secession would be a

risk, but remaining is considered a

risky proposition too. That is a huge

strategic advance for the SNP.

Next year’s Holyrood elections

seem likely to deliver another pro-

independence majority in the

Scottish parliament and one

determined, moreover, to press for a

second independence referendum.

Mr Johnson will refuse that demand

for the very good reason that

Scotland might vote in favour of

secession if he accepted it. But “Just

Say No” is not a long-term strategy

even if, in the short term, there may

be little the SNP can do to counter it.

Devolution was delivered by Tony

Blair’s government but the possibility,

and the desire for it, was made in the

Thatcher-Major years. On present

trends, something similar might one

day be said of independence. It might

not have happened while David

Cameron, Theresa May or Boris

Johnson occupied Downing Street,

but those were the years in which the

unthinkable was decided.

Last week’s defenestration of

Jackson Carlaw, the leader of the

Scottish Tories, offered further proof

of the existential angst now obvious

in Unionist quarters. Mr Carlaw was

S

ooner or later, every
Conservative prime minister
discovers they have a
problem in north Britain.
Boris Johnson is a quicker
learner than some of his Tory
predecessors, if only in the sense that
he has become aware of his Scottish
problem in his first year in office. It is
a difficulty that can neither be
wished away nor expected to
disappear of its own accord.
When he became prime minister,
Mr Johnson paid tribute to the
household gods of “One Nation”
conservatism, but frankly it was
never quite clear which nation he
meant by that. Two recent opinion
polls have suggested that support for
Scottish independence stands at
about 55 per cent. The combination
of Brexit, coronavirus and the prime
minister himself has galvanised an
independence movement that, until
these three horsemen appeared,
could huff and puff all it liked
without getting appreciably closer to
its intended final destination.
Now, having made a flying visit to
Scotland, Mr Johnson promises to
pay attention to Scotland and the
threat promised by Nicola Sturgeon
and the SNP. The Union will
henceforth be a matter of truly
national, pan-UK concern and yet
another “Union unit” will measure
every government action in terms
of its impact upon the Union.
We have heard all of this before.
So many times, in fact, that I’ll

believe it when I see it. David

Cameron’s memoirs already seem to

have been written in some distant

age, about which we have only the

foggiest memory. But, if nothing else,

it is a useful reminder of the

complacency that often bedevils

Unionism. Only a dozen of the

book’s 703 pages are devoted to an

issue that, without being grandiose

about it, could be considered a fairly

important one: the survival of the

United Kingdom itself.

Even by the standards of the self-

justifying genre in which it is written,

Cameron’s account of the 2014

Scottish independence referendum is

astonishing. In short, he was right

about everything, and everything

turned out well in the end. He saw

off the Jocks and that was the end of

it. Independence “is a matter that all

the parties that support the Union

can credibly claim is settled”. This

was written — apparently seriously

— last year.

Peskily, the Scots disagree. Two

thirds of voters under the age of 34

say they favour independence and

this finding, above all, occasions

much gloominess in Unionist circles.

You do not need to search very far to

find even Tory politicians who fear

that the UK’s race is all but run.

So, dramatic measures are now

contemplated with a kind of bleak

scaffold humour. Perhaps half a

million English people could be

persuaded to move to Scotland?

More fancifully still, maybe some

hundreds of thousands of

Hongkongers could relocate to a new

free port on the Galloway coast?

Two thirds of Scots

under 34 say they

favour independence

These are chilly and

lonely times for the

more devout Unionist

Comment

Alex Massie

@alexmassie

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