CALLING ALEX Salmond’s bluff may be a risky strategy. The Tory/Lib Dem coalition clearly believes that Scotland’s first minister’s plan for a referendum on independence cannot be derailed, and that his preferred timing, some time closer to 2016, is likely to favour the fair wind which appears to be propelling forward his cause in public opinion. Observers believe the Scottish National Party (SNP) favours 2014 to capitalise on the feelgood factor generated by the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and the 700th anniversary of the bloody Bannockburn routing of the English.
Government proposals to be unveiled within the next few days are expected to offer a legally binding referendum within the next 18 months on a yes-or-no question of whether Scotland should stay in the UK.
The gamble being made by British prime minister David Cameron is that SNP claims – that perfidious Albion and her unionist acolytes, in dictating the pace, are once again bullying Scotland – will be insufficient to further shake the current, shrinking unionist majority north of the border. An Ipsos Mori poll last month showed that 38 per cent of Scots would vote to leave the UK, up three points from August, with 57 per cent opposed to independence (5 per cent undecided).
The ever-popular Salmond, returned from self-imposed retirement, last May led his party to an unprecedented majority of 69 in the 129-seat Scottish Parliament on a pledge “to give Scots a vote on full economic powers through an independence referendum”. That he had promised to run in the second half of his term and suggested the vote should be a “multi-option referendum”, including an option on much-enhanced devolution short of independence that would allow fiscal autonomy, so-called devolution max.
But the devil will be in the detail. The legal authority to call a binding or consultative referendum, to set its wording, to enfranchise not only Scottish voters but possibly the Scottish-born, and/or even 16 and 17-year-olds, all potentially crucial to the result, are hotly contested. And the SNP will take particular pleasure in exposing differences of approach to devolution, between the unionist parties, the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour.
Yet, crucially, taking the longer view, the big picture of Scottish politics and of the UK – including Northern Ireland which could not be unaffected by Scottish independence – has been transformed. What seemed two years ago to be a forlorn dream of nationalists, is now firmly back on the agenda. The wily Salmond has all to play for.