Scotland to stay put

THE SCOTTISH National Party’s charismatic leader and First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, has a sense of history

THE SCOTTISH National Party’s charismatic leader and First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, has a sense of history. So it was on St Andrew’s Day, 10 years after Scotland got its devolved parliament, that he launched his awaited White Paper on a referendum on Scottish independence. But there’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip, and Mr Salmond knows well that the SNP’s minority position in the assembly means it does not have the votes to carry the Bill. There was a strong element of election posturing yesterday.

In what is likely to be an unsuccessful ploy to sugar the pill for the assembly's other parties, all of whom have opposed the referendum, Mr Salmond proposed a "preferendum" in which voters are asked to indicate their preferred of four options ranging from the status quoto full independence through two forms of upgraded devolution. The milder version of the two corresponds to proposals from the recent Calman Commission, set up by the pro-union parties to look at ways of strengthening devolution and whose main findings Labour endorsed last Thursday. While the Tories participated in its work, they say that, if they win power, they will ditch Labour's plans and come up with their own.

Calman proposed devolution of powers on a series of small-sounding issues like drink-driving laws and airguns, but its main recommendation involves an interesting element of fiscal federalism – reducing income tax in Scotland by 10p in the pound, with the block grant received by the Holyrood government cut accordingly. Members of the Scottish Parliament would then be allowed to levy the balance, or not, so taking responsibility for revenue-raising as well as spending. Overall the proposals would give the Holyrood, Edinburgh, parliament power to raise about 14 per cent of its current spending. Under “full devolution”, the option that falls just short of independence, MSPs would have control over taxes like inheritance tax and corporation tax and be fully responsible for collecting the “vast majority” of revenues in Scotland.

Mr Salmond’s optimism notwithstanding, the cause of full independence is not faring well. An opinion poll last week found only 29 per cent would vote for independence, and put the SNP at 24 per cent to Labour’s 33 per cent. Some of that is down to Scotland’s economic downturn, with its two main banks requiring massive emergency aid from the UK taxpayer. The electorate has clearly taken a view not unlike Ireland’s to the EU over Lisbon – no time to fall out with the paymaster.