Peter Jones: Voters speak, now SNP should listen

DESPITE the leader’s claims to the contrary, the electorate delivered an independence message, writes Peter Jones

Elections, elections, everywhere and, here in Scotland at any rate, no-one seemed quite sure who deserved the winner’s drinks. There was a winner in France, sure, but few are clear what it means for Europe’s future. Murkier still is what Greece’s chaotic result portends for both the Greeks and the euro. One thing is certain, however. No-one will be scrutinising the messages sent by voters, at home and abroad, more closely than Alex Salmond, for they could well affect his thinking on the independence referendum.

Of course, he was saying exactly the opposite yesterday: “We are not daft enough to believe that the voting patterns in a local election, or even incidentally in a Scottish election, are identical to the voting patterns when people have the opportunity to vote for the constitutional future of their country.”

Perfectly true, but the reasons why people voted the way they did for parties and candidates also affect how they view referendums. The 1979 and 1997 Scottish devolution referendums were affected as much by the popularity of the then Labour governments as by anything else and were matched by the general election results that followed the first plebiscite and preceded the second one.

Now after the Scottish council elections, both Labour and the SNP have been anxious to claim they are the winners. And indeed, both parties have evidence in terms of seats won and councils controlled to back their claims. But if you look at the mood music coming from the two camps, it is hard to disagree with distinguished psephologist John Curtice that the results are “something of a setback” for the SNP and that “it is Labour, not the SNP, who have gained most”.

For the first time I can remember for near on a decade, news columns have been full of gripes and moans from SNP activists. In Glasgow, where Labour confounded SNP confidence of a big win, they complained the manifesto had been “tepid”, offering not much more than a council tax freeze.

Party leadership, both nationally and locally, had “hurt” them, said one SNP source, citing voter distaste for Mr Salmond’s consorting with Rupert Murdoch. Glasgow group leader Alison Hunter’s ineptness and frank admission that an SNP win would be a “stepping stone to independence” clearly cost votes.

Quite apart from these recriminations being in marked contrast to the Labour delight that it has recovered, if not the dominance it once had in local government, but surely much of the confidence that it can take on the SNP, the fact that independence does not have the allure that the SNP thought it had is telling.

It is all the more so because of the economic background against which these elections were fought. Mr Salmond thought the most thrilling aspect of the SNP’s performance was that it had been in government for five years, but unlike any other European government, it had gained seats rather than lost them.

Sure, but the uniqueness of the SNP is that while it is certainly in government in Scotland, it is also in opposition to the UK government at Westminster. Crucially, it opposes the UK government’s austerity programme, opposing its spending cuts and its lack of investment in infrastructure.

This is a vital part of the trick that has kept the SNP ahead in Scottish opinion polls and why it kept its nose in front of Labour in first preference votes and seats won last Thursday. Labour is also opposed to austerity, but to a lesser degree, preferring the cuts to be slower and shallower than the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition’s programme.

Viewed from this perspective, the Scottish council results fit exactly with the weekend European outcomes. Parties favouring or implementing fiscal stringency were punished while those offering some sort of respite were rewarded. South of the Border, Labour could be the only beneficiary of this trend. All of a sudden, it now looks a potential party of government.

Mr Salmond must fervently hope that this impression fades. A key factor in his referendum scheming is that an autumn 2014 plebiscite would come just before the general election due in spring 2015. And if polling shows that the Tories are likely to be returned as a majority government, that would be a big incentive for Scots to quit the Union.

On the other hand, if Labour looks likely to be returned, the potency of that factor is greatly diminished. He could get his wish, for Ed Miliband, thanks to Ken Livingstone’s failure to oust Boris Johnson from the London mayorship, has not quelled all doubts about his leadership. And indeed, as nationalist commentator Duncan Hamilton pointed out in Scotland on Sunday, there are plenty of political scenarios in which a unionist meltdown can be imagined.

Nevertheless, all the election results show that electoral politics cannot be de-coupled from the economy, indeed it is the key factor which will determine how people vote on independence. Last December, if you remember, the annual Scottish Social Attitudes Survey showed that 65 per cent of Scots would vote for independence it they thought it would make them £500 a year better off, while only 21 per cent would if they were likely to be £500 a year worse off.

This result provoked much merriment that Scots could be swayed by a mere half-grand. But the French and Greek elections show that this finding is pretty much in tune with what Europeans think. And since economic forecasts are pretty much united in thinking that all developed world economies are going to be bumping along the bottom for several years to come, voters’ self-interested thinking is likely to be the prime factor in the referendum.

Mr Salmond believes it is an argument he can win, especially if crude oil prices, and therefore North Sea revenues, look to be high post-2014. If so, then a prudent course of action for him may well be to bring forward the referendum to, say, spring 2014 and de-couple it from any effect the 2015 general election might have.

This would not be a humiliating U-turn. His consultation closes on Friday and he can always claim to have listened and learned from the calls it is bound to have received for an earlier poll.

It would be good politics, especially since some in his party, according to media reports of the council elections post-mortem, have begun to fret that he is starting to appear arrogant.