Unionists should seize referendum chance

THE referendum asking if the Scottish electorate wanted a Scottish Parliament with tax raising powers was only 13 years ago. The third session of the Parliament is not yet complete. Do we really need another referendum so soon?

For those that are unaware, let me reveal that I was the organiser of the No No campaign back in 1997. I had in fact been working behind the scenes since the mid nineties trying to wake Scottish industrialists and Conservative politicians to the certainty that there would be a referendum on a Scottish Parliament once the Tory government eventually lost power.

Everyone I spoke to believed the Union was safe, there was nothing to fear from the SNP and that Labour would not deliver on any commitment for a devolved institution.

After June 1997 there were no Tory politicians and the referendum had grown to two questions so that the spectre of tax-raising powers would not hinder the birth of the institution itself.

A No No it had to be. Much as I believed a parliament should be accountable directly to the taxpayers that fund its spending decisions, merely varying the standard rate of tax did not achieve this. More importantly, if any headway was to be made in winning support on the first question – rejecting the parliament itself – I and many others believed we had to convince the public to see the threat of a voracious tax-consuming body. This meant asking them to consider voting No in the second question before thinking about how they might vote in the first.

So, the No No campaign was born, operating from my office in Leith.

Our campaign team thought we were edging closer on that second question, although we knew a Yes on the first question was by then a foregone conclusion.

Establishing the Scottish Parliament was still part of the Scottish public's payback for the Thatcher and Major years and Tony Blair's ploy, pushed hard by Donald Dewar, of having a referendum quickly while there was still a euphoric feel about removing the Conservatives was one of the smartest decisions of his premiership.

Thirteen years after and the Scottish political landscape is quite different. Rather than finishing off the nationalists, the Holyrood Parliament has rewarded them with power and they are doing their best to use it to break the union, publishing their draft Referendum Bill last week.

There was an honest case to be made against the Scottish Parliament – as a further tier of government creating a lop-sided system that would create its own new grievances within the Union – and I believe it was made in 1997. Once created, however, a Scottish Parliament cannot be taken away. The Rubicon has been crossed and there is no going back. Nevertheless, the current model is flawed. It always was. The fiasco of the parliament building will disappear into the mists of time but it was symptomatic of so much that passes through an institution that does not feel the pain or wipe the blood, sweat and tears off the collective brow of the taxpayers who toil to pay for its grand gestures.

The ability of Holyrood to give away freebies in healthcare and education that are seen as luxuries by English taxpayers only serves to undermine the UK's stability from the south while the nationalists dab the iodine into any cuts and abrasions that surface in the North.

For these reasons the status quo is not acceptable, and while the Calman proposals are a compromise that will only result in yet more calls for more powers no sooner than they are granted, a Yes is required. Far better, I believe, would be for Scottish unionists to establish what might properly be called Home Rule instead of Devo Max, and then get on with running Great Britain as we have done for the majority of the union's history.

This then leaves the second question on independence, which in its fuzzy, almost apologetic, wording suggests a large degree of insecurity from its nationalist proponents.

Everybody can see Alex Salmond's game. He does not want a referendum he will lose. He would rather be persistently denied it by petulant and panicky opponents so that he might nurse a grievance; a grievance that he will use to try and wear the public down until it is sick and fed up with the Union or at least keeps electing him into office.

The way to deal with this strategy is to cut Salmond off at the knees, for there is very little behind him as John Swinney showed in 2003 and Nicola Sturgeon has been showing this past fortnight.

The unionist parties should have forced a quick referendum when they had the chance in 2007. Now they have a second opportunity – they should seize it. David Cameron should march up and support a Yes No vote, offering Calman Plus, turning the SNP's retreating support into a rout and offering soft nationalists a reason to vote Conservative.

Salmond acts like a modern general by employing mobile strategies and tactics. It is time the unionists did the same instead of relying on the old trench warfare of the past.

• Brian Monteith is policy director of ThinkScotland.org