By the Rev Alasdair Galloway:

Stephen Noon enjoys a somewhat legendary status in the SNP. Previously a policy adviser to Alex Salmond, then strategist for the 2014 campaign and credited for much of its positive development, including the 2015 virtual wipeout, he left to become Director of the London Jesuit Centre for seven years. Now he is part of the Public Affairs team for Weber Shandwick in Scotland, as well as a Research Associate at the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow.

This Sunday (8/10) he was interviewed by Martin Geissler on BBC’s “The Sunday Shown and in the course of this he claimed that Scottish politics was moving into a new phase, that the age of the referendum was over and that “the SNP must combine its core message of support for independence with a broader call for more powers for the Scottish Parliament”. The evidence he quotes for this judgement is “The Supreme Court decision, the departure of Nicola Sturgeon and this by-election result, they all point in the same direction”.

In Noon’s view while it is critical to maintain a majority of SNP MPs “the defining factor [in this new phase] is the move away from a Tory Government, a replacement for the Tory Government, it’s the emergence of a UK Labour Government”, though he admits a Labour government will be no more than a “temporary reprieve”,

As Noon puts it, “Scotland progresses when there’s a Labour Government at Westminster and a strong SNP in Scotland, so we should be comfortable with Labour winning in England but backed up by SNP success, SNP votes in Scotland.”

His strong suggestion is that Scotland use this phase to increase the powers of the Holyrood Parliament. One he identifies specifically is employment law, which Labour prevented during the Smith Commission and continues to resist.

He is though clear that “is the space I think we should be in, more independence and a step, absolutely, to full independence.” To achieve that end he argues “the SNP must attempt to build a broader “coalition” around giving more powers to the Scottish Parliament”, including such as the STUC to create more pressure to devolve employment law.

The statistical foundation for this is a recent poll asking the independence question in a “more nuanced way” (meaning inter alia that its very difficult to compare to other polls and establish trend) shows 35% support independence, while 21% support more Holyrood powers. Essentially his argument is that if the latter can be brought into the same camp as the former, there is a majority for independence. Even if it takes a bit of time, which he accepts it would, that would be “job done”. His argument, it does have to be admitted, could get the ducks in a row, and being an analyst who has been successful in the past,  should not be casually dismissed.

For one thing, to the extent that Wings over Scotland has got this right – and taking Campbell’s customary vitriol out of it – there does seem to be a view among SNP staffers that more Holyrood powers is the route to go. The “Day of the Jackals” (https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-day-of-the-jackals/) is a pretty good and recent example, though in Stewart Campbell’s view, making devolution work is their ultimate aim for the sake of their careers.

According to Marcus Carslaw (a staffer with Kirsten Oswald) now is not the time to “go hard on independence”, indeed it would be “counterproductive”. Much better to focus on day-to-day matters such as rising prices, interest rates, energy costs etc, recognizing that independence is out of reach till it is supported by a majority of Scots.

The “give-away” according to Campbell is that in the National, young Mr Carslaw attacked Nicola Sturgeon’s strategy of using the coming UK election as a de facto referendum which he described as a “high risk gamble”. Others supporting this view, according to Campbell include Stewart McDonald and Stephen Flynn. In Campbell’s view their motivation comes from that “they know they’re all likely to find themselves unceremoniously ejected from the gravy train next year. The wipeout that the Rutherglen result signals would dump them all into what would be a bitter dogfight for the available list seats at Holyrood in 2026, and in any event bereft of salaries in the intervening two years.” So for Campbell it’s all about protecting the careers of some MPs and staffers, hence his frequent use of “troughers” etc.

The difficulty with Campbell’s typically aggressive view is the degree of difficulty he has to distinguish a genuine difference of opinion and the utterly venal motivation he argues is in play, particularly when politicians not seeking advantage are about as rare as hens’ teeth. There can be few days when a politician doesn’t waken up seeking some sort of advantage to him/herself as well as their party.

However, rather than condemning individuals on the basis of thin evidence which depends on a cynical interpretation, a view based on genuine disagreement is preferable as the evidence can then be considered at face value.

So taking Noon as typical of the “more power for Holyrood” point of view, how well does his argument stand up to scrutiny?

First of all, with the passage of time, clearly it is only to be expected that the influence of 2014 will diminish, and the extent to which we consider most issues through the distinction between Yes and No. However as Marx made clear in his Critique of the Gotha Programme about the emergence of a communist society, so any new phase in the debate about Scotland’s future is likely to be  “stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes”. In other words, it seems to me that the question of what is best for taking Scottish independence forward will remain foundational, at least while there is the degree of division of opinion there is just now. It’s not that its importance will diminish but that it will structure an increasingly wide range of issues. For instance do we seek more devolved powers for their own sake as Campbell claims such as Flynn are up to? Or do we seek more powers as a means of taking independence forward, so that independence comes about as a function of this progression. In short there is no conflict. More powers for Holyrood is not an end in itself, but as a means to the end of securing the ultimate aim of our independence.

However, some of Noon’s thinking on the way to this conclusion seems a little shaky. For instance, if more powers for Holyrood are emphasized, while there is a majority of support for independence (35/21), Noon seems to imagine that majority will sit quiet while the focus is placed on more powers for the devolved Parliament. But will they? Even such as Pete Wishart (derided on Wings as “carpet slippers Pete”) support the idea that the movement needs to move more quickly than Noon’s strategy suggests (Geissler described it as “slow burn”). The SNP conference in October may offer a measure of this, though the issue is wider than just the membership of the SNP.

Put briefly, how many of the 35%, in the poll cited by Noon, will sit quiet while the SNP focus on securing more powers?  How many will become disaffected and either drop out of party politics altogether, or join an alternative such as Alba? This would have a significant impact on the SNP as the role of the foot soldier who knocks doors and delivers leaflets is crucial (indeed the report that the SNP had to pay to have leaflets delivered in Rutherglen is not promising).

Moreover, what are the chances of success with the “more powers” strategy? It is pretty clear that the Labour Party is quite as opposed to Scottish independence as it was in 2014. We know that the “two child” Universal Credit rule will only be removed when “it can be afforded” despite the earlier confident assertions by Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie. Another thing we know already is that despite the views of the STUC, employment law is unlikely to be devolved. Also, since the UK election can only be delayed for one more year, and the next Scottish election, while the next Holyrood election wont be till May 2026, a UK Labour government and an SNP led government here will have to coexist. The prospects for this don’t seem much more promising than with the present Westminster government. ‘Nice Labour’ or ‘nasty Tory” doesn’t seem much of a choice, if indeed it merits that description at all. Much of this was confirmed in the National’s report that Ian Murray “has refused to “categorically” rule out blocking Scottish legislation using Section 35 should his party come to power”, though he considers it a “last resort”, or put another way, it will be a last resort for Westminster to instruct Scotland what to do/ not to do (https://www.thenational.scot/news/23842421.ian-murray-labour-cant-rule-use-section-35/).

Indeed, even Noon makes the point that the election of a Labour government  (at the next General Election) is important will only be a temporary reprieve. One reason for this is that there is only so much flexibility in the very centralised British state.

Some of you might remember my old colleague at the University of Paisley, the late Richard Mowbray. If you are familiar with my stuff and Richard’s letters to the Herald will not be surprised to learn there was little Richard and I agreed about – on a bad day, even if it was raining. One thing we did agree about, though, was that devolution could only be advanced so far. That sooner or later, the SNP (or the Scottish electorate) would demand powers that compromise the administrative integrity of the UK state. Clearly we didn’t agree whether or not this was a good thing or not (Richard didn’t).

In short, in time devolution can only be developed so far, if it not pushed back, or held back, before it topples over to become a form of federalism which in a state where 85% of the population is a single partner is hard to imagine. There is, in other words, a systemic structural limitation to Scotland’s aspirations to take its own decisions about its own future, unless it is independence.

Lastly interesting as Noon’s encouragement to a “wider” coalition is interesting and at face value, indisputable. However to paraphrase LBJ talking about J Edgar Hoover, it is better to have that larger number “pissing out of the tent than pissing into it”. At different points he cites the excellent example pof supporting the devolution of employment law to secure the support of the STUC, but also Tom Hunter who wants to encourage Scotland to be a low tax economy. Politics is sometimes about being able to ride two horses at the same time – sometimes through sequential attention – but there are limits! A wider coalition is fine until such time as it includes contradictory parties. Thus, while again, there is much to be said for a wider coalition, attention needs to be paid to internal contradictions and how these can be managed. Indeed, the current conflict between certain parts of the SNP and the Greens is another example. We always need to compare the advantages of partnership with the cost of the arrangement.

Thus, Noon’s ideas are certainly worthy of consideration, but pose problems with regard to their detail. His notion of a new phase may well be correct, particularly if it means the election of the first Labour government while the SNP are in power in Holyrood. While acknowledging 2007-2010 –  hardly an advert – we have much less experience of how Labour and SNP coexist, though as above, the runes don’t look good even before Starmer is elected.

The wider coalition seems like wisdom, as long as we can be sure that differences  can be managed without damaging the coalition.

But more risible than anything else is the “new phase”. Certainly the election of a Labour government represents a new challenge, but then again sa much greater one would be the election of a Westminster government led by Suella Braverman, which is possible should a Starmer government crash and burn. New issues don’t necessarily suggest a new phase. Just that the dominant – Yes/No paradigm – has to deal with new challenges. Is there really a conflict between more powers and independence? Surely that is just the difference between more powers under the aegis of the UK, or all powers under independence? Will the 21% whose ambition is limited to devolution really vote down more devolution powers because the party leading demands for such powers has full independence as their raison d’etre? As above, riding two horses is not easy, but this is not to say that it’s impossible. Conflict is certainly possible, but not inevitable.