At Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference, I committed a cardinal liberal offence. I voted against a pro-federalism motion, moved by Robert Brown and Lord Purvis. I opposed in sorrow and anger at the Party’s stasis on the constitutional question. I was also annoyed that attempts some of us made to secure a more robust debate at Conference on federalism, were rebuffed by Conference Committee. We were made to feel that the party bureaucracy did not want a real clash of ideas for Conference to resolve democratically.
The motion didn’t take practical steps towards advancing federalism any further than the Party already had. Its tone, if anything, made federalism more difficult to advance. Siobhan Mathers was right when she said in the debate that Lib Dems are excessively high-minded, believing they had more influence than was the reality on further devolution. Though the Campbell Commission reported first, it was outflanked by the Tory proposals on critical areas like welfare. The Party seems reluctant just to admit that, whatever the proximate cause, we lost our radical edge. We did not adapt to the shifting constitutional landscape even before the independence referendum.
On restructuring the Union towards federalism, the motion merely calls for a UK-wide Constitutional Convention. We already endorsed the need for this at Autumn Conference in 2012. Lord Purvis has already acted upon that at Westminster. Re-iteration requires no Conference motion. The only new “action” was to “seek a mandate” for federalism at Holyrood’s Elections. This means nothing. Unless we win May’s elections, something not even the most delusional Scottish Lib Dem believes, surely the result is the electorate rejecting a “mandate for federalism”?
We are at a T-junction. Fail to choose a path and the result is perpetual irrelevance. The first path? Grasp federalism by both hands: agitate furiously with leadership and attention to detail to put it seriously on the UK constitutional agenda. The second path? Conclude that federalism has no serious prospect of advancing irrespective of our actions. We must then adapt to the new Scotland, jettisoning federalism in favour of a relationship of near full autonomy for Scotland, possibly sharing characteristics of the Basque Country or the Quebec proposal for “sovereignty association”. Any middle ground, to believe in federalism but do nothing to advance it, is purgatory. The electoral and constitutional result is death by a thousand cuts.
One amendment we submitted attempted to give the motion specific practical steps. They would help our leadership to build on the Campbell Commission. That Commission proposed a new “Treaty of Union” but didn’t explain what this new federal settlement would actually look like. It lacked a draft federal constitution, spelling out the relationship envisaged between the different nations of the United Kingdom and the Westminster institutions.
Other political parties, whether opponents or federal and sister organisations, won’t take federalism seriously unless we have concrete proposals with which they can reasonably be expected to engage. We proposed a working group to draft a codified federal constitution for the UK. We could then present it to other Holyrood parties, major civic society groups, and the Welsh and Federal Lib Dems for real and robust debate. Such a draft would need to explain how we overcome the common structural obstacles pled against a federal United Kingdom.
Some obstacles are obvious. We need a way of “quarantining” English domestic governance from UK-wide constitutional reform until there is meaningful consensus from the English as to whether they want a Parliament of their own, regional assemblies, or something else. What is plainly clear is that federalism cannot work for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland if the English situation is unresolved. How we engage England and English Lib Dems is critical.
Fiscal devolution is, in many respects, antithetical to fiscal federalism. Scotland’s block-grant still depends-on English departmental spending. The structure of tax devolution, even under the new Smith proposals, is no more “federalism friendly” than its predecessors. The Campbell Commission recognised this problem, saying some sort of needs-based formula might be a solution. Alas, we have precious little indication what that formula would look like. We need detailed principles for how it assesses “need” for the respective nations. The working-group needed to develop this, expanding on the Holtham and Silk Reports on Welsh devolution. They examined precisely this question in more detail than Calman or Smith ever did.
For federalism to have “one last push” the Lib Dems must go at it whole-heartedly in action, not just in words. This motion was a comfort blanket.
Our second amendment related to more subtle problems: how to be taken seriously on the constitutional question and in Scottish politics more generally. This motion was terse, almost passive aggressive, in describing the SNP. It called them a “threat”, showing little effort to empathise with or understand the SNP’s liberal fellow-travellers. It was precisely how not to do diplomacy. If you want to make friends and win influence, you don’t start with a hostile dismissal of opposing negotiators.
Polling between 5-7% in Scotland inevitably means we must work with other parties, even those with whom we have historically found difficult to work. The motion fell into a classic trap: failing seriously to contemplate engagement with the Scottish National Party in attempting to build a “movement” or demand for federalism in Scotland. The SNP are the most effectively marshalled political movement against the inequities of the British constitution in a generation. They are the main show in town right now.
Yet the movers still seemed to think the way to win-over Scottish voters to liberalism and federalism was to identify first and foremost as a Unionist party preferring to work with Labour or the Tories rather than “the Nats”. The electoral maths, if nothing else, demonstrates how misguided this approach is.
Liberals in Scotland didn’t start voting Labour or Tory out of discontent at the constitutional predicament. They vote SNP. They see cumbersome, out-of-touch, unresponsive, and unreformable political institutions. They think the only way for a fresh start is independence and/or to vote SNP. Despite the SNP’s record at Holyrood, they see politics through the prism of that question. To them, Liberal Democrats are Unionist first and liberal second. We failed to show them we share their concerns about how Britain is governed. We have more in common with “liberal Nats” than authoritarian or conservative Unionists. Yet we seem totally unwilling to engage with them emotionally out of a belief that they are unpersuadable.
Unless we engage these people soon, and I think there are still “soft” SNP supporters, their support will harden. It will be nearly impossible in 2020-21 to win them back. We’ll find ourselves fighting over an ever-diminishing pool of Unionist voters, who see us as the third-wheel in their movement. We won’t just fail to build mass-support in Scotland for federalism. We’ll be ignored on domestic matters like education, healthcare and justice. Willie Rennie’s appeal to independence voters risks appearing hollow: it doesn’t seem to involve any give on our part to bridge the empathy gap.
Scotland isn’t crying out for another political party to say the SNP is bad. They want a party that empathises with the concerns of those across Scotland, regardless of how they voted last September. They want a party that knows how to engage them with the heart and the head: it needs a clear reform agenda as an alternative to the SNP. This means more than just “not doing what the SNP are doing”.
Look to the recent success of Canada’s Liberals. They didn’t beat Stephen Harper’s Conservatives by simply saying he did a bad job. Trudeau had distinctive alternatives, detailed policies, and radical ideas for how to change Canada. Ask yourself honestly, what are the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ alternative big ideas? We are increasingly talking amongst ourselves, and the constitutional question is but one of many examples on this. I want us to change Scotland, not just to talk about it.
