Liberal Vision

Should Scottish Liberal Democrats back independence?

On a miserable night, the Scottish Liberal Democrats were particularly glum losing 12 of 17 seats in the Scottish Parliament and falling below 8% of the vote. The elected members can now fit in a McTaxi. One, the Leader Tavish Scott has just resigned and is likely to be replaced by super-campaigner Willie Rennie.

Most of this is down to the general trend against the party. Some of it is local. Like the Welsh party, who performed relatively less poorly, it is hard to see what is compelling and distinctive about the Scottish party. It is not clear that the gap in the market labelled liberal unionism, is much of a gap.

The party promotes itself largely as sound mangerialists. The 89 page 2011 manifesto is full of good technocratic stuff. It is a reasonable Chief Executive plan for running a large Council.

But I wonder how much differs, and does so decisively from the others? Better run public services, jobs and growth are hygiene factors in the centre-ground, not differentiators.

Where there is a gap is on the pro-independence centre-right.

The SNP, a party formed by a left-right merger, absorbing the old Scottish Party, is now an almost entirely centre-left and populist party. If they do blow their 2011 success, and do so quickly, it will be on the gap between their spending rhetoric and fiscal reality.

For those whose vision of Scotland is one of a free-trading nation, competing with England for world markets, rather than deficit expansion, the SNP is not a natural home. The Conservatives are wedded to unionism and reactionary on social matters. They, us, and Labour are too easily seen as adjuncts to their UK parties. Something right now, that is particularly damaging for us.

I’m not sure with the party’s current support, how strong opinions against independence actually are; or how nuanced. Support for either Home Rule or federal relations are certainly not a novelty in liberalism, and the Liberal Unionists merged with the Conservatives in 1912. Is it entirely implausible that the mood could shift again following this election?

Should it?

Generally liberals should also be fairly relaxed about national borders, or at least where change is the result of democratic will rather than coercion. It is not then clear to me, other than the accidents of history and local tribalism, why the Scottish Liberal Democrats should be staunch supporters of a No Campaign.

What they should certainly be is advocates of a democratic choice. There will be a referendum and the party’s previous flip-flopping, welcoming than against, now looks ridculous. Liberals should not appear to fear democracy, even when, like the AV referendum, the outcomes are disagreeable.

The Union it should be noted is the arbitrary result of the politics of a bank bailout following the collapse of the Darien scheme, an 18th century credit crisis. It is not obvious the end of Union would be a disaster for either Scotland or the rest of the UK. Nor indeed any devolution option between the status quo and full seperation. Electoral collapse and a leadership debate should give the Scottish Liberal Democrats room to consider those options.

It would give the party a chance to renew, provide a clear point of difference with the English Liberal Democrats, Tories and Labour, and might give them the narrative they currently lack.

Why not?

A miserable night for little compromises

The counting is ongoing, but early election results seem to indicate a bad night for the Liberal Democrats, modest success for Labour, and a good result for Conservatives, holding their own on an already high base. The AV referendum will likely be lost. Not much has changed in Wales, bar a small and anticipated Labour advance.

In Scotland the success of the SNP against everyone, potentially securing a small majority under a proportional voting system, is extraordinary and could be game-changing. Either it will give them the momentum they need for a proper debate about independence. Or it will be a bubble akin to Cleggmania, popped rapidly when they find they cannot possibly deliver pre-election promises made without concession to economics.

The biggest loser tonight though would appear to be coalition politics. The retention of the bipolar first past the post system aside, third parties, the Liberal Democrats in particular, will find little in these outcomes to encourage future collaboration.

Governing alone the SNP have advanced, where Labour and the Liberal Democrats fell back after their coalition government. In Wales Plaid have fallen after co-operating with Labour, and Labour have not advanced much. The Liberal Democrats, across the country, have suffered after co-operating with the Conservatives. In the Council elections smaller parties across the board have lost ground to the two big beasts.

As Lord Ashdown noted last night:

“We believed, perhaps a little over-optimistically, that the British people would understand the difference between compromise and betrayal.”

The party case, ‘we had to do this because of the economic situation’, has received a resounding raspberry in response. Would a future Liberal Democrat leader be quite so keen to do a deal for government, with any party, on this result?

It is important to conclude, that the liberal left preference for a deal with Labour, should not be seen as more attractive by this result. There is no reason to believe that the party’s “first mid-term for 80 years” would have been less painful as junior partners to Miliband and Balls, let alone an ongoing Brown premiership. It would quite likely have been worse, the party is far more exposed to advances by the Conservatives than Labour.

It does though merit some soul-searching as to how the party prepares for and engages in future opportunities like 2010. Are there examples of coalition relationships that have boosted the junior party, and what can we learn from that? Or are we better off on the sidelines until the day one of the major parties faces the kind of collapse that demolished the Liberals in the 1920s?