There is no question that Alex Salmond has altered the whole debate over Scotland’s constitutional future. In an interview with The Times last Friday the First Minister threw a verbal firecracker into the mix, saying that independence was not the “centre of gravity”. But what was he up to?
It’s easy and simplistic to view his comments — as some opposition parties did — as Mr Salmond accepting that he’s lost the argument over breaking-up the United Kingdom. Rather, he was accepting that right now, in these gloomy financial times, Scots have a great deal more to worry about than the raison d’être — some would say obsession — of the SNP.
Certainly, those few who have allowed their minds to stray to the subject in recent months will have almost certainly concluded that Scotland does not need the financial risks of separation.
It may be the old “keep a hold of nurse” argument. It may be that the former Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy was right when he said independence would never happen because the recent £70 billion bail-out of Scotland’s banks had “entered the bloodstream of Scots”.
But all of that does not mean that Mr Salmond and the SNP have given up on independence — although the word seldom drops from Nationalist lips these days.
Advertisement
No, Mr Salmond was sending a timely reminder to supporters and opponents that under his leadership, there will be no independence “big bang”. Nationalist gradualism is back in fashion and Mr Salmond sees independence as a process, not an event.
It was no accident that within days of our interview, the First Minister was posing big questions over the timing of his independence referendum. It now looks like a non-starter in this Parliament at least. The time is not ripe and Mr Salmond is playing for time.
But he needs something to fill the gap and has jumped on what he perceives as the intrinsic weakness of the Calman Commisssion’s proposals for improving devolution — proposals which, it seems, the coalition Government in London wants to implement.
In The Times interview, Mr Salmond served notice that he believes Calman is no answer to the budgetary cuts about to hit Scotland — though to be fair Calman was not set up to provide such an answer.
The First Minister was asking an uncomfortable question of all those who believe that devolution has improved Scotland. He was asking why can’t it help us protect those Scots who will find themselves at the sharp end of an age of austerity the like of which we haven’t seen since the 1940s.
Advertisement
And if Calman can’t do it, what can?. Mr Salmond’s answer is fiscal responsibility which he believes, since it would allow Holyrood to control most of the tax raised in Scotland, could give the country breathing space in the hard times ahead.
The First Minister is asking what kind of Scotland do we want and how do we go about helping ourselves rather than sitting back and taking the punishment.
To ask such questions, Mr Salmond accepts that he has to put the SNP’s assumption that independence would cure our ills to one side. And he is asking his opponents to put their assumptions to one side and help him to find some lasting solutions.