How turning to Adam Smith can help to Scottish independence

Readers’ letters and comments confirm their enthusiasm for Scotland’s independence, and their readiness to hurl themselves into an immediate campaign. The current consensus in comments seems to be that the Scottish Parliament should provoke an early election, which would be a “de facto” referendum.

Yet the claim that the proportion of the electorate favouring independence in such an election would be greater than in a Westminster one is telling.

Were the proponents of these plans confident that independence is the settled will of the Scottish people, then they would realise that the franchise simply would not matter. They are still trying to build the majority for independence.

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Writing my last column, I felt ambivalence. Not about the claim that if a plebiscite election succeeded, the role of Scotland’s MPs would have to change, so that they would become commissioners at some new Westminster Conference. That seems to be an essential implication of a vote in favour of independence.

The question is whether the time is right for to provoke the decisive vote – and even whether it will be possible. Asking the question too early, before there is a consensus that independence is the right choice, courts failure.

A majority in opinion polling in favour of independence now does not ensure the majority will survive a lengthy, messy campaign. That was David Cameron’s arrogant error – and Brexit was the result. And can we really assume that the UK Government would sit passively back allowing us to break up the Union?

There is still a need to build the case for independence. Countries do not often dissolve, except when there is a crisis. For Scotland to initiate the dissolution of the UK, there needs to be a convincing case made to voters that they will quickly feel benefits of independence; that their lives will be better.

This is too large a task for the Scottish Government, or the SNP, or even the active supporters of independence. It will take a nation to build the new nation. Scotland will become independent when Scots have decided that it is independent. Thinking through this, I have repeatedly come back to the division of labour, introduced at the start of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

Recognising that any sort of manufacturing would involve many processes, Smith argued that the specialisation enabled by a factory system, with different workers completing each step, would increase productivity. The reduction in costs would allow a larger quantity of goods could be sold at lower prices than they would otherwise.

Those who support independence must not repeat the arrogant error by David Cameron which resulted in Brexit

In a factory, someone has designed the machinery and thought about how it will be used. Workers can be ordered to complete tasks. Politics need much more persuasion. Many members of the SNP, and perhaps as many former members, harbour doubts about the capability, and motivation of its leadership to achieve the party’s main objective, fearing that they have settled down to the much more feasible task of managing Scotland a little better than their political opponents do the UK.

The division of labour seems likely to be important in campaigning. The SNP’s leadership seems determined that the party should operate as a unified organisation. That has been enough to win seven successive elections but with the support of about 45% of the electorate.

FOR many people, this is a convincing mandate for independence, or for a test of public opinion on the independence question. For others, it justifies the UK Government’s continuing veto of any democratic process which might lead to independence. Overcoming that resistance to a decision being made seems essential.

In this context, the Scottish Government needs to demonstrate competence, and re-assurance that Scotland can be independent.

At Westminster, MPs have the unenviable but necessary task of making the case for independence in the face of substantial opposition. The recent move to amend the list of powers reserved to Westminster was an obvious one, even if it was easily defeated.

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There will also a division of labour between the professionals – elected representatives, their office staff, and the employees of political parties – and the voluntary associations, which sustain the independence movement. To achieve independence, the movement must transcend party politics. The SNP is necessary, but it is not sufficient.

There are groups which seem to be impervious to the charms of the SNP. Not convinced Unionists, they consist of people who are instinctively conservative on the constitution. Materially, and socially, these people will be doing well. In economic terms, they have an almost instinctive preference for the economy to be organised through markets rather than public provision. Whatever they find attractive about the current Scottish Government, they mistrust its approach to the economy.

Stepping into that gap, we find Ian Blackford, perhaps still surprised at having relinquished the role of SNP leader at Westminster. To take on a role as a business ambassador must be difficult for most politicians, because a large part of the job should be to say that government will get out of the way, and let people make choices for themselves.

It will require strategic thinking, building on the National Strategy for Economic Transformation. It may involve ruffling some feathers within the independence movement, and being in the SNP, but not necessarily of it. Blackford might well enjoy that new freedom.