Watching the news and social media responses to the Brexit
negotiations makes me wonder what people expected from a process that was bound
to be complicated, painful, protracted and prone to brinkmanship. The level of ineptitude shown by the British Government may have
surprised people, but it doesn’t account for the catastrophising zeal of those commentators
who consistently attempt to invalidate or sabotage both the goal and the process of the
negotiations.
One of the juiciest cherries
atop this absurd cake is the acknowledgement by Scotland's First Minister that
the 35 Scottish Nationalist MPs at Westminster will back any proposals for a
second referendum on the Brexit terms. One must accept that nationalists will, by definition, view
everything through the prism of their desire for independence; with that in
mind, it doesn’t take a huge leap of faith to imagine a situation in which
Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum might have resulted in a similar
melodrama.
Imagine, for a moment, a world in which that independence
referendum had resulted in a narrow win for the Yes team. There would have been
all kinds of heated discussion about the future, with just under half of the
population dismayed by the result and just over half in a state approaching euphoria.
Many within the Yes movement would have been elated, but some might also have
urged a note of caution about the challenges lying ahead, perhaps considering
it foolish to assume that it would be easy to dissolve a 300-year old
partnership.
Our First Minister would have had to appoint armies of civil
servants to deal with the many complexities of what, for the purpose of this
flight of fancy, we'll call Scoxit.
There would, surely, have been questions over border controls,
currency, share of national debt, location of key businesses, ownership of
assets etc. Perhaps, given the closeness of the result, there might even have
been some division within the independence movement. Hard line Scoxiteers might have argued for
immediate secession from rump UK with
as little compromise as possible; others may have reasoned that the hopes,
fears and aspirations of the half of the population which did not vote ‘Yes’ would
have to be taken into account during the negotiations.
Imagine, on the losing side, that a group of rich and
influential people (bankers, politicians, business folk, cultural taste-makers)
started to cavil about the result. Imagine that their default line of attack
was that the Scottish electorate had been ‘duped’ and did not understand the
complexities of the issues concerned. These low-information voters, it might
have been argued, were forcing us to break up a successful partnership that had
endured for centuries. That Scoxit vote,
portrayed by some as essentially anti-English and driven by ‘blood and soil’ xenophobia
would have to be overturned; a second referendum (or, if you will, a peoples’
vote) would be required.
The discerning reader might consider this to be a dismally low-resolution
interpretation of a binary vote, but let us imagine for the moment that such a
fanciful notion somehow had the power to gain some traction in the public consciousness.
As the deadline for the Scoxit
settlement loomed, one could envisage the negotiations stalling, perhaps snagging
on technicalities and conflicting interpretations of some of the terms contained
within the Act of Union. The First Minister would have been caught between a rock
(the ‘Stop Scoxit’ movement, agitating for a second referendum, but perhaps
willing to consent to a settlement involving as little disruption to the Union
as possible) and a hard place (the
Scoxiteers, insistent that a newly-independent Scotland should not be bound by
rules, terms and conditions dictated by Westminster).
Aiming to maintain a conciliatory approach to an increasingly
divisive issue, let us imagine that the beleaguered First Minister might have flown
to London to present a compromise deal, one which –arguably- contained just
enough juice for both parties to accept, allowing us to get on with the
business of forging effective links between Scotland and rump UK. Imagine that this plan was quickly rejected by the Westminster negotiating
team and that the First Minister was sent homeward to think again.
Weary of being traduced for their ‘stupidity’, their ‘ignorance’
and their ‘xenophobia’, it is not difficult to imagine that Yes voters would have
started to fear that the prize they had won was going to be denied by intransigence
in London. Many would have been angry about a ‘foreign’ power deigning to grant
secession only on terms that seemed unduly punitive.
There is, of course, a possibility that those voters might have
weighed up the stalled negotiations, the slights to their First Minister, the endless
slanders and calls for a ‘peoples’ vote’ and thought:
"Well
... this is rather more hassle than we expected. Maybe all those celebrities are
right; perhaps we should just have another vote."
Or perhaps they would have taken a deep breath and said:
"Now,
perhaps, some of you are beginning to understand why we wanted to leave the UK.
We were asked a question and we gave you a clear instruction; now, please, give
us what we voted for."
Given the circumstances, which of those responses would have
been more likely?
To ask that question is to know the answer.
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