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1/ Reading Starmer’s call for major constitutional change, I couldn’t help but squirm. To explain why, I’ll need the aid of a brief anecdote (promise – real brief). In 2018 I had the opportunity... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55384938
2...(thanks to @AdamHolesch) to witness a talk in Barcelona by Alan Buchanan who 3 decades prior wrote an influential book on the morality of ‘political divorce’ as he called secession. This was a year after botched attempt to hold a referendum in Catalonia and the audience...
3...was, I will guess, almost entirely comprised of those interested in the region’s independence, and certainly in its constitutional future. At one point during the Q and A, Buchanan basically said, sure, you can make the case for independence, but why wouldn’t you try...
4...to have another go at negotiating with the Spanish central government. I may have been imagining things, but you could almost hear the collective ‘but doesn’t he know we tried and tried and tried?’ from the audience
5. The key element of the Catalan secessionist movement’s strategy was to prove to their potential constituents – those Catalans who were not yet in favour of independence – that various Catalan governments have tried to negotiate with Spain so long that by 2010 they basically...
6...knew this was a pointless exercise (I am not saying they were right/wrong, just that it was an important part of the argument). I call this bitty “exhaustion frame” – where someone who wants to convince fence-sitters to adopt a radically new course of action (let’s say...
7...for the sake of argument, independence) basically tries to persuade them that they’ve run out of patience. See this piece https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12649
8. Here, Starmer (or whoever wrote the speech) seems oblivious to the possibility that Scots might remember what happened in the past and that this might make it into the way they make sense of the present, and more importantly... https://labourlist.org/2020/12/a-socially-just-scotland-in-a-modern-united-kingdom-starmers-full-speech/
9...– future (including future promises). So, sure, he can promise constitutional renewal (though seemingly wisely he didn’t mention the f-word this time round) but this is a promise that’s been made once or twice before, and by Labour Party too. Meanwhile, the notion that...
10...Scotland has been governed by those it hasn’t elected has now filled out nicely with Brexit (the vote, the intent, the parliamentary debacle, and now finally the impending reality of hard Brexit). And let’s not even mention covid. I see two conclusions here. First...
11...whatever Starmer says may not carry much heft in Scotland as a result. Second, even if it does, he and the Labour party (and the UK political elite in general) are on dangerous ground. If they actually manage to get hopes of major constitutional reform up in Scotland...
12...(a big if, but let’s say they get closer to power a few years down the line) and if then they don’t come through with it (let’s say because of some kind of backlash in England – on which more another day) they will only make the independence argument stronger. Using...
13...constitutional politics for electoral advantage can work from time to time. But sometimes it blows up right in your face. Just ask Spaniards. Or Canadians. ///
