Scottish Tories won’t advance until they support more devolution for Scotland
Nik Darlington 10.32am
If unionists in the Conservative party - and I presume, perhaps too romantically, this means most people in the Conservative party - want to win the Scottish independence debate, they must see the necessity for further devolution.
Resistance to devolution fuels the perceptions of English prejudice and arrogance on which the SNP feeds. It runs contrary to the party’s localism agenda, and the innate Tory values about freedom and ‘little platoons’, about power being best exercised the closer to the people it affects. And it ignores the basic fact that the surest route to a Conservative renaissance in Scotland is by forcing Scottish politicians to raise as well as spend Scottish taxes.
Yet frustratingly, resistance seems to be the default position for many Tories, most worryingly so in Scotland itself. Prior to being elected leader of the Scottish Conservatives, with minority support among her own MSPs, Ruth Davidson vowed to draw “a line in the sand” and oppose any further devolution beyond the Scotland Bill. This intransigence might have won the favour of the party faithful (though I wager Scottish party members were more scared by Murdo Fraser’s radicalism than wooed by Ms Davidson’s obduracy). But it won’t win Holyrood seats, nor will it win the impending independence referendum.
So it is hugely encouraging that yesterday some Scottish Tories lent their support to a new unionist devolution campaign that aims to challenge the SNP’s desire for total separation.
Devo Plus is headed by Jeremy Purvis, the former Lib Dem MSP. It has cross-party support from the likes of Tory MSP and former Presiding Officer, Alex Fergusson; Tavish Scott MSP, the former Scottish Lib Dem leader; and Labour MSP Duncan MacNeill.
National Insurance, VAT and smaller levies like TV licences would be retained by Westminster, but most other taxes, including income tax and corporation tax, would be transferred to the Scottish Government. There would also be a geographic settlement of oil revenues.
As I wrote for Total Politics last October, lower taxes could be the making of Scotland, turning it into a kilted Asian tiger economy. Devo Plus offers this prospect, the chance of a new Scotland ‘on the make’, and the imposition of fiscal responsibility on Holyrood’s politicians, who in simple terms just spend other people’s money. Falling short of ‘devo max’, Devo Plus ought to look an attractive option for Conservatives in favour of local accountability and critical of the fiscal deficit between England and Scotland.
But what happened yesterday? The SNP quickly endorsed ‘devo plus’ as their preferred third option on the independence ballot paper. The nationalists’ conversion from ‘devo max’ to ‘devo plus’ was as speedy as it was cynical. But it has, for now, left opponents still treading water.
We have reports of the Scottish Tories being “at loggerheads” over the new campaign. Alex Fergusson hinted at a dangerous divide between Ms Davidson and many of her MSPs.
David McLetchie, the Scottish Tories’ constitution spokesman, called Devo Plus a distraction that is “playing into Alex Salmond’s hands”. This could not be further from the truth. Devo Plus may not end up being the right answer, but the Scottish Tory leadership should at the very least be trying to ask some questions.
Scots want more devolution. Ignoring this simple fact is what plays into Mr Salmond’s hands and perpetuates the assumption that the Conservative party is an English party, first and foremost. It amounts not so much to drawing lines in the sand, as sticking one’s head in it.
When the Prime Minister visited Edinburgh to make his powerful, emotional case for the Union, he promised greater devolution for Scots if they vote to stay. But in the process of publicly refuting the leader of his party in Scotland - “blurring the line in the sand”, according to Mr Fergusson - David Cameron failed to say what this greater devolution might look like.
It might, just might, look like Devo Plus.
