Scotland Debate: Alex Salmond Wins. For Now.

Just as he clearly lost the first debate, Alex Salmond clearly won the second. If this were a presidential election, the win might prove decisive. But in this referendum for independence it may not prove anything.

Neither Darling nor Salmond were fighting for a leadership endorsement. Neither were they fighting for a party endorsement to lead a government. Their fight was not about person nor about party. It was about country. Not about how their country should be governed or what policies would be best; it was about whether Scotland should be part of a Union or whether it should be free. That freedom means not just free to go its own way, but free in the sense of on its own without a  helping hand.

In this great decision for Scots the leader they choose is neither here nor there. What matters is how they see their identity and place in the world and how they can do best in the future. Only the people can make this choice and in so doing it is clear with every voter interview which appears on the media, that they are looking beyond the campaigns of Yes or No and behind the reality of every claim and statement.

Historically the Union has been Scotland’s golden age. It has been for England also. Together they built (and lost) the British Empire and were for quite a time the world’s only mega power. Yet times and the world have changed. Now small can be beautiful.

Technically the most important issue for Scotland is the currency, because this choice of which currency defines the nature of the independence foreseen by Alex Salmond. It is not the deal he is offering to the voters. He favours a currency union, the very nature of which must and will demand the surrender of economic sovereignty from the smallest country, Scotland, to the largest, England. A trip to any of the smaller countries of Euroland will reveal just what such an arrangement means in terms of economic independence. There is none. He also wants to keep the Monarchy, which has Scottish roots and German blood, but is nevertheless English in most of its ways. It holidays in Scotland but works in England.

So Alex Salmond is not offering real independence at all. What he offers is a kind of independent dependency. Unfortunately this is an aspiration rather than a firm offer. Because even if some government coalition at Westminster were to consider a currency union, the fiercely nationalist mood now sweeping England and manifesting itself in an anti-EU and Euro wave of public opinion, would be unlikely to stomach a diminution in the sovereignty of their pound sterling. Therefore there would be no currency union, whatever Salmond claimed his mandate entitled him to ask for.

In that event Scotland would face a raft of uncertainty about its finances and a period of Irish and Greek style austerity. Somehow Scotland would pull through, but it may take a generation. This is why Salmond is so keen to avoid true independence for Scotland. Scots will weigh these things when they come to cast their votes; those who vote by post any day soon.

In the end it will come down to this. If Scots vote with their hearts they will vote Yes. But if they vote with their heads they will vote No. We have not long to wait to find out. Whether the vote is Yes or No, Darling will quit the stage, but Salmond will still be there either way. If he loses he will have achieved devo-max, which will please everyone. But if he wins, the Scottish people will wake up to the fact he has promised something which he cannot deliver. Then his life will get really interesting.

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