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From the Times: SNP rethink on what it means to be independent

The SNP is working on a major shift in its concept of independence which would see the ditching of many aspects of the party’s historic drive for a separate Scottish state.

The radical rethink of the Nationalists’ long-time fundamental aim has emerged in a study by James Mitchell, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, based on interviews with 80 senior figures in the party.

The new concept, while it retains the fundamental characteristics of independence, will also contain many compromises which are intended by party strategists to kill off Opposition charges of separatism.

Party leaders believe that while current polls suggest the SNP would lose an independence referendum, opinion may well change when details of their new and different approach start to emerge. An outline of the new thinking has emerged from a study of the SNP recently completed by Professor Mitchell, an expert in nationalism.

He interviewed ministers, MSPs, MPs and party executive committee members, and conducted an opinion survey of about 1,000 members.

One of his aims was to discover what the SNP leadership and members understood by the word independence, which has never been fully defined by the party.

“I found much more consensus within the SNP than I expected,” said Professor Mitchell.

“I was surprised by just how pragmatic the senior members were in terms of what they understood independence to mean.

“I would describe what they are thinking about as being much more of a confederal arrangement within these islands than the traditional concept of independence.”

The crucial characteristic of a confederal state is that sovereign power rests with its component parts, which then choose to hand upwards to a federal government certain powers, usually over defence, macro-economic management, and foreign affairs. But these powers can be reclaimed by the lower tier of government, a big difference from a federation where all power is vested in the superior federal government.

This might mean that an independent Scotland could be content to let the UK Government run, say, the Armed Forces, with the Scottish government paying a share of the cost.

“One senior figure said to me that provided Scotland had the right to pull out of any sharing arrangement at any time, he would be quite happy to share a whole range of services,” said Professor Mitchell. So while the SNP envisages an independent Scotland controlling all taxes raised in Scotland, having no MPs at Westminster, and being an independent member of the EU, a vast swath of common UK services would carry on pretty much as before.

Signs of the new thinking emerged in 2007 with the publication by the then new SNP government of a White Paper on independence in which it said that rather than separation, it aimed to turn the United Kingdom into the United Kingdoms, with the Queen as Scotland’s head of state.

In a recent blog, Stephen Noon, one of Alex Salmond’s key advisers, repeated the phrase and added: “Separatism is not on the agenda.”

via SNP rethink on what it means to be independent | The Times.