I think the word is panic. Last week the prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer, home secretary, defence secretary, trade secretary and Scots ministerial expatriates galore travelled in a posse north to a Labour conference in Oban, like a bunch of Spanish hidalgos racing back from the fleshpots of Madrid to quell a revolt in their home province.Their objective was to suppress one man, Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National party. An opinion poll had shown support for Salmond's crusade, an independent Scotland, rising to 52% of the electorate. Those regarding themselves as Scottish had risen from half to three-quarters in 25 years, while those saying "British" had halved to just 20%.
This is raw politics. Labour desperately needs its 40 or so Scottish seats at Westminster. Gordon Brown, probably the next prime minister, wears his distaste for England on his sleeve, and English voters sense it. Already devolution has subverted the legitimacy of Scots MPs in voting on English bills. Just when the 300th anniversary of the 1707 Act of Union is about to be celebrated, it seems to be falling apart, and Labour's electoral fortunes with it. Battle will be joined next May in the Scottish parliamentary elections.
The Scottish debate shows British politics at its most conservative. Any sign of a desire for local autonomy, in any part of the United Kingdom, is seen at Westminster as uppity insubordination by people ignorant of their best interests. Unionism may have disappeared from Britain's industry, but it is the ruling ethos of its politics. Big is beautiful if British. The prevailing wisdom holds that anyone, be they Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish or, for that matter, Iraqi or Afghan, must be better off under the benign custodianship of London. Imperialism is still Westminster's default mode. Surely nobody could be richer, safer or freer than with a British soldier on every corner and a British subsidy under every belt.
Scotland's pooling of sovereignty with England was, as Christopher Whatley points out in his new history of the union, always pragmatic rather than popular. The English wanted protection from Catholic incursion. The Scots Presbyterians wanted the same, plus a share in England's colonial expansion. It was moot how long the union would survive imperial retreat and the opening up of continental and global trade.
Margaret Thatcher's opposition to devolution was that of a Tory paternalist, and is reflected still in David Cameron's metro-centralism. But the paternalist tradition is now fiercer on the left than the right. (In the current Prospect magazine, the Tory Michael Fry even declares his switch to the SNP.) Speaker after speaker in Oban declared the union in the best interests of Scotland and crucial to the Scots economy. What would the place do without the £25bn subsidy from London, enabling public spending per head to run at 30% above England? To the predominantly Scottish Labour cabinet, this socialist statelet to the north must be saved from reverting to its dark, tribal past - and their Westminster seats must be saved too.
I would not lose any sleep if the Scots voted to repeal the 1707 act. Independence need not end the United Kingdom: Scotland and England shared a monarch before 1707, as Britain and Canada do today. Separation need be no more radical than the partial autonomy of a dozen European countries from their neighbours. Borders were not sealed or passports cancelled under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. If eastern Europe can handle partition, so can Britain.
The phased withdrawal of the subvention would be traumatic, but it would do Scotland nothing but good to learn that public money does not grow on English trees. If economic history teaches anything, it is that huge inflows of aid rot an economy, while "unearned" wealth, as from oil, is usually wasted. The phased end of the subsidy would be thoroughly good for Scotland, not bad.
Partition is the new politics, despite being the hobgoblin of centralism. It is through partition that Ireland is booming, Slovakia reviving and the Baltic states prospering. The British government is in favour of it for everyone else, even forcing it on the former Yugoslavia and Iraq/Kurdistan. This year it welcomed Montenegro to Europe's community. By what hypocrisy do Westminster grandees ridicule Scotland's ambition?
Big federal states were fine when governments were small and unobtrusive. Today's governments are elephantine and unresponsive to local sentiment. That is why Spain, France and Italy have all opted for constitutional devolution in the past two decades, fending off separatist pressure. Anti-federalism is why European public opinion revolted against Brussels last year, and why there is no more talk of a Scandinavian union. As for size being crucial to viability, this is corporatist rubbish. If Denmark is viable, why not Scotland?
All such considerations must anyway bow before self-determination. If the Scots want to repeal the 1707 act (as some Britons want to repeal the European Union's treaties), the British cannot deny it. The story of the past quarter-century is that states enjoy no legitimacy without the consent of their territorial minorities. Britain went to war for this principle in Kosovo.
The British union is now afflicted by the same self-doubt as most of Europe's states. Scottish devolution was precipitated by the crassness of Tory rule in the 1980s, but it was bound to come in time, as did Irish home rule half a century earlier. Under the 1998 act Brown ensured that fiscal policy was never devolved and the golden handcuff of the subvention remained in place. Yet no visitor to Edinburgh today can doubt that Scotland is a far more coherent country and culture than it was before. For all the sneers hurled at the new parliament, its return after 300 years of absence is surely permanent.
The concept of national independence within a global political economy is everywhere debated. In Scotland the concept has passed from the realm of the unthinkable to that of common discourse among politicians, lawyers, academics and the press. It reflects the same aspirations as those of Basques, Bavarians and Bosnians. One day it may reflect those of independent Latvians, Slovenians and Irish. Whether or not because of the insensitivity of modern central government, the world is going that way. In the multi-tiered sovereignties of Europe only one thing is for sure, that the tiers will argue. In that argument power will always be centripetal and democracy always centrifugal. I prefer democracy.
Simon Jenkins