A referendum on sovereignty? Déjà vu

"I do not love Brussels. I love Britain,” said the Prime Minister, walking out of a cabinet meeting in which some of his closest allies in the cabinet told him they’d be batting for the other team in the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union.

After a series of sleepless nights while David Cameron fought for “special status” for the UK in Europe, including exemptions from Eurozone bailouts and passport-free borders, the very eurosceptics within his own party he had been looking to placate seemed unimpressed.

Justice Secretary Michael Gove had declared he’ll campaign for a Brexit before Cameron had even returned home, and with what seemed premeditated regularity, others followed. Leader of the House of Commons, Chris Grayling, said the EU was “holding the country back”, then Work and Pensions Secretary and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said the UK was more at risk of a terror attack within the EU. 

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Perhaps most damaging of all was the bookies’ favourite to be next leader, London Mayor Boris Johnson, who told a stage-managed media circus he’d texted the Prime Minister to tell him he’d jumped ship too.

It is thought at least 120 Conservative MPs will campaign to leave the EU. 

With the UK’s ruling party divided on the issue, the four-month campaign until the 23 June referendum could be eventful.

Cameron insisted his brokered deal strengthened British sovereignty and therefore the referendum will not be a question of national identity. Some of his friends, it would seem, disagree.

Duncan Smith wrote in the Daily Mail he had “a great sense of déjà vu” about the debate, remembering similar assurances from John Major over the Maastricht Treaty 24 years ago.
“According to the dictionary definition, ‘Sovereignty is understood in jurisprudence as the full right and power of a governing body to govern itself without any interference from outside.’
“Of course, countries can cooperate and pool their capabilities, for example, in NATO, but it is vital to recognise they do so on the basis that they retain ultimate control of their own right to govern,” he wrote.

For Scots, that sense of déjà vu is even keener. David Cameron’s “best of both worlds” narrative on the steps of Downing Street will have sounded familiar to anyone in Scotland who didn’t spend 2014 in a coma.

“Let me be clear. Leaving Europe would threaten our economic and our national security.Those who want to leave Europe cannot tell you if British businesses would be able to access Europe’s free trade single market or if working people’s jobs are safe or how much prices would rise.

“All they are offering is risk at a time of uncertainty – a leap in the dark,” he said.

And apparently, David Cameron is not the only one singing from the same hymn sheet as he was during Scotland’s referendum on independence.  

Big business has begun to throw its weight behind the status quo, with a letter published in the Times backed by BT, Marks & Spencer and Vodafone, among others.

Stuart Rose, Chairman of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, welcomed a letter from 21 European business confederations, including the CBI, putting the case for the UK to remain in the EU. “Quitting Europe would put jobs, low prices, investment and financial security at risk,” he said.

However familiar it may seem, the landscape is not identical, especially in Scotland. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urged the campaign to learn lessons from 2014.
“Of course, this referendum has, all along, been driven by the Tory party’s longstanding internal divisions on Europe and the challenge to the Conservatives from UKIP, rather than by the specifics of David Cameron’s renegotiation.

“We made it clear to the Prime Minister that we were opposed to a June 23rd referendum, given the overlap with our own Scottish election – but now that the date has been named we will get on with the job of campaigning for an ‘in’ vote.

“It’s important that the campaign to remain in the EU learns the lessons of Scotland’s independence referendum, so that it does not lapse into scaremongering and fear,” she said. 

The European agenda could indeed upstage other votes taking place before then, not least the Scottish Parliament election. But while the vote to leave campaigns include some high-profile establishment figures south of the border, in Scotland, members of all the political parties remain largely united behind a vote to remain in.

The Scottish political figures backing an EU exit are far from the establishment, with only one MSP - Margaret Mitchell - coming out for it so far.

Former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars has been a longstanding opponent. Labour outcast George Galloway once said Scotland risking its EU membership by becoming independent “would be stepping off an ocean-going liner and into a Para Handy Clyde puffer, put forth on to a cruel sea,” but appears to have changed his mind. Former Labour MP Nigel Griffiths leads the Labour leave campaign from the side-lines.

However, as the debate has unfolded, Scotland’s UKIP MEP, David Coburn, has emerged as the broadcast media’s go-to Brexit spokesman.

“If we get out of the European Union, powers will be repatriated to Scotland on fishing, on agriculture, on many other things,” he told BBC News.

UKIP’s position is for independence for Britain, not Scotland, and Coburn claims he is against nationalism. 

“I have no more liking for English or Welsh nationalists than Scottish ones I will always love Britain,” he tweeted.

He is often portrayed as a comic, eccentric figure. Indeed, Scotland’s only Conservative MP, David Mundell, a Europhile, jokingly told Buzzfeed he regarded Coburn as “one of the big beasts of Scottish politics”.

He may be wrong to dismiss him. Coburn could well find himself rising to further prominence in May.

In a Survation poll for the Daily Record on Holyrood voting intentions, six per cent of respondents said they would opt for the anti-Europe party in the regional list vote. If this were replicated at the election, it could see the party gain as many as seven Scottish Parliament seats. With the EU potentially taking centre stage during the campaign, UKIP will be looking to capitalise.

However, they may have internal struggles to reconcile first. Glasgow branch vice-chairman, Cailean Mongan, thought to have been selected as a candidate, resigned from UKIP after Coburn demanded he stop supporting a local food bank. 

In a resignation letter seen by the Daily Record, Mongan said he had also been attacked by fellow candidate Caroline Santos for helping the charity.

“I strongly disagree with Mrs Santos on these issues. On December 6, I was telephoned by David Coburn who instructed me the collection was not to go ahead as ‘no one in this country is going hungry’ and food banks ‘are left-wing propaganda invented by the Labour Party and the SNP’,” he wrote.

UKIP is not the only party facing internal strife ahead of the election, however. In-fighting at an SNP branch in North Lanarkshire has seen a councillor and Holyrood list candidate suspended from the party after accusations of making racist remarks. Her local branch was banned from meeting. A counter claim followed that Julie McAnulty was a victim of a smear campaign over her selection as a candidate. 

Meanwhile, Scottish Labour’s list selection has revealed some incumbent MSPs will struggle to be re-elected if the SNP dominate the constituency seats, as they did in the General Election last year.

The use of the single transferrable vote system to select candidates has left Public Audit Committee convener Paul Martin a lowly ninth on the Glasgow list. Public Petitions Committee convener Michael McMahon is ninth on the Central Scotland list, with his daughter, Siobhan, a place below him. Fellow MSPs Hanzala Malik, Anne McTaggart and Jayne Baxter also find themselves placed low down the lists, while ousted MPs Anas Sarwar and Thomas Docherty look likely to return to front-line politics with prominent positions. 

The Scottish Liberal Democrats even had trouble finding candidates, certainly in the North East.  When it comes to Europe, however, leader Willie Rennie has called for unity.

“The Scottish and wider British public deserve clear and honest discussion about the referendum so they can come to their own conclusions.

“To do that, the country’s political leaders need to sign up to an open and positive campaign to show our commitment to remaining in the EU and I hope they will join me in standing together to make sure that happens.”

It seems in many ways in Scottish politics, the ‘better together’ spirit lives on.