Herald letter: Sturgeon, Not Waving But Drowning. (But that’s not the whole point….)

G.R. Weir (letters, November 29) demands that any new independence referendum should be conducted on a basis of 50% + 1 of those voting. This, he tells us, is because it is the British Way Of Doing Things – and because it has been such a big success in delivering Brexit.

Some of us respectfully beg to differ.

There are examples both great and small (the USA and the SNP itself, respectively) of organisations demanding that constitutional changes require a two-thirds vote. Likewise, there are better examples around the world of successful once-and-for-all referendums than Brexit, and these have generally required a super-majority or a double majority.

In these respects, I am much encouraged by what Nicola Sturgeon had to say on the subject at the end of her Not Waving But Drowning speech after the Supreme Court ruling.

She told us that her democratic event should prove (to quote) “majority support beyond doubt.” This standard clearly cannot be met by a simple majority of those voting, unless there is a North Korean-style 100% turnout. Later, in his BBC Newsnight interview, her SNP Deputy Leader Keith Brown spoke of “50% + 1 of the electorate” – not 50% + 1 of those voting.

One supposes that these matters will be debated in a free and democratic way at Ms Sturgeon’s SNP Special Conference in the New Year. We can only hope that her party members will support their leader and her deputy in their belief that the British Way is not the best way, and that there are examples from all round the world where super-majorities and double majorities are required for major constitutional changes.

As nationalists say in so many other cases: if it works in other countries, why not in Scotland?
Peter A. Russell, Jordanhill, Glasgow

Herald letter: A Reasonable Way Forward (And A Difference With Northern Ireland)

Difference with Northern Ireland

DAVID Howie (Letters, November 24) asks why “the electorate in Northern Ireland have a legal right to a referendum every seven years after the initial referendum”?

The answer is that they do not have any such right. In fact, the power to call a referendum is exclusively in the hands of the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who can use it when he or she personally considers it likely there would be a majority in favour of reunification. And then seven years is the minimum period after which such a poll (if unsuccessful) may be repeated. If we were to have the same provision in Scotland, it would put the holding of Indyref2 in the sole hands of (currently) Alister Jack, and we would need to accept his judgment as to whether Yes would win. I cannot imagine that this arrangement is what Scottish nationalists would want.

My own view is that the various parts of the UK should have the unilateral right to secede, provided that the bars are set high enough for both calling a referendum and for it to carry. In the first case, two-thirds of MSPs are currently needed to vote to amend representation issues in the Scottish Parliament (voting system, boundaries and so on), so it seems logical that a referendum which abandons representative democracy entirely should require the same threshold.

In the second case, it has been interesting to hear both the First Minister and her SNP deputy tell us that they believe Scottish independence should only come about if supported by “a majority of Scottish voters” (Ms Sturgeon in her Supreme Court concession speech) or “50%+1 of the Scottish electorate” (Keith Brown on BBC Newsnight). I could not agree more – 50%+1 of the turnout alone would not represent a majority unless that turnout was an impossible 100%.

In any event, following the decision of the Supreme Court it is now clear that the only way for the nationalists to advance their case is through amendment of the Scotland Acts. If they were to campaign for the above provisions, I would support them – and I know that I am not alone amongst that majority that opposes independence.

Peter A Russell, Glasgow

Herald letter: We Are Going to Have to Pay for Changing Labour Markets.

The challenge facing the NHS

DAVID J Crawford (Letters, November 15) points out that NHS priorities are wrong but somehow blames that on the UK: in fact those priorities for Scotland are wholly set by Holyrood. And if it is funding that he is concerned about, one can only wonder how the NHS of an independent Scotland would manage when the £10 billion-plus that we receive from the rest of the UK is removed from the equation.

However, there is a further and indeed more profound point to be made about NHS funding and staffing. During the period of investment and expansion of the NHS which took place under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the recruitment of staff took place under the regime of a labour market that was open to large-scale recruitment from EU countries, above all from the new member states of central and eastern Europe. This appeared to be advantageous all round in that we could get inexpensive qualified staff without the trouble of training them, and the EU citizens could follow the advice of their governments to come to the UK to “earn, learn and return”.

Now many of those staff have returned, both in the natural way of things and due to Brexit, and there is an increasing appreciation of the flaws in the system: we have too few trained staff; we do not pay them enough; and the countries we might recruit from are likely to need the personnel in question more than we do, especially as these are now more likely to be in developing world.

Like other areas of the UK economy, including manufacturing, the NHS now faces the challenge of moving away from the open labour market model. This will require investment in recruitment and training, and in salaries and conditions of service that will retain staff to develop rewarding and happy careers in the NHS.

Again, this challenge is also faced by industry, where similar investment will be required to increase skills and productivity. In short, we need to move at last from a model based on the flexibility of not very good jobs to one based on the stability of better jobs. And in the case of the NHS, our care services and all other public services, we must be prepared to pay extra for that transition; likewise, companies and entrepreneurs must be prepared to pay for training and the wages and conditions needed to transform their own sectors.

Finally, no-one should deceive themselves regarding the chimera of an independent Scotland in the EU. The practical truth is that it is one of the functions of the small member states of the EU to provide cheap labour for the larger ones. Scotland would be one of those small countries, and it is more likely that our trained NHS staff (and workers of other industries) would be off to better-paid and more rewarding jobs in Germany, France or the Netherlands, rather than our NHS and companies being propped up again as they have been by EU nationals.
Peter A Russell, Glasgow