Tales Of Brexit: Setting The Agenda For Scottish Independence
(June 2021)
Introduction
The 2016 policy decision of the UK Government (Westminster) to exit the European Union (Brexit) is a Pandora’s Box. This essay seeks to highlight the inadvertent consequences (Stone, 1989) of this policy in fomenting the SNP/Scottish Government agenda of independence from Westminster. I will look at the institutional policies such as the 1706/7 Acts of Union, international law, the jurisdictions of the Scottish Parliament v Westminster, and how the policy agendas and implementation of Brexit have necessarily created a burgeoning oppositional movement favouring Scottish Independence. To attempt to fully understand such a topic would be outside this essay’s scope, (although a fascinating multidisciplinary task in itself), but utilising Kingdon’s (2014) Multiple Streams Approach (MSA), I seek to analyse, in simplest terms, how Brexit will likely make Scotland an independent nation.
A subtext within the essay will be the potential role for hydrogen energy within the scope of political entrepreneurship. My conclusion identifies that not only can the MSA be useful for analysing how policies come to the foreground, but also highlights the deficiencies within policy frameworks for a broader understanding of political and social movement. The whole seems to be some form of policy ouroboros; a new policy (Brexit), eating an older policy (membership of the EU), feeding a yet newer policy (Scottish Independence) via the oldest, possibly decaying policy within that whole (the UK/Acts of Union).
History And Legal Status Of Scotland
Scotland’s status as a member of the UK is the result of an institutional policy, the 1706/7 Acts of Union. Indeed, it is such an old institution that to many it seems unthinkable the UK can be anything but an ongoing, unified political entity. Such views misinterpret international law (UN, 1960), and, within the notion of “self”, Scotland can point to being an older legally recognised entity (843 CE) than England (927 CE). Neither bear any real relation to their former selves, but the interpretation of current law requires the consideration of former, considerably extant laws within an entity like the UK, relying as it does on convention rather than constitution.
Scotland sits pretty for claims to historical nationhood, sovereignty. One can also see that if an international treaty, such as the UK’s membership of the EU, can be legally rescinded, then interpretation of Scotland’s membership to or exit from the UK is also a policy window awaiting exploitation. Conventional wisdom suggests that for Scotland to be granted an Independence Referendum, a Section 30 order must be issued via Westminster. However, this is again inconsistent with international law, and with elections to the Scottish Parliament in May 2021, should the SNP explicitly state in their manifesto that a vote for the SNP is a vote for Independence/Referendum for Independence, and gain a majority, the dark soup heats up considerably. This was the case in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections, when the SNP won an overall majority (The Guardian, 2011). The SNP is unambiguously a pro-Scottish Independence party. The political pressure on Westminster to grant an Independence Referendum was intense, and this referendum was held in 2014, with 45% voting for Independence, and 55% voting to remain in the UK (Gov.Scot, 2019). However, in 2016 the UK voted 52-48% to exit the European Union, although 62% of Scots wished to remain (BBC.CO.UK, 2020). There is therefore significant dissatisfaction within Scotland about exiting the EU.
The conflicting and cooperating legalities of fully recognised and implemented policies (international law, the original Acts of Union, Scotland’s electoral will in 2021), against the Section 30 Order become both culturally apparent and politically expeditious for policy entrepreneurs to exploit the situation.
Finally, surrounding the May 2021 Scottish Elections will be the spectre of what Brexit “feels like”, as it takes effect on 1st January 2021, and what Westminster’s COVID-19 policies “feel like” compared to the SNP/Scottish Government’s. Effectively, how these are “framed” in the voting consciousness. At the time of writing, 72% of Scots are satisfied with the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s performance, compared with just 19% for the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s (The National, 2020). These are statistics begging exploitation by policy entrepreneurs.
How Does MSA Support This?
The Acts of Union are an institution, an over 300 year old policy. However, the Acts do not dispense with either Scotland or England (with Wales) as legally recognised entities (LawScot.Org, 2007). The rise of the SNP, committed to Scottish Independence, has embedded a problem stream within UK politics. The notion of the solidity of the UK as a unified political identity reached a crescendo with the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, a loss for Scottish Independence. Concurrent with the problem stream of Scotland’s status, however, was the problem stream of the UK’s continued membership of the EU. Policy entrepreneurs such as Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson took advantage of both the politics stream and policy windows during the 2016 EU Referendum and won. Instantly, the 52% of the UK population’s desire to exit the EU was opposed by the desire of 62% of Scotland’s population to remain. To deliver a Brexit consistent with the overall UK national mood, a general election was triggered in 2017, resulting in a hung parliament, and again in 2019, resulting in a significant parliamentary majority for Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party. A mandate to deliver a “hard” Brexit should negotiations with the EU fail was thus delivered by this result. A potential, even likely, hard Brexit is now the politics, policy, and policy output streams.
Recalling that 62% of Scots wished to remain in the EU, the policies of Westminster have coalesced deep dissatisfaction within Scotland towards it. The last 10 opinion polls in a row have shown a lead in Scotland for those desiring Scottish Independence (Politico.EU, 2020), with the very latest showing independence leading 58-42% (Politico.EU, 2020). Once adjusted for the 6% of “don’t knows”, this becomes 55-39% in favour of exiting. The policy soups of the last few years have coagulated into a thick, hard Brexit policy, but the fire has moved position in order to heat up the soup of Scottish Independence. The legal and political streams of the May 2021 Scottish Parliament elections are currently a policy entrepreneur’s playground for shifting Scottish Independence to centre stage. Not only will the policy outputs of Brexit be more visible after December 31st 2020 (the end of the EU “transition period”), the relative positions of England v Scotland’s COVID-19 successes will also be more apparent. These policy outputs will be measurable and amenable to exploitation by policy entrepreneurs for the May 2021 Scottish elections. This begs a question; what potential “framing narratives” can a policy entrepreneur keen to deliver Scottish Independence utilise? One such framing narrative, conveniently within renewable energy policy, is outlined below.
What Role For Hydrogen?
Scotland has territorial claim to much North Sea oil/gas. Although Norway has more reserves, the difference is not huge, and Norway has used oil/gas to generate a $1Trillion Sovereign Wealth Fund (OilPrice.Com, 2019), the largest in the world, valued at $180,000 per capita. The UK has none. Although the territorial legalities of who owns the oil/gas favour Scotland, the political and economic factors make this a lengthy, protracted, bitter, and awkward battle. Some sort of “fudge” is most likely in the event of Scottish Independence, allowing both parties to save face and claim victory. But what about renewables? As yet, they are not so significantly entrenched in identity politics or economic questions of “who owns what?”. Scotland is home to 25% of Europe’s offshore wind potential, 25% of Europe’s tidal energy resources, and 10% of Europe’s wave potential (BusinessforScotland.Com, 2019).
The UK currently has no hydrogen policy, simply a collection of pilot projects and awards, valued at less than £100 million over the next 10 years (GOV.UK, 2020). In July 2020, the EU announced a €400 billion 10 year hydrogen investment strategy (EC.Europa, 2020). This is some 4,000 times the size of the UK’s current ambition. On the basis that green hydrogen requires excess wind energy and water (Scotland is replete in both), or blue hydrogen requires reformation from GHGs (again, Scotland has oil/gas), it would be difficult to imagine a better “new start” industrial strategy than Scotland embracing hydrogen. A wise policy entrepreneur would frame the narrative as “Westminster took our oil. Don’t let them take our renewables”. Scotland can reach out for hydrogen development within the EU’s newly formed and extremely well-funded policies, thus cementing reasons for a speedy EU accession. Should Westminster announce an investment in hydrogen before May 2021, the same entrepreneur(s) would argue “They know how much money Scotland can make for them. Let’s keep it Scottish”. It is difficult to see a direction Westminster can turn without having egg on its face. A Westminster failure to invest plays into the framing narrative of Scotland being the forgotten, ugly sister in the UK; a desire to invest plays into the “We have abundant wealth creation, don’t let them steal it again” narrative (referring to Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, and Scotland’s lack thereof), and any Westminster desire to over-invest also plays into the North of England feeling aggrieved over its own under-investment. Policy entrepreneurs in the North of England would frame the narrative as “Why invest in Scotland. They want independence. Invest the money in England”.
Renewables, particularly €400 billion of EU hydrogen investment, are then a “shark bite attack” (Neff, 2012) framing for exploitation by any advocacy coalitions, as per Sabatier (1986). The Scottish Greens and the SNP are both pro-Independence, and renewables are a shared advocacy position. Unlike oil/gas, hydrogen also frames a narrative consistent with international desires and laws for promoting renewables, as well as being derived from the near inexhaustible resources of water and wind. If anything, sea level rises play into the narratives further. Extracting water to make hydrogen lowers sea levels (albeit minimally). Hydrogen cements industrial vision with progressive politics, a potent electoral combination.
Conclusion
By definition, this essay analyses the policymaking process through a policy agenda lens. However, there are significant gaps in understanding how an event “comes to be” in order to enter policy. Birkland’s (1998) agenda streams recognises the agenda universe, filtering through various levels before a decision agenda coalesces policy. What is dimly understood in policy making processes is the movement from cultural narrative to agenda or policy narrative. They analyse the processes of things entering the policy or agenda realm, but not the processes of “things becoming things” in the first place. This is a topic encompassing behavioural psychology, behavioural economics, policy-mapping, political science, cultural studies, critical theory, philosophy, statistics, and even some highly speculative thinking. For example, Stone (1989) would categorise COVID-19 as an accidental cause, an act of nature, whilst also claiming that policy is behind science by around 50 years (Stone, 1989). The highly speculative but empirically based work of Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe (2020) would argue that the emergence of new viruses can be predicted – it is simply science that needs to catch up with reality. An “act of nature” then becomes amenable to human action. If prediction of viruses is not yet amenable to science, whilst policy lags behind science by 50 years, then of course current policy frameworks have no chance of predicting events. On the basis that all the typologies are necessarily limited within the current human ability to comprehend complexity, Kingdon’s MSA was chosen as the most pertinent to understand how the policy streams and outputs of Brexit have also fomented the problem and policy streams of a Scottish Independence agenda. Within the scope of its own limitations, a policy ouroboros becomes discernible. Policy feeds on policy to create yet more policy. As such, it helps describe the bizarre events in UK politics of the last 4 years, even if it fails to totally satisfy our curiosity.
The next 7 months, prior to the Scottish Elections, are therefore witness to Westminster’s implementation of Brexit and COVID-19 policies, publicly critiqued through the agenda setting lenses of Scottish Independence policies, EU policies, and the policies of domestic and international law. Subsequent to the May 2021 elections, should Scotland vote for Independence/Referendum on Independence, the policy implementation consequences of Brexit may well feed into problem and politics streams of not only Scottish Independence, but also Northern Irish Independence/Irish Reunification, and the statuses of Wales and Gibraltar. In time, Westminster’s potential (likely?) shrinkage to encompass mostly England would also impact the various dependencies and overseas territories such as the Falkland Islands.
The agenda of Scottish Independence, rejuvenated via Brexit, is merely one aspect of Brexit’s Pandora’s Box. A plethora of novel agendas have been given wings, each the unintended consequences of the intended policy of Brexit. British politics has rarely been so exciting.
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