Scotland's deputy first minister has opened a new battle front with the UK government, urging pre-referendum talks to smooth the way for quick and seamless Scottish independence
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Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's deputy first minister, says advance talks on Scotland's divorce from UK are in both government's interests Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters
Like any sharp-witted political operator should do when the going gets tricky, Nicola Sturgeon and her colleagues in the Scottish National party have deftly opened a new front in the independence referendum. This is beginning to smack of guerrilla warfare.
After a difficult few months, with hard questions raised about her government's stance on EU membership, sterling and the Bank of England and then oil revenues, Sturgeon has switched attention back onto the UK government by posing a novel question: why not start preliminary work on an independence settlement? Get some of the boring but necessary technical stuff out of the way now?
It appears a beguiling offer, and timely too: today Westminster begins the short process of passing the section 30 order authorising the 2014 independence referendum which will, in turn, quite soon see a referendum bill presented to Holyrood.
In her new official blog (another new gambit which allows the deputy first minister to sidestep filtering by sceptical media), Sturgeon calls for David Cameron's government to start technical talks, about the mechanics of implementing the putative UK-Scotland divorce settlement. Those are in everyone's interests, she argues. Indeed, she adds, they are an "obligation" on both governments, and "common sense".
She wants to cast the UK government as being obstructive and hostile to Scotland's interests, even defensive. Given that the latest TNS-BMRB opinion poll in the Herald shows support for independence – even after the Edinburgh agreement between Alex Salmond and David Cameron to formally set up the 2014 referendum – at 28%, some 20 points behind support for the UK, it is bold to say the least.
Cementing her new role at the forefront of the day-to-day battle on independence, Sturgeon writes that their officials are starting work on that "transition plan" in advance of publication of the Scottish government's "prospectus" for independence this November.
That transition plan will cover:
the administrative steps that will require to be taken, the legislation that will require to be passed, the matters that will require to be negotiated with the UK government and what negotiated outcome would be in Scotland's best interests, including those areas in which we would be proposing continued co-operation and joint working with other parts of the UK.
And here's the challenge to David Cameron, the prime minister, and Michael Moore, the Scottish secretary: so too should they:
After all, on many issues, currency for example, our interests will align – what is in Scotland's best interests will also be best for the UK.
Let me be clear – I am not suggesting that we should 'pre-negotiate' the independence settlement. But I am saying, very clearly, that we must do the groundwork now to ensure that, in the event of a 'yes' vote, both governments are in a position to work together constructively in the best interests of the people of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom – as the first minister, prime minister, Michael Moore and myself agreed when we signed the Edinburgh agreement in October last year.
Aware that Sturgeon had quietly floated this proposal in a letter to her UK opposite number Nick Clegg before Christmas, that proposition has already been rejected out of hand by Moore on Sunday, in an op ed piece for Scotland on Sunday:
I and my ministerial colleagues represent the whole of the UK. We cannot – and should not – negotiate or plan in the interests of only one part of it. We believe the break-up of the UK would be deeply harmful to people in all our nations.
To start planning now for a United Kingdom without Scotland in it would not only be a betrayal of our duty to Scotland, it would also start to unpick the fabric of the United Kingdom that is so fundamental to us all. It is not for us to map out a vision for the separation of our nations.
There is another substantial difficulty here, say UK government officials: why should they prepare itself for something they reject? What is the Scottish government's mandate to begin preliminary talks – technical or not – when it hasn't even won the referendum? Where has this happened before?
Scottish government officials insist there is a precedent: before every UK general election, Whitehall civil servants meet opposition parties to discuss their manifestos, to understand and begin preliminary work on the kind of policies a potential new government might want to introduce. That, said one of Sturgeon's spokespeople, is "sensible transition planning before any election."
Indeed, both governments were committed under the Edinburgh agreement "to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect."
But does that apparent precedent really wash? Pre-election practice involves the civil service, not a hostile government and its ministers; (indeed not all UK parties get that privilege); and a single issue referendum in one part of the UK is not equivalent to a UK-wide general election where – in constitutional terms at least – every party enters a general election on an equal footing and where parliament has been dissolved.
This is not that: the independence debate is an adversarial contest between two governments, where that UK civil service will continue to be directed by a UK government whose chief objective will be to defend its own interests, not Scotland's. Whitehall's duty is at all times to serve its government, not those of a devolved institution elsewhere. What neutral role might it ever play?
Indeed, there is a general election in May 2015, so even if the SNP wins the referendum, it could be a Labour government in power at Westminster.
It could plausibly take a different view on these critical issues – sterling, the Bank of England, shared defence or the more prosaic driving licence authority, border controls and splitting up the UK's debt – effectively making previous discussions in advance of the 2014 referendum (or after that, for that matter) entirely moot.
Indeed, Sturgeon fails to mention that pre-election procedure or the civil service in her blog: she suggests instead that Moore would, as Scotland's representative in Westminster, see it as his duty to help her out.
But Moore is a political figure from a different party in another government. His officials believe Sturgeon is far from clear what his constitutional role would be here: represent his government in Scotland or Scotland against his government?
In an exchange about this on Twitter, the SNP's head of strategy, Kevin Pringle, said this situation was unique; Patrick Harvie, co-convenor of the Scottish Green Party and a senior ally for the SNP in the Yes Scotland pro-independence campaign, said this was effectively what David Cameron is doing on Europe: seeking to amend the UK's relations with the rest of the EU in advance of a new treaty.
And Briech Valley SNP tweeted there were historic parallels: Harold Wilson's talks in Dublin before the UK referendum on remaining in the EEC in 1975, and "of greater relevance, Denmark/Iceland before Sovereignty referendum of 1918."
Is Harvie changing tack? Only a few weeks ago, Harvie argued in the Sunday Herald that Salmond's ambitions to complete the full transition of power from the UK to an independent Scotland by May 2016 deadline, to coincide with Holyrood's next election but barely 16 months after the autumn 2014 referendum, was too ambitious.
Referencing the possible change of UK government in 2015, Harvie said:
This breakneck speed would risk mistakes that could never be put right, and an arbitrary deadline could give the UK Government crucial advantages in negotiations.
I believe the SNP's white paper next year must set out a calmer transition process, to be completed over the course of the 2016 Parliament, rather than at its election.
Sturgeon's blog too is short of specifics on what exactly needs to be nailed down in this transition discussions. She briefly mentions a joint strategy on sterling without adding detail.
Moore's officials suggest she is wise to be vague: getting into currency and monetary policy would, they say, open up her government to a world of political pain. There is mention of annual UK Treasury inspections of Scottish finances, and a veto over Scottish government budgets, being part of that package. The rest of the UK's currency interests do not "align" with an independent Scotland's at all, they insist.
But this line of attack cannot be swept aside. There is a clear inference in Sturgeon's inaugural blog that this "technical talks" proposition will constantly crop up this year as the Scottish government releases more detail about the shape and form an independent Scotland might take.
The last sentence of her blog spells that political challenge out quite succinctly:
I look forward to a constructive response – otherwise the responsibility for any so-called 'uncertainty' in the referendum debate will lie squarely with Westminster.
That will play again into the notion central to the nationalist case that the UK is hostile, obstructive and intransigent, while Sturgeon's government the spirit of reasonableness. Angus Robertson, the Moray MP and a senior SNP strategist, spelt that out on the BBC Sunday Politics show:
This is all part of the tactics being used by the anti-independence parties, who want to say we can't do this and we can't do that.
The anti-independence campaign should spend less time on smears and scare stories, and should instead embrace a real debate on these issues.
In that light, how can Moore and Co get out of that neat bind, while they struggle too to defend controversial welfare reforms, Trident renewal and the increasingly sceptical stance on Europe (with another referendum there on the way) – all policy areas where the SNP believe they can make considerable political headway.
But we know the UK government will become far more adversarial in coming months: its civil service is preparing detailed papers vigorously arguing the case for remaining in the UK, and attacking the Scottish government's proposed post-independence settlement. Not much neutrality there.
Any sense the UK government might wish to cooperate with Salmond's government is likely to disappear faster than the winter snow. And it is that debate, on the bigger questions such as the economy, oil, currencies, defence and Europe, which will decide the outcome for undecided and floating voters. Sturgeon may simply be blogging to the converted on this one.