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Only an official would think the way to defeat the SNP is to surrender to them on all fronts

 


Former public servants, like former parliamentarians, can afford to speak in a refreshing way once they have turned their backs on Whitehall. No longer constrained by protocols and procedures or by strict rules requiring neutrality, they can become lyrical about the failures of their former political masters.

But it says something deep about the public service mentality on decentralization that a former permanent secretary used his newfound freedom to criticize Boris Johnson’s apparent drift towards assertive unionism.

Philip Rycroft worked for the Scottish Executive (which was later renamed the Scottish Government) as well as for Whitehall, as permanent secretary of the Department for Exiting the European Union. He is therefore familiar with politics north and south of the border. However, like so many of his Scottish colleagues working for the SNP administration, he seems to have become a native of the nationalist narrative.

As a co-author of a report on decentralization by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, Mr Rycroft is concerned about the Prime Minister’s apparent shift towards assertive unionism instead of embracing the approach followed by its predecessors.

This follows a weekend briefing to reporters by senior Conservative MPs (anonymous) who fear Boris Johnson cannot and should not continue to say no to nationalist demands for another independence referendum if, as planned , the SNP won an overall majority of seats in the coming months Holyrood elections.

What about Johnsons’ somewhat more robust approach to nationalists that is so unpleasant to Mr Rycroft and, we have to assume, many of his ex-colleagues in Edinburgh and London? ?

Following the publication of his report he said: What we see in things like the imposition of the UK Home Market Bill, [the UK government] are going to distribute money in the shared prosperity fund and so on, it is disrespectful to say “You elected a government but we are going to ignore them”. Why this antagonistic approach?

Antagonistic approach? Did he even bother to listen to the daily comments of SNP ministers at Holyrood? British ministers are regularly accused of all political crimes under the sun by men and women whose only reason for entering politics was to disrespect the Union and oversee its dismantling.

What exactly about Boris Johnsons predecessors in Issue 10 whose devolution approach, according to Mr Rycroft, should be followed? Whatever their policy, we can see the consequences in the polls for the SNP against the Unionist parties, and in the support for independence. It was Gordon Brown and David Cameron who, under pressure from absolutely no one, chose to tear up the Scotland Act 1998 and shift the balance of vested and reserved matters to the Scottish Parliament. As a direct result, voters understood that if they continued to vote in the SNP, Westminster would continue to cede more power to Holyrood.

And yet, contrary to the expectations of the Browns and Camerons (and a surprise to absolutely no one else), their surrender to nationalism, the same kind of surrender that Philip Rycroft is so part of has resulted in a weakening of the Union and a weakening of anyone who spoke out against nationalism.

The reason why the assertive unionism of Boris Johnsons (and Theresa Mays before him) remains in the crawl of our public service is that they have become far too accustomed, since 1999, to either ignoring Scotland altogether or, when they are forced to pay attention, to assume that the mentality consecrated by Brown and Cameron must always prevail. Saying no to nationalism, whether in its tedious demands for ever more power or in its insistence on holding constitutional referendums every few years, is anathema to public officials because it has never been done before.

So far.

Yes, it is obvious that the Union is in a more perilous situation than ever. This is not the work of Boris Johnson or those who want to oppose the narrow view of separatism that they espouse; it is for those who have come before, who believed that capitulating to a party determined to end the Union would somehow strengthen it.

Rycroft and Cobel believe that more of the same respect that Brown and Cameron showed to the SNP would, for reasons that are not entirely clear, suddenly have the opposite effect of what they have had in the past. The sunk cost fallacy was obviously never much discussed during his time as a Mandarin.

Maybe showing a little more muscle to defend the Union won’t work. Perhaps this will encourage more Scots than ever to flock to the nationalist norm. But as this was once the result of constant and regular submission to the nationalist demands of his predecessors, what does Johnson have to lose?



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