The SNP like to talk of a 'democratic deficit' within the UK. They often claim that Scotland's voice is not heard by, or is deliberately ignored by the UK government. That Scotland does not get what it wants or votes for. Of course what exactly 'Scotland's voice' means is never quite pinned down, although these days it seems to equate in their minds to being whatever the SNP want. The reality is that Scotland doesn't have one voice, it has many and the SNP do not speak for everyone. More of that in a future post though.
As discussion on round two of the neverendum starts to takeover the news Nicola Sturgeon has been talking of her "cast iron mandate" from the 2016 holyrood election and using that as justification for demanding round two. (Ref 1)
Democracy is often complex in practice, and there are many ways in which it can be applied and in which we can vote for something. Compare for example representative democracy with direct democracy for starters. The system of election also matters as many of them allow for majorities of representatives to elected by a minority. When you start to accuse others of having less of a democratic mandate, such claims may sometimes look less impressive when you scrutinise the data.
I'm not sure I would agree that the SNP have a mandate to ask for a referendum on the basis of a promise in their 2015 manifesto or their 2016 one. If you actually read through their 2016 manifesto they make quite a lot of promises; they say "we will"...do x & y. However on the issue of another referendum they are considerably less comittal and in fact only give a statement of belief, not a promise (Ref 2). As usual the SNP were giving themselves wiggle room, they could have said "we will demand a second referendum if..." but instead they said "we believe...we should have the right to..." which is a quite different statement. It was arguably a smart thing to put in, after all you can't be held to breaking a manifesto statement of belief in the same way you can for breaking a clear promise to actually do something, but I suspect if someone points this bit of clever wording out in the debate they'll be accused of nit-picking. However ask yourself this: given the supposed disaster they claim that brexit will be is it not quite surprising they weren't being more definite about calling for a referendum?
However pointing out the slightly non-commital way in which they made the manifesto statement on a second referendum is perhaps a distraction. The real issue is that of mandates, so let's assume that as Sturgeon claims, those words in the SNP manifesto and the number of people who voted for it are her mandate. I think it would be fair to say that even though the words of the manifesto weren't super clear on what the SNP would actually do, I suspect most voters got the distinct impression that they would push for a second referendum if brexit happened (although most people assumed it wouldn't), because most voters don't read the subtle nuances of manifesto wording if indeed they read manifestos at all. All well and good, but it's not the only 'mandate' that could be argued to exist, after all other parties went into those election giving voters the distinct impression that they were against any second referendum... (Refs 3,4,5,6)
So let's have a look at some figures.
At the Holyrood elections in 2016 the SNP (and thus their manifesto) receieved 1.06 million votes in the constituency vote, which is quite a lot. Alternatively they recieved 0.95 million in the regional list vote.
If we add in the other major (i.e recieved over 1% of the vote) pro-independence party (i.e. the Greens) to the vote tallies we get to around 1.07 and 1.1 million respectively. Pretty good mandate for seeking idependence according to Nicola.
However if we total up the votes of the major parties that favoured the union (Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and UKIP) the total number of votes in constituencies and regionally was 1.19 and 1.12 million respectively, ever so slightly larger on both counts. (Ref 7)
Thus if you want to argue about a mandate for independence on the basis of what people voted for at the time of the election then the case is perhaps not so clear. Should only the supposed wishes of the election winners count as a mandate? Should the losers be quiet and just accept? Well if you want the SNP's answer to that it's pretty clear from their behaviour post 2014 referendum that they certainly do think the losers in a vote should be listened to.....if it's them.
However the SNP won by virtue of being the largest party in terms of votes so they get to enact their manifesto, but I'm not so sure they get to hold any kind of moral highground regarding the level of support for their proposals on that single issue. One reason why it is not always a good idea to make assumtions on a single issue based on a multi-issue vote is that different people vote on how they feel about different issues, sometimes you have to accept a party doing things you don't like in order to get them elected to do something you do like. We don't really know how many people voted SNP because of their slightly vague manifesto statement or how many voted for them on the strength of other actual comittments they gave on other issues. This why referendums are occasionally held on single issues, to get that clarity. If only we had the results of a single issue referendum to help figure out what Scots want.....
Well funnily enough, about 30 months back we held a referendum on just this issue. It's much easier to compare the results here: There were 1.62 million votes for independence, but 2 million against it. That's almost twice as many people than voted for the SNP's 2016 manifesto.
Now 30 months isn't really that long ago, yes I know that according to Harold Wilson a week is apparently a long time in politics but back in the real world we don't hold elections on a weekly basis do we? Sturgeon would love everyone to accept that brexit is such a big change that it invalidates the previous referendum, I don't buy that, but regardless of sceptics like me, her entire case hangs on trying to persuade enough people that is true. She also needs to persuade people that it matters (i.e. that maintaining our links to the EU is more important than maintaing those with the UK), and at the same time she needs to demonstrate that they've found solutions to the problems with the SNP's independence case the first time round. They also need to do all that while trying to hang on to somewhere between a quarter to a third of her own voters (depending on which opinion polls you believe...if any (Refs 8,9,10,11) who might actually prefer to stay out of the EU. This latter point is a pretty difficult circle to square, if she guarantees to march Scotland back into the EU she may loose some voters, but may gain some. The cynincs (e.g. me) would suggest that the SNP don't really care much about EU membership and would happily give it up in return for independence, but of course they can't admit that while trying to get us all outraged about brexit. Secretly I suspect Sturgeon is probably quite happy to let Scotland slide out of the EU along with the rest of the UK prior to any independence vote as there's a pretty good chance that with the rUK ouside of the EU Scotland might be better off staying outside too. That doesn't mean that I think that out of the EU is better than being in it, just that Scotland being in the EU while the UK is out is probably worse than both being out if there's a 'hard' brexit. The SNP may pretend otherwise but they know the importance of trade and free movement between Scotland and rUK is many times greater than that between Scotland and the EU, despite the size of the latter's market. My guess is that a referendum after brexit will suit the SNP fine as it will enable them to stay out of the EU If they want, AND blame it on the UK rather than admit that their outrage was merely opportunistic posturing.
References:
Ref 1: https://stv.tv/news/politics/1381869-sturgeon-i-have-a-cast-iron-mandate-for-indyref2/
Ref 2: SNP manifesto https:
//www.snp.org/manifesto For a summary see: https://www.snp.org/the_snp_2016_manifesto_explained
The summary shows20 "we will"'s but just one "we believe":
"We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will."
Ref 3: Labour party manifesto http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/page/-/images/Manifesto%202016/Scottish%20Labour%20Manifesto%202016.pdf
" We rule out another referendum on independence during the lifetime of the next Parliament."
Ref 4: Conservative party manifesto http://www.scottishconservatives.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Scottish-Conservative-Manifesto_2016-DIGITAL.pdf
"We will oppose any attempt by the SNP to hold a 2nd referendum during this parliament – no matter the result of the EU referendum this June."
Ref 5: Liberal Democrat party manifesto http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/manifesto
"We will not support a second referendum on independence in the next parliamentary term. Full stop"
Ref 6: Ukip party manifesto https://www.ukip.scot/manifesto
They do not specify their thoughts on another referendum but are clear about where they stand even on the issue of further devolution, nevermind independence: "UKIP
remains a Unionist party which understands the benefits of local decision making" and "UKIP are wary of ‘Independence by Accident’ and will draw a Red Line at the transfer of further powers from Westminster"
Ref 7: 2016 Scottish parliamentary election results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_election,_2016
Ref 8: http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/
36% of SNP voters surveyed voted to leave the EU
Ref 9: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/747938/Brexit-Scotland-independence-THIRD-SNP-supporters-voted-Brexit-Sturgeon-embarrassment
34.9% of SNP voters surveyed voted to leave the EU
Ref 10: http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2016/06/so-just-how-united-are-the-snp-on-europe/
"The figures for those who said they voted for the SNP a year ago (that is, in the 2015 UK general election) are almost identical. Support for Remain stood at 66%, while 34% said they would vote to Leave"
Ref 11: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2016/may/12/eurosceptic-snp-voters-could-influence-eu-referendum-result-polling-data-shows
"In February, Ipsos Mori found 29% of SNP supporters would vote to leave while Survation for the Daily Mail put the SNP’s Brexit vote at 28%. On 2 May, the latest Survation poll, for the Daily Record, found 25% of pro-independence voters want to leave the EU "
