Tom Griffin's blog

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The SNP may not yet have the votes to get their planned independence referendum through the Scottish Parliament next year, but the proposal is certainly creating waves among their political rivals.

The Liberal Democrats announced yesterday that MSP Ross Finnie is to review their opposition to a referendum and report back to a special session of the party's Scottish conference on 30 October. 

Scottish Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott has staunchly opposed a vote up till now, but there was notable pressure for a change of stance from some Scottish activists at the UK Lib Dem conference last month. 

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The SDLP announced yesterday that Mark Durkan will step down as leader in February. His successor will take over a party facing an uncertain future.

As Splintered Sunrise notes, the SDLP has lost out to Sinn Féin in recent years as the leading voice of nationalists in Northern Ireland:

Even in the Republic of West Belfast, there are layers of people – often middle class, yes, but also located in the more respectable end of the working class – who would be boiled in oil before they’d vote Provo. But these layers are relatively middle-aged and elderly – those under 30, if they vote at all, only vote for one party – and are thoroughly demoralised. 

Roe Valley Socialist offers a generous assessment of Durkan's leadership and looks at some of the issues that could shape the leadership election, such as the SDLP's complex relationship with southern-based parties:

some of the front-runners for the leadership have had a relationship with Fianna Fail in the past that is too comfortable for those in the party committed to membership of Socialist International and co-operation with the Irish Labour Party. Unlike our sister party, Fianna Fail have actively held meetings in SDLP-held constituencies, competed for members at university events and established tentative branch structures in areas in Derry and along the border. 

Tom Griffin (London, OK): It's now official. The Scottish Government will bring forward plans for a vote on independence in 2010. Alex Salmond announced the Referendum Bill in Holyrood today as the centrepiece of the SNP's new programme for government.

On the face of it, this was something  of an empty gesture, as Salmond's minority government does not have the votes to get the bill through the Scottish Parliament. Yet wise heads like the BBC's Brian Taylor and Slugger's Brian Walker believe there is more to the story than that.

Even if it falls, the referendum bill is likely to keep the constitutional issue on the agenda until the next Holyrood election.

OurKingdom on Lockerbie and the devolution of justice: see also Gerry Hassan on Lockerbie, justice and the price of devolution and Guy Aitchison on Tory reactions

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Spectator's Alex Massie argues that yesterday's decision on whether to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi would have been dealt with by a Scottish official even before devolution. The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg believes it would have been taken by a member of the UK Government.

The two views aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, and either way, Scottish Justice Minister Kenny McAskill's role in releasing the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has shown that the power exercised by Scottish Ministers can have implications of not only UK-wide but international significance.

Splintered Sunrise suggests that the SNP might for once have been happy to defer to Westminster, but that won't have stopped some in the other devolved jurisdictions coveting similar powers.

Plaid Commons leader Elfyn Llwyd called on Tuesday for the Welsh Assembly to be given responsibility for justice. According to the Western Mail's Tomos Livingstone, some Welsh police chiefs would welcome the move.

It's in Northern Ireland that devolution of justice is highest on the agenda, but also most contentious. Nationalists want to see a justice ministry established as soon as possible, while unionists are more wary.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Is there a fundamental flaw at the heart of the Calman Commission's  proposals for devolution of tax powers to Scotland?

Economists Jim and Margaret Cuthbert believe the plans would have some perverse effects that could leave Scotland caught in a deflationary trap, as The Scotsman reports: 

the Cuthberts warn that under Calman – set up by Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – growth in Scotland's economy could also disproportionately benefit the Treasury, rather than the Scottish Government, because Holyrood would get to keep only 10p out of every tax band. 

For every 1p cut in income tax, Scotland would need to raise an extra 5 per cent income from the basic tax payer, an extra 7.5 per cent from those in the 40p bracket and an additional 8 per cent from those in the top 50p bracket, which will be brought in next year.

The Herald carries a Labour reaction:

"This is Alice in Wonderland economics. It is right that if the Scottish Parliament used tax-varying powers that would have consequences for the budget of the Scottish Government - that is the point. It's barmy to argue that the Treasury should make up the shortfall."

All the major parties in Scotland would agree that part of the point of devolving tax-raising powers is to strengthen the incentive for the Scottish Government to manage public spending responsibly and to grow the Scottish economy. If the Cuthberts are right, Calman may not achieve this. They foresee circumstances where tax cuts could boost the Scottish economy and swell UK Treasury receipts yet leave Scottish finances worse off. Conversely, they think Holyrood might well be forced to raise taxes at the expense of economic growth to maintain revenues.

The Cuthberts argue that these effects can be avoided if the Scottish Government receives a fixed percentage of all income tax in Scotland, on the model of a revenue-sharing system currently used in Canada.

That would mean that while decisions made at Westminster would continue to affect Holyrood's revenue,  Holyrood's decisions would also start to have an impact on Westminster's revenue from Scotland:

Successful operation of such a system would require that the UK and devolved governments are willing to operate in a collegiate manner – being appreciative of, and respecting, the impact that their own actions will have on the revenues of the other parties. The implication is that a successful tax sharing system would have to involve a more federal way of working than is the current practice in the UK. It would be very unfortunate if the Calman Commission had been forced towards its flawed proposals on tax sharing because it was unwilling to countenance the implication that a proper system of tax sharing would inevitably involve a more federal aspect to the operation of the UK constitution.

The Cuthbert's open letter to the Calman Commission is available as a word file, along with some other very interesting papers, from their website.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Government this week published its response to an epetition from Republic's Challenge the Oath Campaign. It makes for an interesting commentary on our constitution:

No oath of allegiance is required of most public officials, including civil servants and local government officers.  In relation to those groups of whom an oath is required, the oath is constitutionally important because it is a declaration relating to the supremacy of the Sovereign, which is fundamental to our system of government by the Crown-in-Parliament.  Oaths of allegiance to the Crown, or affirmations for those who do not wish to swear to God, are sworn by members of certain professions on taking office, as well as by new British citizens. The Government believes the Monarchy is a vital element in our constitution, personifying both national and Commonwealth unity. The Government has no plans to change the wording of the oath.

It's clear that the Government regards the oath as no mere ornamental anachronism but of enduring significance. It is not simply a pledge of personal loyalty to the Queen, but neither is it a straightforward proxy for loyalty to the nation as a whole.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Last week, Home Office ministers announced they were abandoning a clause in the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill that would extended immigration controls to air and sea travel between Britain and Northern Ireland. The climbdown came in the face of opposition from the Lords, where it was confirmed on Monday that new immigration spot checks on the Irish border will also now be shelved.

Although the government remain committed to the planned changes in principle, it looks as if the Common Travel Area is safe for the moment. As Slugger's Brian Walker has noted, it's a pragmatic arrangement supported by all sides in Ireland, if not always for the same reasons:

The particular Irish (north and south) interest in the Bill was to avoid the unique status in Britain of Irish people becoming downgraded more or less by accident because of new restrictions on foreign immigration. “British Unionists” of course are Siamese twins with southern Irish passport holders because of the facts of geography. The Irish, note, are not regarded as foreign in the 1949 Act, passed when the Republic cut its last links with the Commonwealth. Since then , tightening up through the British Nationality Act and successive anti terrorism Acts have pulled away from British- Irish exceptionalism, while the GFA has pulled in the opposite direction, towards interchangeability of citizenship.  

 

 

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams spoke at Westminster last night on the latest leg of an international tour intended to build support for a united Ireland. In the event, it was a remarkably open-ended occasion, one much more about canvassing ideas than about presenting a finished strategy.

That tone is also reflected in Adams' piece in Comment is Free today:

To achieve all of this requires those of us who share these goals to find ways in which we can work together. Is it possible to put in place a formal structured broad front approach to campaign for a united Ireland? Or would it be better to opt for an informal, organic and popular movement based on core principles?

One definite proposal is for a major conference in Britain next February: 

Of course this conversation, this dialogue, with people here in Britain or in the US or elsewhere will not in itself achieve a united Ireland. That is a matter for agreement between the people who live on the island of Ireland. But British policy toward Ireland is key to unlocking the potential for this change to occur. So, we need the active support of people in Britain.

We need to reach out to the widest possible public opinion, to the trade unions, the business sector, the community and voluntary sector, to the political class, as well as with those of other ethnic minorities who have experienced a similar history of colonisation and immigration. 

One interesting moment last night highlighted some of the dilemmas of building a broadbased campaign in Britain. Adams remarked that there may yet be an independent Scotland before there is an independent Ireland.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): ConservativeHome has today published a survey of 144 Tory candidates in the 220 most winnable seats for the party at the next general election.

One particularly eye-catching detail: 54 per cent say "the Union should be defended at all costs", while 46 per cent would "not be uncomfortable about Scotland becoming independent."

On the face of it this is a remarkable result for a party whose unionism traditionally has been a core value. 

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Will the Scots Ever Be Satisfied? Panorama asks at 8.30 pm on BBC One this evening in a retrospective on ten years of devolution by BBC Scotland editor Brian Taylor.

Labour's Tam Dalyell staunchly opposed a Scottish Parliament because he believed it would never be satisfied short of independence. At the weekend, he pointed to the Calman Report's recent recommendation of greater tax powers as vindication of this view.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Calman Commission this week published its long-awaited report on the future of Scottish Devolution. Most attention is likely to focus on its recommendations for taxation, which could create a significant new divergence from the rest of the UK.

The Commission calls for income tax to be reduced by 10p in the pound in Scotland with a commensurate reduction in the block grant from Westminster. The Scottish Government would have the option to make up the difference by setting its own income tax. 

One limitation is that the Scottish variation would apply equally at all rates. Holyrood would not be able to raise the top rate while leaving the standard rate unchanged, or vice-versa. Such a power would threaten the UK's 'social union' according to the Commission.

This is one instance of a general theme in the report, the delicate balancing act between deeper and more accountable devolution, on the one hand, and the continued maintenance of the union on the other.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Monday was the 200th anniversary anniversary of the death of Tom Paine, the man who, in Mike Marqusee's words, "inspired and guided revolutions in north America and France, and equally important, the revolution that did not happen in Britain."

As both Brendan O'Neill and Edward Vallance note, Paine's writings retain remarkable relevance to today's political crisis, not least because on his own terms, the British revolution he sought remains unfinished business.

Here is Paine's verdict on the House of Commons in The Rights of Man: 

With respect to the house of commons, it is elected but by a small part of the nation; but were the the election as universal as taxation, which it ought to be, it would still be only the organ of the nation, and cannot possess inherent rights. When the national assembly of France resolves a matter, the resolve is made in right of the nation; but Mr. Pitt on all national questions, so far as they refer to the house of commons, absorbs the right of the nation into the organ, and makes the organ into a nation, and the nation itself into a cipher.

 So Paine would not have been surprised by the expenses saga. He understood that even a parliament elected by universal suffrage would remain a gentlemen's club without constitutional reform.

His view of parliamentary sovereignty remains as applicable today as it was in 1791:

Constitution is now the cant word of parliament, turning itself to the ear of the nation. Formerly it was the universal supremacy and the omnipotence of parliament. But since the progress of liberty in France, those phrases have a despotic harshness in their note; and the English parliament has caught the fashion from the National Assembly, but without the substance, of speaking of a constitution. 

 Two centuries after his death, Paine's demand in The Rights of Man for a written constitution enshrining the sovereignty of the people remains the yardstick for any serious measure of democratic reform.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The ongoing debacle in the House of Commons last week overshadowed an equally significant scandal in the House of Lords. A day after Michael Martin became the first Speaker of the Commons to be forced out since 1695, Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor of Blackburn became the first peers to face suspension from the Lords since 1642.

The latter landmark is in some ways more troubling. The Sub-Committee on Lords Interests looked at the conduct of the peers involved in the cash for amendments affair. It found that Truscott "was advertising his power and willingness to influence Parliament in return for a substantial financial inducement"and that Taylor displayed "his clear willingness to breach the Code of Conduct by engaging in paid advocacy, and by failing to act on his personal honour." This is a degree of corruption beyond fiddling expenses.

There is now a danger that a crackdown on expenses will leave some MPs and peers more susceptible to financial inducements from lobbyists. It is essential therefore that reform of Parliament includes measures to regulate lobbying.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Conservatives took another step in their nascent alliance with the Ulster Unionist Party today, with a visit to Northern Ireland by David Cameron in support of UUP European election candidate Jim Nicholson.

The previous evening, Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson explained the thinking behind the alliance in a talk at West London's Hammersmith Irish Centre.

This is the first time in decades there is someone representing a national party as well as a local party in an election in Northern Ireland. And we intend to go on. We intend to choose joint candidates over the next few months for the general election. The way things are going we might have to accelerate that, and we will see how we we get on.

This is a long term project. There may be bumps on the way. We've seen a few this week  with Lady Sylvia's comments. It will not go smoothly, but I think it is a really worthwhile thing to try and do. If we could move Northern Ireland politics away from the age-old stale debate about the great dividing trench, just park that and concentrate on things that really matter to people on a daily basis, I think we would bring in people who've not been involved in politics before.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Monday's Guardian carried an alarming report about safety at the Trident submarine base in Faslane: 

The worst breaches include three leaks of radioactive coolant from nuclear submarines in 2004, 2007 and 2008 into the Firth of Clyde, while last year a radioactive waste plant manager was replaced. It emerged he had no qualifications in radioactive waste management.

The repeated safety breaches, which have been revealed in documents released to Channel 4 News, are so serious that the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) has warned that it would consider closing the base down if it had the legal powers to do so. 

This revelation comes at an obviously sensitive time, with the longstanding opposition to Trident renewal in the Scottish Parliament being compounded by growing questions about its affordability at Westminster.

Tom Griffin (London, OK):Does the Irish peace process have lessons for the Middle East? Many of the key players in the Good Friday Agreement seem to think so. Tony Blair has cited the precedent as cause for optimism in his role as Quartet Envoy, while Gerry Adams called for inclusive negotiations during his visit to Gaza last week. The analogy isn't universally welcome, however.

Two recent articles reflect the parameters of the debate. In the New Statesman, Blair's former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, argues that the British government's engagement with Irish republicans provides a model for an Israeli approach to Hamas. In Standpoint, Douglas Murray reiterates a longstanding neoconservative critique of such suggestions, arguing that "the claims of the peace process in Northern Ireland itself are unproven - but they are also unhelpful to the point of uselessness."

This dispute is significant given the identity of some of the key actors now emerging on the Middle East stage. US envoy George Mitchell was a key mediator in the Good Friday Agreement, while Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is arguably more closely aligned with American and British neoconservatives than any other major figure in Israeli politics.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The debate about reforming the Act of Settlement has prompted some interesting musings over at the Slugger O'Toole website:

I have known a number of unionist republicans: most would be fairly liberal, though still clearly unionists. However, there are also unionists, albeit fewer, from a more hardline view point who support what has recently been suggested as the United Republic rather than the United Kingdom. Others who hold sometimes surprisingly ambivalent views on the monarchy include some fundamentalists.

That might seem a unexpected admission from Turgon, a supporter of Northern Ireland's most hardline unionist party, the TUV, but as he points out such views are not without their historical roots:

It must be remembered that the idea of monarchy was not considered the ideal in The Bible (1 Samuel 8:7). In addition across Oliver Cromwell’s tomb it is said the inscription read “Christ, not man, is king.” Many fundamentalists may well owe significant allegiance to the UK and indeed its head of state; there is, however, another country to which they vow true fealty, as indeed is clear in the third verse of that hymn. (Best tune ever to my mind).

One 'unionist republican' from the more liberal end of the spectrum is the Ulster Unionist Director of Communications, Alex Kane. He wrote in January:

I have absolutely no objection to Her Majesty on a personal level. Indeed, I think she does a remarkable job. But as someone who regards himself as a democratic purist I have said that my personal preference---and it is only my personal preference---would be that we have an elected Head of State. Putting it bluntly, everyone in authority, from the humblest parish councillor to the Head of State should be both elected and removable. But that State would remain the United Kingdom...

...Believing in an elected Head of State doesn't make me an Irish Republican and it certainly doesn't diminish or undermine my sense of unionism or my British identity.

Tom Griffin (London, OK):The agenda behind the dissident republican attacks of the past few days was acutely summed up yesterday by Irish News commentator Brian Feeney:

The killings were designed to accomplish a number of objectives – to embarrass Sinn Fein; to provoke a disproportionate response from the British; to cause division between Sinn Fein and the DUP and make it less likely that policing and justice will be devolved to northern politicians.

All of these aims add up to a larger purpose of undermining support for the peace process in the North's republican communities.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): There has been a lot said in recent months about democratic republicanism as a neglected tradition in British politics. If Saturday's Convention on Modern Liberty is anything to go by, it is a debate which has struck a chord.

It was standing room only for the afternoon session entitled Liberty, Sovereignty and Republicanism: Can the Leveller Tradition Be Revived In The 21st Century? sponsored by History Today and OurKingdom.

The audience were not to be disappointed, with what proved to be a lively and rigorous debate about Britain's republican past and its relevance today.

There were shades of David Davis as historian Quentin Skinner explained the role of Magna Carta in seventeenth century debates about liberty:

There's a great moment in the Leveller tradition when John Lilburne, who emerges from the historical record as a petitioner for his rights, and has been falsely imprisoned on the order of the House of Lords, writes a tract about his right under Magna Carta to be released, and is sharply told by Richard Overton, in the Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens, July 1646. 'Magna Carta is a beggarly thing.' You have not got onto what really matters about freedom.

Tom Griffin (Dublin, OK): Gerry Adams called for a new alignment in Irish politics at the weekend, in a move which underlined how the impact of the credit crisis is changing the political landscape in the Republic.

Speaking at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (party conference), Adams urged left parties to unite, and end the dominance of Ireland's two major centre-right parties.

In my view the Labour Party has a duty not to prop up either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. Instead Labour should explore with us and others the potential for co-operation in the future.

I invite all these potential allies to come together to forge a stronger, more united progressive and democratic movement for our country - one that aims to meet the needs of all citizens.

That call represents a major shift since the 2007 election, when many observers saw a coalition with Fianna Fáil as the ultimate aim of Sinn Féin's own strategy. The party's poor performance at the polls put paid to that notion, and the credit crisis looks to have undermined it further. Adams' speech came on the same day that 120,000 people took to the streets of Dublin to protest against Government austerity measures.