In 1988, then vice-president George HW Bush made a speech at his party’s national convention accepting the party’s nomination for president. The most famous line from this speech was a clear unequivocal pledge – ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’ The pledge was credited, in part, for winning Bush the presidency. However, after raising taxes, this broken promise was utilised to great effect by the Clinton campaign strategists and was credited, in part, for Bush’s defeat to Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election. That episode made clear a basic fact of politics – public trust is an invaluable asset. As Alex Salmond prepares to address the troops at his own party conference this weekend we find that he has broken his trust with the Scottish public, not once, not twice, but three times since he approached the rostrum at his party’s conference 12 months ago.
Until last year it was nationalist gospel that a separate Scotland would be afforded immediate European Union entry. There would be no need for negotiation; the doors would simply be flung open for a separate Scotland. This position was predicated on legal advice the Scottish government claimed to have – Salmond even alluded to it while being grilled by Andrew Neil. A freedom of information request was submitted to reveal the advice, and swiftly rejected. In fact, the nationalists were so determined to keep this secret advice under wraps they headed to court and ran up a £20,000 legal bill. However, the big secret was that there was no legal advice – none whatsoever. The Scottish Sun’s front page headline – ‘EU Liar’ summed up the situation succinctly.
Now, one lie may be careless but two begins to suggest a pattern. In March of this year a secret cabinet paper was leaked from the Scottish government. The paper had been drawn up by the finance secretary, John Swinney, for his cabinet colleagues and admitted that the nationalists were planning for public sector job cuts, cuts to the old-age pension and that no additional public spending would be possible in a separate Scotland. This paper laid out facts that are the antithesis of the nationalist argument, which is usually based on promising everything to everyone and denying that priorities would ever have to be set in public spending. What they are saying in public is anything but what they are discussing in private.
If two lies suggest a pattern of dishonesty then three cements it, and this month we got our third. A confidential paper that had been suppressed for a year, drawn up by a senior Scottish government civil servant was recently released under FOI. The paper, published on the Better Together website, makes clear that in private Scottish National party ministers are being advised that our taxes would have to go up, public spending would have to be cut or borrowing would have to rise to pay for two oil funds the nationalists want to set up.
It’s clear that the nationalists will do and say anything to get people to vote for independence – and that’s the key difference between the position Salmond occupied when he addressed his loyal followers a year ago and where Salmond finds himself now. Scots who in the past thought he, despite his flaws, stood up for Scotland now feel he is selling them a ticket to a deeply uncertain destination.
However, for supporters of Scotland’s place in the UK we still have some way to go. People in Scotland trust the UK pound, our NHS and our UK armed forces – it’s our job to get the message out that separation would put all this at risk and only by staying in the UK can we continue to the have best of both of worlds, a strong Scottish parliament and the strength and security of the bigger UK.
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Ross MacRae is communications officer at the Better Together campaign
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