I would welcome the presence on the Scottish independence referendum ballot of a Devo Something option - be it Max or Plus or Plus Plus.
But there’s a £2.8bn problem with all those middle roads. That problem makes them essentially conservative - and Conservative - propositions at odds with the prevailing political mood of Scotland.
I can see the appeal of Devo Thingway. It used to be my preferred option: we’ll reap our own harvest and ring our own till without all the hassle of “divorce” or “separation”. We also get to prove that we’re not scrounging Jocks living off the generosity of the good people down south.
However, the problem is that Devo Max and especially Devo Plus push us towards conservative spending priorities. It's not because we will suddenly have to pay for our policies. It's because any cuts will have to come from areas traditionally seen as at the progressive end of the spectrum, such as educating our young people and caring for the elderly.
Crucially, we will not be allowed to change spending on the archetypal conservative priority: defence. That accounts for a substantial amount of money. A substantial amount of money over which will we have no effective control.
Let’s estimate our “share” of the UK defence budget to see how much is involved. Scotland’s per capita GDP is 99 per cent of the UK average, so it’s straightforward to assess this figure based on our population, which is 8 per cent of the UK total. The UK’s defence budget for 2011–12 is £33.75bn. Scotland’s “share” is about 8 per cent of that: £2.8bn.
That’s £2.8bn of budget a Devo Plus Scotland would not be allowed to spend on anything other than defence.
An independent Scotland would have defence costs of its own, so we couldn’t spend all that money on Irn Bru and munchy boxes.
But how much would we actually need?
For a start, the UK’s defence ambitions and Scotland’s defence needs are vastly different.
The United Kingdom suffers from Great Britain’s imperial hangover, the belief that somehow we still need to rule the waves. Austerity has done little to dent that conceit, neither has the embarrassment of our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. (This is in no way to denigrate the extraordinary courage, abilities and professionalism of British personnel, but rather to highlight the strategic and political failings which have undermined their mission.) All this bloats defence spending and leads to a propensity to “use” all that expensive stuff - sometimes unwisely.
The UK defence establishment is not a paragon of prudent spending. It is a ludicrously top-heavy establishment bureaucracy. (For more on this I recommend Frank Ledwidge’s excellent Losing Small Wars.) This has led to a situation where the UK has an aircraft carrier which is not cluttered up by any actual aircraft that could use it.
It would be up to an independent Scotland to spend its defence budget more effectively. A fully independent Scotland would have a separate foreign policy from Westminster. Perhaps we would have one with a more realistic view of our place in the world. The bottom line is that an independent Scotland could have very modest defence needs - and therefore costs.
(Of course, Scotland may choose to have its own intelligence service to protect against terrorists and organised crime, but this comes under a separate budget calculation.)
How might this work in practice? Let us take as an example a country that is not dissimilar to Scotland: the Republic of Ireland.
Ireland has not been invaded of late. It does a good job of protecting its borders. It has not been targeted by Islamic terrorists.
Ireland’s defence budget for 2010–11 was £754m (€893m).
I think we have just identified a potential £2bn saving. We could choose to have an Irish-sized defence force for £750m rather than a UK-type one for £2.8bn. To put that in context, £2bn is a fifth of the cost of running the NHS in Scotland. Or nearly the full education budget. Or enough money to dual the A9 several times over.
Ireland does not have the international or military clout of the UK, but what’s more important to you? The UK having a permanent seat on the UN security council or the A9 being safe to drive on?
Maybe you believe Scottish defence is worth far more than £750m a year. But wouldn’t you like it to be your choice? Devo Plus doesn’t give you that.
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