Iain Macwhirter’s ‘Road to Referendum’, a potted history of how we got to where we are, is now in paperback, after appearing as both a TV series and hardback.
Sarah Smith, late of Channel 4 and now the BBC’s anchorperson of choice for its Referendum coverage, chaired this event, in which Macwhirter distilled some of the essence of his arguments.
Macwhirter begins with the Wars of Independence and the Declaration of Arbroath, before moving rather swiftly through the tangle of the 17th Century to the Treaty of Union and the Jacobite Risings.
A little too swiftly for this reviewer, but once back in the 21st Century, Macwhirter was clearly on somewhat more solid ground.
Macwhirter’s comments that the refusal of the main Westminster parties to accept the need for Currency Union post a ‘Yes’ vote implied a negation of the Treaty of Union were interesting, suggesting that the tactic could prove a self-defeating ‘own goal’ not previously considered.
The possible admission by a member of the present Cabinet that some form of currency union would almost certainly happen undermined the argument in any case.
Although a ‘No’ vote would be a set-back for nationalist opinion, it is unlikely to reduce the probability of an SNP administration at the next Scottish Parliament election, by which time the political landscape elsewhere may have changed considerably.
A plethora of unavoidably ‘unknown unknowns’ surrounds the debate and continues to cloud the judgement of those as yet undecided.
Question time produced some predictable attempts at rambling, ably nipped in the bud by the chair, although one provocative question, on the capability of an independent Scotland to adequately protect its resources (i.e., oil rigs or fish stocks) from external aggression pointed up one of the absences in the otherwise extensive prospectus that is ‘Scotland’s Future’.
An interesting hour, but not one that moved the debate very much further forward.