Taking part in a debate on the implications of Scottish
independence for the British Isles last Wednesday at Tallinn University’s
International Relations Society I was struck by two things.
Firstly the promised filming of the event was cancelled on
the night of the event, as there was a serving diplomat participating. She was
declared as being there on a personal basis and therefore it would be “unfair”
to record her participation. More likely it would be embarrassing to record
what in fact did ensue on behalf of the Union. But, as a tactic, salting the
battlefield BEFORE hostilities commence is classically effective!
Secondly the main speaker for the Union ultimately didn’t
really try to win the argument on matters of independence but instead went down
the George Robertson route of calamity, although admittedly in a more coherent
manner, by suggesting that the renaissance of the nation state in a potentially
fragmenting Western Europe becoming reminiscent to the preamble to WWI was
somehow a threat to world peace and therefore playing into Vladimir Putin’s
hands in his plan for global domination. Utter tripe, but at least a better
constructed bucket of utter tripe than George Robertson’s.
Scottish Independence likely to cause Europe-wide outbreak of trench warfare
Once our speaker had laid the fear on the room he then
played to the nationalities present and hinted that Scottish independence would
be bad for Estonia and all the other brave wee nations of Eastern Europe who
deserved their freedom as they really knew what subservience was – Scotland
after all has always enjoyed “freedom” and any claim to the contrary is paranoid
nonsense.
Then after making a great noise about the Yes campaign’s
insistence on “playing the man not the ball” by “dissing” characters in Better
Together he launched into a shouted attack on Alex Salmond and the Putin
affair. Never mind that I had predicted this as our Unionist friend writes a
blog which has recently been based around fear of Putin and I had printed the
text of the Salmond interview in readiness. Our neutral moderator ruled that an
intervention or redirect on the subject would not be permitted as I had already
made my case to the audience. Really?
Plainly and simply, our Unionist friend pandered to a young,
primarily Estonian and European ex-pat audience with images of Russian
intervention as some imagined corollary to Scottish independence. No attempt to
win the debate on the issues at the outset but only to influence the room with
lowest common denominator spreading of trepidation. Oh dear.
But back to our diplomat. She was willing to “confirm” many
facts and appeal to reason in a very diplomatic way but then she denied two
undeniables – or at least one matter that’s pretty much up in the air and one
that’s utterly incontrovertible through it's unambiguous public declaration by a leading UK Cabinet minister.
The first was the case of the Itar-Tass story at the end of
December which was eventually reported widely in January, that Downing Street
had expressed serious concerns about the “shockwaves” Scottish independence
would send through Europe. Apparently it never happened according to “No” and
was just a Russian story. Although I see some vague references to the
possibility of a denial I still seek an outright and attributed disavowal from No.
10. Can anyone assist? I can’t find it.
The second denied undeniable was on currency union and the
assertion that Philip Hammond’s, “You
can't go into any negotiation with things that are non-negotiable,” wasn’t
relevant. The Osborne-Alexander-Balls Pact was trotted out verbatim even though
I pointed out that Hammond and the other unnamed, but widely cited, cabinet minister had already supplanted
that argument. No, not relevant. Oh dear.
But never let the
facts get in the way of a good story, eh?
I shall be writing to the diplomat concerned for
clarification on the points raised as I think that we are all due clear answers
if a serving staffer of the FCO tells us that we didn’t really see what we know
we saw…
