Should an independent Scotland share military bases with England? Is the proposal from SNP Defence Spokesman Angus Robertson, a sensible and pragmatic offer or a naïve and unworldly piece of gesture politics.
Robertson says Scotland could “share bases, procurement and training facilities with the rest of the present UK… in exactly the same way as defence co-operation exists across the Scandinavian nations."
His political opponents have lined up to disagree.
Shadow Scottish Secretary David Mundell says, "Alex Salmond can't expect to break up Britain and have the rest of the UK dance to his tune."
A Labour spokesman describes the plan as "complete fantasy" because a British government would have no reason to invest in a post-independence Scotland. Even online nationalists are worried that sharing military resource will simply drag Scotland into “English war mongering” all over again. So far, so predictable.
But think north and east instead of south and a more radical and constructive alternative awaits – and not just regarding the vexed question of military planning. Beyond the endless argument about the relative merits of devolution, Calman, fiscal autonomy or independence; beyond the cross border insults about Trident, shipyard jobs and aircraft carriers; beyond the present arithmetic impossibility of a referendum vote at Holyrood, lies a path towards lasting social change. Scotland could apply to join the Nordic Council. Today.
The governments of Sweden, Norway, Finland Denmark and Iceland formed the Nordic Council after the Second World War to promote cooperation. There are no childish grudge matches, even though some members were unwillingly run by some of the rest -- in Iceland’s case as recently as 1944. Members also include smaller near-autonomous island groups like the Faroes, Greenland and Aland islands. As a result there’s been a common labour market for half a century and free movement across borders without passports. More than that, the Nordic Council has helped consolidate and develop a highly successful Nordic way of life across five separate sovereign nations. Why should Scotland seek to join?
Firstly, almost every policy proposal from the SNP is currently a straight lift from Nordic practice -- but sometimes an unwitting and highly selective one. Extracting policy success without also importing its social and political context may simply fuel frustration. The prisons reform policy of the Finns, for example, may be the right way forward for Scotland, but transplanted from the rational evidence-based society of Finland to the judgemental emotionalism of Scotland it may wither in the cauld blast of knee-jerk oppositionalism that passes for debate in our parliament and papers.
Scotland is moving naturally towards the same general policy of neutrality observed by all modern Scandinavians nations. Closer involvement with experienced neutrals could only help Scotland evolve a new defence strategy – fully aware of the benefits and pitfalls of shared and scaled-down defence arrangements.
Secondly, after a UK party conference season that has ended without the delivery of a big idea, Scots need more than a series of proposals. We need a new direction of travel that is not dependent on a single (and currently unlikely) piece of constitutional change. Immersion in the Scandinavian model could produce just such a new sense of overall purpose.
Thirdly, exposure to the rational Scandinavian decision-making style could help Scotland grow up. We urgently need to experience mature policy debate un-hampered by constant comparison with England, or the distorting prisms of sectarianism, sexism, and second best.
Nordic nations are already sharing facilities and control – Denmark and Sweden are creating a new cross-border super-region which may shift the very heart of Sweden from Stockholm to its pre-independence locus opposite Copenhagen, thanks to the new human dynamics created by the Oresund Bridge.
Finally, membership of the Nordic Council offers a way out of its current hubris for the SNP leadership. Scotland needs to learn. Every nation does. But the need to raise levels of self esteem in Scotland is producing a dangerously “wha’s like us” attitude that s verging on outright arrogance. Wha’s like us in size, natural resource base, northern latitude and chequered constitutional career are the members of the Nordic Council. Each has risen in a century from brutalising poverty to world beating success – experiencing prosperity through a common emphasis on equality, compromise, environmental protection and innovation. The only thing none of the Scandinavian nations has experienced is the tolerance of chronic poverty in the midst of wealth and the persistent existence of an unemployed underclass. Maybe our Nordic cousins can help Scots focus on the enormous social problem of inequality and the way this constantly re-infected wound harms the development of the whole Scottish nation – maybe they can’t. But if the Nordic Council isn’t the right nursery for a fledgling Scottish state, or a more fully self-governing devolved nation, I don't know what is. There is a problem though.
Scotland isn’t a country. This may or may not be an insuperable barrier. Veteran Scandophiles believe influential Swedes and Danes have been open to the notion that Scotland could seek to join. My own more recent Nordic travels and conversations suggest that the lofty attitude of SNP ministers could be endangering that prospect. Diplomats recount tales of cancelled events, lectures about Scottish independence preceding meetings and a baffling lack of awareness from leading members of an independence party that Scotland is not actually independent.
Nordic states do not regard Scotland as an equal because she is not. If the SNP can come to terms with this fact, we could all move beyond superficial debate about Arcs of Prosperity and Insolvency and cultivate new friends in Scandinavia as well as old ones in the American disapora. International diplomacy SNP-style is too often like being whacked in the face with a banjo. This must change.
Turn the map of northern Europe on its side, and you can see a new geography for Scotland. Routes that allowed Viking invasion a thousand years ago now lead to a new, challenging Nordic future -- if we have the courage and humility to ask to join.
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