BEFORE we get into the nitty-gritty this week, I’d like to go back to April 2002 for a minute. Tony Benn, socialist stalwart and former Labour minister, is appearing at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. He’s waiting to go on stage and is surrounded by pipe smoke and acolytes. He’s giving his views on the world to me and some others. I don’t remember all of the details now, but I do remember him criticising the banks, and the euro, and the political scene in general. I also remember him stabbing the air in front of us with his pipe and asking an important question: why is modern politics all about personalities and not policies?
Seventeen years on, you might say that Tony Benn’s question is even more relevant now than it was then, but even at the time I remember wondering whether he’d got that point about personalities quite right. Here he was in Glasgow railing against the personalisation of policies, and yet hundreds of people had turned up to see him. Clearly, for the audience at the Citz at least, politics was about personalities and, let’s face it, that’s the way it is: people are drawn to, or repulsed by, people and it’s people that build political movements.
I think this basic reality – that personalities have always mattered in politics – was borne out again by the 2014 and 2016 referendums, both of which were dominated by big alpha males, and it’s a reality that’s been on my mind in the last few days as we’ve been chewing over the arrest of Alex Salmond. The former first minister appeared in court on Thursday to face charges of attempted rape and sexual assault, which he denies, and, as the news sunk in, a narrative emerged in some circles that the arrest was bad for the SNP, for Nicola Sturgeon and for the cause of independence in general.
But is it really, because that’s not what some at the top of the SNP are saying in private. According to their take on the situation, Salmond’s arrest is potentially good for Sturgeon and her party, firstly, because the rules on live court cases mean the first minister can legitimately refuse to talk about the case, and secondly because a personality cult requires a personality and there’s a chance that the huge one that’s been such a pain in the backside for Sturgeon in the last few years will be taken out of the equation.
The first point, about live court cases, is undeniable and is already having an effect. On Sunday, the first minister appeared on The Andrew Marr Show and in any normal situation she would have expected question after question on the crisis of the moment. Instead, in her first reply, Sturgeon said there was nothing appropriate for her to say and that she would not comment.
Read More: Nicola Sturgeon: Alex Salmond charges will not damage case for independence
The first minister’s response was perfectly proper – indeed, she has no choice in the matter – but it does also allow the SNP to take a vow of silence in circumstances where we’d normally demand explanations, as does the inquiry into the meetings Sturgeon held with Salmond. The calculation is that this will help damp down the furore and, for a bit, and for now, it may do.
The second point, about neutralising the cult of Alex Salmond, is much less certain because if personalities matter, then we have to take into account the personality we’re dealing with here and it isn’t about to fade away. Indeed, in the days after Salmond’s court appearance, the channel that broadcasts his chat show, RT, confirmed in a statement that the accusations had not changed anything and the programme would be continuing as normal.
“This matter,” said the statement, “does not concern anything related to the Alex Salmond Show or RT, and The Alex Salmond Show will continue on-air, as usual, at this time.” What are the chances the statement was prepared without consulting Salmond?
I think we can take this determination to carry on as a pretty strong indication of how things may go from here – it may also undermine those hopes by some in the SNP that the court case will neutralise, or at least dampen down, the cult of Salmond. Salmond is irredeemably associated with the party and independence and no one can wish that away. Take a look too at social media and you’ll see that many of his supporters have gone into full conspiracy-theory mode. It’s another demonstration, if you need one, of the power that personality can have in politics.
However, the good news is that there are limits on the power too. Alex Salmond undoubtedly converted many to independence in 2014 by the force of his will and personality but I also think Nicola Sturgeon was right when she said on Sunday that the case for independence is bigger than one man (although anyone who says that a trial later this year or even next year does not further reduce the likelihood of a referendum before 2021 is in serious denial).
There’s also another limit on the influence of Salmond’s personality which is even more important. For a start, personality works both ways and there are just as many who dislike Salmond as like him.
But there’s also the question of what will influence voters who might be converted from No to Yes. In an interview with my colleague Neil Mackay at the weekend, John Kerr, the diplomat who wrote Article 50, said he believed that if Scotland left the UK, the economic disruption would be even greater than the disruption of the UK leaving the EU. “Economists say the effect of leaving the single market of the UK, in terms of the damage to the Scottish economy,” he said, “would be five times as great as the damage to the UK of leaving the EU.”
In the end, I think it’s that kind of issue, rather than the force of any of the personalities involved, that is going to be critical in any future debate about independence. To that extent, in exposing the risks of leaving an economic union, Brexit may have made Scottish independence less likely. I also have some good news for anyone who agrees with Tony Benn’s warning about the personalisation of politics: perhaps policies matter more than personalities after all.
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