Why no "Plan B"?

[ggreig]

As a supporter of Scottish independence, even I sometimes get frustrated that the SNP don't explicitly say what their "Plan B" is (implicitly it's always seemed fairly clear - a currency union isn't the only way of keeping the pound).

Whatever you may think of Alex Salmond, he's not daft, so there had to be a reason for him consistently failing to give the clarification that obviously many people want. I would have guessed that it was something to do with maintaining the strength of his negotiation position after a "Yes". That wasn't a million miles off, but it wasn't wholly right. Here's Alex Salmond giving the clearest explanation I've seen of why the SNP are taking the position they are:

Comments

[andrewducker]

It strikes me that the main reason for not saying "Well, if they absolutely refuse, then we'll do X." is that then all of the discussion becomes "Well, I don't like X, let's talk about that in detail."

And as they have no intention of X, all it does is muddy the waters and open the door to other negative campaigning.

[ggreig]

That was pretty much my thought, but I think the case given in the video is a bit more than that - it's not just that it opens the door to negative campaigning (Edited to add: and hard-ball negotiating, which was what I was thinking about when I first wrote), but that it could damage the perception of commitment to a currency union, and in turn reduce the actual likelihood of agreement in a tough negotiation if that commitment's in doubt.

We may not be able to call it pre-negotiation exactly, since there's no talking, but it does seem to be a stance taken with successful negotiation very much in mind, at some risk to making the public, political case that'll establish the need for negotiation.

It must be quite a difficult stance for a politician to take, despite that political argument about the muddied waters in its favour too, and I'm glad that sort of thinking is going on. I think they should make more of a public case of that argument than they have, though.