General Election 2015: After Cleggmania about St Nick, this time it is the cult of Sturgeonalia about St Nicola

The one way to make sure Scotland becomes independent would be for England to vote to leave the EU

This, “the most important election of our lifetime,” is about unusually important questions of nationhood (Getty)

One of the banned clichés of these few weeks, along with “the first social media election” and “the closest election in years”, is “the most important election of our lifetime”. Yet this election is about unusually important questions of nationhood. While last week’s manifestos were about details that are unlikely to change much, such as whether we pretend to build 200,000 houses a year or 300,000, the big questions really at stake are whether Scotland has another referendum on breaking up the United Kingdom and whether we all have a referendum on membership of the European Union.

Some people have been puzzled by the extent to which the campaign has been about Scotland. But this reflects the polls, which are pointing towards a hung parliament in which a Labour government would need the support of the Scottish National Party.

The Conservatives have tried to suggest that this would have consequences for Britain’s nuclear weapons. I don’t think that is likely because I think there would be a large majority in favour of maintaining the Trident system of continuous at-sea deterrence in the House of Commons after 7 May. Almost all the Conservatives and more than half of Labour MPs would support it. The SNP is opposed, the Lib Dems want to have an intermittent system on standby, and there have been signs that the Labour Party is shifting in an anti-nuclear direction.

Ed Miliband himself was categorical in the TV debate last week, but seemed to be reciting a form of words (“uncertain world” and all that) rather than to be speaking from the heart. As someone who doesn’t think that one-sided disarmament is in our national interest, this bothers me, but I don’t think it would happen.

Then the Tories suggest that an SNP influence on government would lead to English taxpayers’ money flooding north over Hadrian’s Wall to subsidise the profligate Scots and to try to buy back their votes. I am told that English focus groups become animated at the prospect of the SNP pressing for more money for Scotland. But I am not sure how much of a problem this really is, when the SNP argument is that Scotland would be better off on its own – an argument that has been burnt off by the drop in the oil price.

The more important reason for being unsettled by the prospect of a Labour government propped up by the SNP is that Nicola Sturgeon’s purpose is to achieve independence for Scotland. That is not something I want, which is why I am alarmed by the adulation of Sturgeon in this campaign. Last time we had Cleggmania about St Nick, this time it is the cult of Sturgeonalia about St Nicola.

I do not know exactly how the SNP in Westminster, led by Alex Salmond, would advance the cause of independence, but that is what it would be trying to do. I know enough about Salmond and Sturgeon to think that they might have some success. The only time I’ve seen Sturgeon look uncomfortable in this campaign was in the Scottish TV debates, when she was jeered by studio audiences when she equivocated on Salmond’s pledge that last year’s referendum would settle the question “for a generation”. The SNP plan is obviously to win a landslide in the Scottish Parliament elections next year and to argue that this gives it a mandate for a second referendum.

In the meantime, the SNP at Westminster would be doing whatever it could to further that objective. So when St Nicola tried to reassure us in last week's debate that she has England’s “progressive” interest at heart I was unreassured. Indeed there is an argument for people who care about the Union to vote tactically against Labour, unless they could be sure that it would win enough seats to form a government without SNP support. At the moment, the polls put Labour well below the 300 or so seats it would need. At the least, it might make sense for Labour supporters who care about the Union to vote Lib Dem in Labour-Lib Dem marginals.

The trouble is that there are risks to the Union in a Conservative-led government. Sturgeon says she didn’t tell the French ambassador that she would prefer David Cameron to carry on as prime minister, but she would only have been stating the obvious: that a Tory government at Westminster helps nationalism in Scotland.

And if Cameron were to be prime minister again, he would hold an EU referendum. There are good democratic arguments for that, and good pro-European arguments for thinking that it would be the best way to secure Britain’s membership of the EU. But the Scottish experience hardly suggests a referendum settles a question, and the one way to make sure Scotland becomes independent would be for England to vote to leave the EU.

I don’t think that would happen, but with the future of the UK at stake, and its membership of the EU, no one can say this election is about nothing.

Twitter.com/@JohnRentoul

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