Murray Ritchie: It's time for the Lib Dems to get radical

Make your party mean something again, Tavish, and don't play safe

ON THE golf course Tavish Scott cuts a dashing and dangerous opponent, as I have learned to my cost. Now that the young blade is leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats I hope he attacks his politics as he does the ball, by refusing to play safe. Well, at least he would get his party noticed.

He reminds reporters of my generation of the great Jo Grimond, who saved the Liberals from extinction. Like Tavish, Grimond was another handsome toff who represented Shetland and loved the place, its people, and exotic culture. Gentleman Jo was perhaps the greatest political orator of his time yet for all his talent and charm he went to his grave regretting that he never held office. He changed nothing. His obituarists all agreed he was the best politician never to become Prime Minister

And this is why I worry for Tavish. There he was last week, surrounded by saltires for his photocall, and the best he could come up with was a pledge to oppose Alex Salmond and defend the Union. He might as well have presented himself as head of a rebranded Scottish Liberal Democrat and Unionist Party.

I wonder how this goes down with the Lib Dem membership. They don't do Unionism as well as Labour and the Tories. I remember chairing a meeting enlivened by a spat between Margo MacDonald and Andy Myles, a senior Lib Dem. When Margo called him a Unionist he exploded. She responded quietly: "I'll stop calling you a Unionist when you stop calling me a separatist."

Lib Dem members hankering for some action might have been encouraged by Tavish's hint that he may support an independence referendum. I suppose this is progress of a sort for those of us who keep asking what the Lib Dems are for. Under Nicol Stephen they truly were the silly party. I mean, how many parties are offered power – Grimond's grail – and turn it down because they disagree with one, and only one, policy of the senior partner in a potential coalition? They might as well have campaigned under the theme: "Vote Lib Dem – we won't run the country."

Stephen, with his irrational resistance to a referendum and personal dislike of Salmond, condemned the Lib Dems to exile, despite all they have in common with the SNP, leaving them sulking on the backbenches to the general mystification of the membership who thought the policy to be madness (and who also overwhelmingly want a referendum).

A smarter leader would have driven a hard bargain with Salmond and continued to steal Lib Dem credit for coalition achievements. Just ask Jack McConnell how cute they were at that. The Lib Dems clipped McConnell's wings but have allowed Salmond to be a flyaway success.

Tavish must know better. He should listen to his party and remember its core policy is federalism. Because federalism in all its forms, including confederalism, is what Liberals do, except that you would not know it nowadays. There was no greater federalist than Grimond, the only Scottish MP who the SNP refused to challenge in 1974. There was a simple reason. In the words of one of Grimond's SNP admirers, Iain MacCormick, erstwhile MP for Argyll: "Jo Grimond is as good a Nationalist as any of us."

A generation on, here's a question for Tavish, who boasts he is "comfortable and confident in being part of a federal political party". Why do you lead a party dedicated to a federal or confederal European Union of independent states, but you won't countenance a federal or confederal UK of independent states? Is that not just a touch inconsistent?

I suspect most Scottish Liberals would opt for a confederal UK containing an independent Scotland. I don't know any who would prefer reheated devolution. Labour's Left and some in the party's mainstream, desperately wondering how to dodge the approaching train, are warming to the notion of independence if it comes within a reformed UK. Even some Tories see an advantage in a form of federalism/independence because the Union would be preserved, albeit in a different form, opening a way back for the centre right in Scotland.

Salmond has consigned the old pejoratives about "separatism" and "tearing Scotland out of the UK" to history. The argument has moved on. We are now at the point at which Salmond will push for a confederal UK for which there is, of course, a precedent which lasted for more than a century after the Union of the Crowns when Scotland and England were independent states sharing a monarch.

The First Minister wants his independent Scotland to retain the monarchy (meantime) and forge a new relationship with England. Happily for him this is not far removed from some Lib Dem thinking, although it still goes unspoken publicly by its leadership.

It just seems so obvious. And yet Scott presents himself in the tradition of Campbell, Ashdown, Steel, Kennedy and Wallace. All worthy fellows but with track records showing them to be default Unionists. See where it got them. Only Jim Wallace took office, and that was at the expense of Liberal federal policy. I worry for Tavish when I see him standing shoulder to shoulder with yesterday's men.

Stephen's surrender of Lib Dem influence has served Salmond well. I am sure he is most grateful. He has Labour near collapse and the Tories eating from his hand. For the moment he simply ignores the Lib Dems but he knows that within their ranks there are many who would rather settle for a new UK based on independence and confederalism than an endless future of Unionist whingeing on the backbenches.

So here's my gratuitous advice for the new Lib Dem leader. Make your party mean something again, Tavish, and don't play safe. Look where that's left Gordon Brown. Be true to yourself and be a real radical Liberal. Take the chance Grimond never had. Go for the green. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Kenny Farquharson will return next week.