INDEPENDENCE IS A TECHNICAL ISSUE

The Scottish Government has published its White Paper (all 198 pages of it) on Scotland's constitutional future. It sets out the various choices the Scottish people could make about the country's future, with an obvious emphasis on desirability of independence.

The SG released a slick video to accompany the launch of the White Paper, which majored on how the contemporary debate fitted into the wider narrative of Scottish history. It was a case of "Bannockburn, the '45 and all that".

Which is a bit disappointing. I'm sure that there is a certain amount of emotional appeal and satisfaction in seeing the contemporary debate in the context of the sweep of Scotland's past and comparing the SNP's mission to the wars of independence all those years ago. But they are irrelevant to the current discussion.

Scotland's electorate has repeatedly demonstrated that it is sophisticated and it is unthinkable that a simple appeal to emotion and history would cause it to vote for a momentous change like independence. If the SNP wants to succeed then it must make a TECHNICAL case for independence not an emotional one. It needs to demonstrate how the government of an independent Scotland would be able better meet the expectations of Scotland's people in the main areas of domestic policy and address the strategic challenges Scotland will face in a globalised world.

The White Paper fails to make that case, which suggests a certain level of political maturity on the part of the SNP leadership. Independence will not (and should not) happen until that maturity is more evident.