Scotland: David Cameron hopes to calm mood with early TV address after result
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Version 0 of 1. David Cameron is to make a televised address in Downing Street early on Friday morning, shortly after the results of the Scottish referendum are declared, to try to calm the political atmosphere, whatever the result. As Tory MPs say the referendum is on course to become one of the defining features of Cameron's premiership, No 10 is making detailed preparations for a carefully crafted response to the result. Downing Street declined to go into any details on Wednesday because officials did not want to distract from the operation to be launched on Thursday by the cross-party Better Together campaign to ensure supporters remember to vote. But aides know Cameron will have to perform a delicate job even if – as the final polls suggest – the pro-UK side prevails. In the event of a no vote the prime minister will need, senior Tories say, to be magnanimous towards Alex Salmond who may face by then be facing intense pressure from heartbroken yes supporters. Cameron will need to make clear that he will deliver on the cross-party pledge, delivered jointly with Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg during the final stages of the campaign, to deepen Scotland's devolution settlement. But one Tory MP warned on Wednesday that the package of reforms could awaken "dormant English nationalism" amid warnings of a backlash against the eleventh-hour offer to Scotland's voters. With opinion polls showing a narrow lead for the no side most Tory MPs are working on the assumption that the union – and the prime minister's job – will be saved. But if Scottish voters decide to leave the UK, Cameron will face a constitutional and personal crisis amid fears that sterling could be highly vulnerable in trading in the Far East in the early hours of Friday. "If it is a yes vote it will be political armageddon," one former minister said. The MP, who declined to be named at such a sensitive time on the eve of the referendum, added: "The prime minister will not survive a minute." Other MPs disputed this view and insisted that Cameron would be safe, if only to ensure stability during a crisis. It is widely expected the prime minister would have to recall parliament no later than Monday in the event of a yes vote. Cameron, an instinctive unionist from his earliest days in politics, knows the legacy of his premiership may be shaped over the next two days. A botched response to either result could destabilise his position on both sides of the border. If a yes vote is followed by bitter recriminations – and if Cameron fails to establish a rapport with Salmond in the hours after the result – the markets may conclude that the remainder of the UK and the Scottish government will struggle to negotiate an orderly break up. Senior Tories are warning that, in the event of a no victory in the referendum, the prime minister will face a difficult task in shepherding through the new powers for the Scottish parliament. Some of the reforms, such as the guarantee that the Holyrood parliament will be permanent, are unlikely to be contentious. But there is likely to be trouble on two fronts. Many Tories are making clear that the West Lothian question – the warning about the dangers of allowing Scottish MPs to vote on education and health in England while denying English MPs reciprocal votes in Scotland – will have to be addressed. Signs of the divisions going beyond the Tories were highlighted on Wednesday when Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the treasury, told Channel 4 News he could not see how Scottish MPs could be denied the right to vote on English matters at Westminster. Alexander's remarks directly contradicted an intervention by Clegg earlier in the day in his weekly LBC phone-in. Referring to the planned new powers for Holyrood, the deputy prime minister said: "Clearly when you have that degree of devolution, saying that, let's say a Scottish MP has precisely the same say over matters in England as an English MP doesn't make any sense." |