Infrastructure has been a hot topic of late with another Labour reboot last week concentrating on economic growth through a series of initiatives, which truth be told are rather vague and uninspiring. I’m sure if you’re a Manchester United fan, the notion of the taxpayer digging into his pockets to help your club build an even bigger stadium is a winner, but beyond the Lazarus-like resurrection of the third runway at Heathrow, swagger and confidence are hardly oozing from Keir Starmer’s team.
The third runway has been talked about for some 20 years and has been supported and opposed by both Labour and the Conservatives over that time. Its future may yet be as certain as HS2.
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All political giants want a legacy – it’s the nature of the beast. Margaret Thatcher could point to the Falklands and Channel Tunnel, Tony Blair rather less enthusiastically to the Iraq War and Millennium Dome, Boris Johnson to Crossrail, and Alex Salmond of course has the Queensferry Crossing.
Somehow, I doubt whoever owns Man Utd in a few years’ will ever name a Keir Starmer stand and I can’t help but wonder if both Starmer and John Swinney aren’t missing a trick in not seeking to build a legacy which surpasses those of all who have preceded them.
A link between the Antrim Coast and Kintyre Peninsula has never really been seriously examined. Sure, it’s had some periodic token consideration over many years but the 13-mile crossing has been too readily dismissed as either too expensive or an impossible engineering feat – which typifies a defeatist attitude that you always find when things are on the slide. Pursuing the venture now would show true ambition and inspire real growth in nations that have long forgotten what the feel-good factor is like.
A land link between Scotland and Northern Ireland plays to both the Northern Ireland concerns about drifting further from the UK, whilst simultaneously cementing the importance of ease of access to European markets. It would show Scotland it is not an afterthought when it comes to major spending, and would allow an explosion of growth, economic activity and opportunity. Crucially it would demonstrate confidence that our nations were optimistic about their future and not merely resigned to doom, gloom, and managed decline.
The Greens would undoubtedly stamp their feet and bemoan the environmental damage the miles of requisite roadway would create – which would be credible if they acknowledged the millions of tonnes of rock quarried and peat excavated to build roads to install windmills. A Kintyre-Antrim Link would turbo charge the renewables revolution on the West Coast and provide a more realistic prospect of lowering energy bills than the fable that Great British Energy will.
The corresponding opportunity for a Scottish Government to further ride the wave of optimism with domestic infrastructure investment would never be greater. Last week The Herald’s superb features on the potential for railway expansion are as good a starting point as any. Few things drive national confidence and pride more than a sense that things are on the up. Any aspiring independent nation’s belief in itself would be irresistible to investors, and arguments for or against independence would stand or fall on Scotland’s confidence in itself and not simply how limiting things were constrained by Westminster.
The linking of two countries with rich language, music and history would drive confidence and growth in the use of Gaelic, bringing even more economic, as well as social benefits. The obvious boost in being able to easily travel from the Gaidhealtachd to the Gaeltacht would stop Scotland and Ireland competing for lucrative overseas tourists as easy travel between the two nations would be an added attraction to those eager to discover their Celtic roots and spend their hard-earned dollars here. Add to the mix the attractions of whisk(e)y, golf, wild rugged beauty, wildlife, a brimming confidence in our collective natural produce and its nigh on impossible to see any down sides.
Grown-up politics would be seeing the UK and Irish governments, as well as the Northern Ireland Assembly and Scottish Government locked in rooms examining how to make such a link happen as every one of them has skin in this particular game. And alas I fear this is where my optimism for opportunity meets the reality of the politics of obstinance and mediocrity.
For as much as there would be enormous advantage for the UK as a whole, any UK government would fear the boost such a venture would give the independence movement, and the surge of Nigel Farage’s Reform project would no doubt throw up further Brexit-related bogeymen – such is the gift that keeps on giving.
But whether you see yourself as Scottish, British, European, or any combination of the three we can surely all agree it’s in our collective best interests to give every opportunity to our countries to thrive. Linking two countries who have so much in common would do more to cement that than any new football stadium ever will. It would help restore a sense of national pride – something we are desperately in need of – and even better there is the money to do it. Love them or loathe them the free ports proposals are swimming in money – so let’s see one that straddles the North Channel and benefits us all.
Calum Steele is a former General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, and former general secretary of the International Council of Police Representative Associations. He remains an advisor to both.
