Round Up

A week, a British Prime Minister once famously said, is a long time in politics.

And it’s been an extraordinary five days in British politics as the strong possibility of a Scottish vote for independence this Thursday sank home at last on an rUK public. Political leaders stopped what they were doing and rushed toScotland …….promises were made……rabbits were pulled out of the hat - little of it convincing

The Guardian blog has been giving an excellent running commentary on events for weeks – and this is their latest

Those wanting a more measured “take” on the battle should read the current issue of London Review of Books which has 15 short contributions from eminent UK writers. And also this explanation of what the media mean by the confusing term DevoMax which has resurfaced.

One thing is clear – David Cameron is in the firing line. It was he who rejected what most Scots actually want – greater devolved powers for the Scottish Parliament; it was he who rejected the option of having that as a third question on the ballot paper. If the vote is “No” he will be expected to deliver on the vague promises which have come from his camp in response to the latest polls – and whilst devolved powers to English regions may be of interest to the chattering classes there, it is not, at the moment, a vote winner. 

But resentment is building in England at the idea of concessions to Scotland. In any event, any concessions would be for the wrong reason. It’s not cash the Scots want – its freedom from neo-liberal greed. Unfortunately a “Yes” vote, ironically, would not achieve that. It’s not gone unnoticed that Rupert Murdoch supports both independence (he was tweetering about this copiously from Scottish pubs) and the Scottish leader – and that both support lower taxes for business. 
Nb Update; George Monbiot makes the point that -

For a moment, Rupert Murdoch appeared ready to offer one of his Faustian bargains to the Scottish National party: my papers for your soul. That offer now seems to have been withdrawn, as he has decided that Salmond’s SNP is “not talking about independence, but more welfarism, expensive greenery, etc and passing sovereignty to Brussels” and that it“must change course to prosper if he wins”. It’s not an observation, it’s a warning: if you win independence and pursue this agenda, my newspapers will destroy you.

I’ve tried to keep a neutral tone in the posts I’ve been making in the last month or so. After all I don’t have a vote – and last lived in the country 24 years ago. But I am a Scot – and a passionate one. But never a nationalist – nor, as I’ve tried to explain here, are my countrymen.

Most people consider that those favouring independence have the better arguments – but I have not been convinced by that. I’ve been looking at two (small) books from the left corner supporting the Yes case (which I referred to in my Sept 4 post) - Jim Sillars’ In Place of Fear II – a socialist programme for an independent Scotland and Yes – the radical case for Scottish Independence and find them very inadequate. 
Articles such as this and this are much more persuasive.

And I’m finding an intolerance in the mood which seems to have swung behind the Yes movement which reminds me of some of the reading I did on my Politics course in the early 60s at Glasgow University – particularly Canetti’s Crowds and Power (1960)

As a politician myself from 1968-1990, I was never comfortable with the emotions politics could arouse – and I sense a dangerous element in the present mood in Scotland. Coincidentally I found myself last week reading Sebastian Haffner’s amazing Defying Hitler which is an eye-witness account of a young man’s day-by-day experience of the Nazi takeover in 1933. Apparently written in the late 1930s, it was published only in 2000 after the famous journalist’s death.

Extensive excerpts can be found on this website and I strongly urge people to read them.

Exit, Voice and Loyalty

A couple of more philosophical items caught my feverish eye yesterday morning – the first an elegant article in American Scholar about the “instant gratification” which, with “customisation”, has become an even more integral part of our culture than it was when Christopher Lasch first tore it apart in his 1978 The Culture of Narcissism.

I’ve excerpted a significant part of the article later in the post to whet your appetite.

The second item was a contribution by the President of the “European University Institute” to the question of how easily an independent Scotland could negotiate its way back into the European Union 

His piece certainly adds a missing dimension to the discussion -

I watched the televised debates. Most of the sparring was utilitarian: Will we better off, especially economically. More employment, yes or no. Better social network, yes or no et cetera et cetera. So this is what will ultimately decide things.This runs diametrically contrary to the historical ethos of European integration. The commanding moral authority of the Founding Fathers of European integration – Schumann, Adenauer, de Gaspari and Jean Monnet himself – was a result of their rootedness in the Christian ethic of forgiveness coupled with an enlightened political wisdom which understood that it is better to look forward to a future of reconciliation and integration rather than wallow in past historical rights and identity.

There were, of course, utilitarian considerations, but they were not at the normative core.
The European Union is struggling today with a decisional structure which is already overloaded with 28 Member States but more importantly with a socio-political reality which makes it difficult to persuade a Dutch or a Finn or a German, that they have a human and economic stake in the welfare of a Greek or a Portuguese, or a Spaniard. Why would there be an interest to take into the Union a polity such as an independent Scotland predicated on a regressive and outmoded nationalist ethos which apparently cannot stomach the discipline of a multinational nation? The very demand for independence from the UK, an independence from the need to work out political, social, cultural and economic differences within the UK, independence from the need to work through and transcend whatever gripes there might be, disqualifies morally and politically Scotland and the likes as future Member States of the European Union.

 Do we really need yet another Member State whose decisional criterion for Europe’s fateful decisions in the future would be “what’s in it for us”?Europe should not seem as a Nirvana for that form of irredentist Euro-tribalism which contradicts the deep values and needs of the Union. Thus, the assumption of Membership in the Union should be decisively squelched by the countries from whom secession is threatened and if their leaders, for internal political reasons lack the courage so to say, by other Member States of the Union.

 So there! You're tell't!!

The American Scholar article is focusing on bigger fish - in North American culture – but resonated with me as I wrestle with the prospect of my country casting aside its link with the rest of the UK  

In everything from relationships to politics to business, the emerging norms and expectations of our self-centred culture are making it steadily harder to behave in thoughtful, civic, social ways. We struggle to make lasting commitments. We’re uncomfortable with people or ideas that don’t relate directly and immediately to us. Empathy weakens, and with it, our confidence in the idea, essential to a working democracy, that we have anything in common.

Our unease isn’t new, exactly. In the 1970s, social critics such as Daniel Bell, Christopher Lasch, and Tom Wolfe warned that our growing self-absorption was starving the idealism and aspirations of the postwar era. The “logic of individualism,” argued Lasch in his 1978 polemic, The Culture of Narcissism, had transformed everyday life into a brutal social competition for affirmation that was sapping our days of meaning and joy. Yet even these pessimists had no idea how self-centred mainstream culture would become. Nor could they have imagined the degree to which the selfish reflexes of the individual would become the template for an entire society. Under the escalating drive for quick, efficient “returns,” our whole socioeconomic system is adopting an almost childlike impulsiveness, wholly obsessed with short-term gain and narrow self-interest and increasingly oblivious to long-term consequences……….

AO Hirschman, one of my favourite social scientists, wrote, in 1970, a famous book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty which came to my mind as I mused about all this. “Exit” means that individuals abandon a firm, brand, organization, or association when they are no longer satisfied and see no chance for improvement. “Voice,” by contrast, suggests that they seek improvement and want to make their preferences heard and see their choices respected. “Loyalty” characterizes one’s commitment to associations such as the family, the nation, the ethnic group, or religious congregation that are based on formative and deeply held values.

Hardly surprising that this is a book which has cropped up from time to time in the recent Scottish discussions eg Gerry Hassan in December 2012

Voice and power are central to any practice of self-determination. Hirschman argued that the right championed ‘exit’ (market solutions) and the left ‘loyalty’ (solidarity), and both prioritised these above ‘voice’. In this, voice means the collective self-organisation of people, something fundamentally missing from the public life of Scotland, for all the talk of ‘civic Scotland’ and ‘the new politics’.

Voice relates to who has power, its use, expression and dynamics, and the reality that in our society not only is it increasingly concentrated in a few economic, social and political elites, but that any countervailing forces are much weaker and more disparate in their influence. A Scottish self-determination movement would understand the importance of voice and power, and aim to aid a shift in how these are articulated and understood, supporting existing ideas and initiatives which encourage a move away from powerlessness and dependency to autonomy and empowerment at an individual and collective level. 

The ideology of ‘civic Scotland’ (that subset of civil society) believes that Scotland’s supposed social democracy is enough; that our problems and challenges are external – in the British state and market fundamentalism.Not all of them are: our complacencies and silences are just as much a problem.

Our nation and society is bitterly divided, with hundreds of thousands of Scots adults and children living in poverty and hardship. The cosseted life of Scotland’s super-rich and the widespread fawning in public life and media after plutocrats and global tycoons such as Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, isn’t a product of external forces, but the ‘free’ choice of our politicians, public bodies and business community.

This won’t be ended by the demise of the union. Instead, Scotland needs a new collective mission and purpose which mobilises our resources to tackle and heal the divided, fragmented society we have become. That is one of the first priorities in creating and acting upon a culture of self-determination.

 That led me, in turn, to three other references which should be included in the final bibliography I’ll add to my Separating – home thoughts from abroad 

 - an article on Who Rules Scotland? by David Miller, a chapter in a 2010 book -

Neoliberal Scotland; Class and Society in a Stateless Nation edited by Davidson, N., McCafferty, P. and Miller D

- A 2005 book Scotland 2020 

- a paper on “Voice in public sector reform” 

But let’s return to the instant gratification culture -

Day by day, there seem to be fewer reasons to follow the rules or think beyond oneself or the present moment. Not so long ago, we told our children that success required sustained effort, a willingness to delay gratification, and the capacity to control impulses.

Children today, however, see their patient, hard-working parents and grandparents tossed aside like old furniture—while investment bankers and reality TV stars seem to easily make huge amounts of money. Little wonder that cheating is now endemic in high school and college. …….Community and family are undermined by our consumer culture of individual gratification.

Worse, our political system, the traditional arbiter between public and private interests, has been colonized by the same bottom-line impulse. Political parties boil their philosophies down into extreme brands designed to provoke target audiences and score quick wins. Voters are encouraged to see politics as another venue for personalized consumption.

We’ve lost the idea that politics is the means to build consensus and an opportunity to participate in something larger than ourselves….. We know the result: a national political culture more divided and dysfunctional than any in living memory. All but gone are centrist statesmen capable of bipartisan compromise.
A democracy once capable of ambitious, historic ventures can barely keep government open and seems powerless to deal with challenges like debt reduction or immigration

The people of Scotland, at one level, seem to have had enough……they have tried “loyalty” (particularly to the Labour Party); and “voice” (since the discovery of oil gave the nationalists their first political breakthrough in the 1960s. Some started to exit from the Labour Party during the New Labour period – then in droves after the 2010 General Election.

But the “exit” from the UK started only months ago……when it seems that thousands of loyal “undecided” cast off that loyalty……..

There is still a lot of residual loyalty left – but the political wankers who descended yesterday on Scotland are not likely to re-ignite the passion….. 

A superb biography on Hirschman was recently published - WorldlyPhilosopher – the odyssey of Albert O Hirschman – and is sitting accusingly on my bookshelves. I’m 100 pages into it but have been distracted, It is a real intellectual biography which supplements other pieces such as this and this

Checking the Scenarios

I wanted to check out my feeling that even serious contributors to the discussion about Scottish Independence haven’t given us alternative scenarios in their various assessments. 

A quick flick through the indexes of the relevant books in my growing library on the subject gave me nothing. My google search took me into deeper territory than I have ever ventured – after 26 pages of search listings, the relevant links seemed to peter out. 

For the record, this is what they gave -

- A brief list of four possible financial scenarios

- a paper on future scenarios for Scotland from the Scotland Future Forum written, unfortunately, in 2012 before the referendum was called and consisting of typical blue-skies stuff with, astonishingly, not a single reference to the possibility of independence!

- a short note from Moody’s dismissing the risks of independence for UK ratings

- a brief article in Huffington Post about a Wikistrat analysis of 4 scenarios if Scotland leaves the UK

- a 2012 doomsday prediction from an historian I’ve never heard of

- A simple twin scenario sketched very briefly a couple of days ago in a radical blog 

My initial hypothesis seems, therefore, to be confirmed.

There was some apparently weightier material - 

- a small book on Scenario Thinking 2020 produced by the St Andrew’s University Press (in 2005) gives some useful references on how to develop scenarios but then goes on to build a set only for this old, famous and very selective University on the East of Scotland

- A very careful (if narrow) 86-page assessment of The potential implications of independence for businesses in Scotland produced by Oxford Economics consultancy for the important Weir Group in Scotland

- The 200-page Fiscal Commission Report (the Scottish Government 2013) which I referred to recently

- a short 2012 paper on Scottish Independence and EU Accession by Business and New Europe

Nothing, however, to give a foretaste of what is likely to happen when the shit really hits the fan at the end of next week. 

A couple of posts today begin to give a sense of this – first from Paul Krugman to whom I don’t normally give the time of day; then from (for me) a new and intriguingly entitled blog - Flip Chart Fairy Tales 

The Last Golden Summer?

In late March, I bemoaned the absence in the discussions of the past 2 years during the Scottish referendum of any “serious attempt to develop different political, economic and social scenarios for Scotland which might arise from a yes vote after 18 September.

Of course there have been many calculations about the economic impact and assessments of the social even psychological effects of independence - but I haven’t actually seen any attempt to sketch out possible scenarios of the future knock-on effects.

The point about futures is that they surprise! It is one thing to have an opinion about the inherent righteousness of a future move. Quite another to assess its likely consequences.

This great tongue-in-cheek piece which Martin Kettle produced has only now come to my attention -

Looking back from 2024 at that last golden summer of the old Britain, it all still seems hard to believe. How did the country’s rulers not see what was about to happen? How did such an articulate and sensible people as the British let such a thing creep up on them?And then one remembers how easy it is for nations to stumble into the unforeseen. By rich irony, many in Britain were unusually conscious of such dangers in 2014. The centenary of the first world war, when a supremely confident imperial Britain collapsed into war in another golden summer, was on many minds. Appropriately, one of 2014’s bestselling books about 1914 was entitled The Sleepwalkers. Yet few realised, even when the Queen travelled to Glasgow to lead the post-imperial nation in remembrance on 4 August, that history was about to repeat itself.

There were signs, for those who paid attention, though too few did. No one disputed the vote-winning skills of the nationalist leader, Alex Salmond, reinforced in a televised debate the day after the Glasgow service. Passion for independence among writers and artists helped fan the mood that the time had come. The Glasgow Commonwealth Games in late July made Scots feel good. And the opinion polls, which had seemed to stabilise after a move towards yes in the spring, began to narrow again as the 18 September vote neared. 

Nevertheless, the announcement of the referendum result at the Royal Highland Centre in the small hours of Friday 19 September was a political earthquake. As dawn rose over Edinburgh a few miles to the east, Mary Pitcaithly stood in front of the cameras (her rostrum is now in the Alex Salmond Museum in Linlithgow) and announced that 1.707 million Scots had voted for independence and 1.603 against. After 307 years, the United Kingdom was no more. By a 52%-to-48% majority, Scotland was an independent country. 

The result stunned a London that had consistently ignored events in Scotland ever since devolution in 1999. While Salmond stood against a Forth Bridge backdrop to announce “Scotland is a free nation once again”, and total strangers embraced in Princes Street, the UK prime minister, David Cameron, emerged from 10 Downing Street to say it was a profoundly serious day for Britain, but the result must be respected. In London the Labour leader Ed Miliband phoned Cameron and demanded the emergency recall of parliament. Cameron agreed, adding that the autumn party conferences should be abandoned in favour of one-day rallies to be addressed by the party leaders. Cameron then rang the Queen, who was at Balmoral, and advised her to return to London. Not amused, the Queen said no. An hour later Gerry Adams gave a press conference in Dublin to call for a referendum in Northern Ireland on unification with the Irish Republic, to take place at Easter 2016. The Northern Ireland government began to totter. Cameron rang Balmoral again, and this time the Queen agreed to return. 

Fearful of a leak that would hand a propaganda coup to Salmond before 18 September, Whitehall had done no formal contingency planning for the negotiations that now began, though the cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood, had made some back-of-an-envelope notes. Once a venue was agreed – the meetings were held in York and may have triggered the rise of the Yorkshire Independence party, which won the 2016 Doncaster North byelection that followed Miliband’s appointment as director of the London School of Economics – the talks were soon bogged down. Salmond’s timetable, which optimistically foresaw completion and full sovereignty by March 2016, was soon binned. Partly this was because the talks, led by Nicola Sturgeon for Scotland and William Hague for the remaining UK, trod water as the May 2015 UK general election approached.

Further delays were caused by the failed coalition negotiations between Labour and the Liberal Democrats that followed the election of a second hung parliament.But the main reason for delay was the increasingly uncompromising attitude of the new Cameron minority government, which was permanently under pressure from the Tory grassroots following the “Don’t give the bastards a bawbee” by the new Ukip leader Boris Johnson in May. The second was the dawning that no formal handover could take place until both parliaments had processed the 400-page Scottish independence bill which finally emerged from the York negotiations in March 2016 – the month in which Northern Ireland voted narrowly to join the republic, thus reigniting the Ulster civil war. 

By the Scottish elections of May 2016 Salmond’s star had lost its sheen. Opponents of the York agreement abandoned the SNP over Salmond and Sturgeon’s compromises on Trident and the currency. The Real SNP took enough votes from the nationalists to bring a Labour-led government back to power at Holyrood headed by Jim Murphy, one of Scotland’s Labour MPs who had not decamped to an English constituency after 2014. Salmond duly stepped down.With the Scottish bill increasingly bogged down in the Commons, Cameron accelerated the promised referendum on EU membership. But the hurt caused by the 2014 vote and increasing media bitterness in England towards Scotland had an unexpected flipside. Insecurity about the future meant that voters took fright at the prospect of a broken UK going it alone.

The referendum was a triumph for the Better Together campaign, which won the vote to stay in the EU by the same two-to-one margin as in the 1975 referendum.But it was a pyrrhic victory for Cameron. When his party split over the result, the prime minister resigned and Labour’s Douglas Alexander, now MP for Holborn, took office at the head of an all-party government comprising Labour’s pro-Europe majority and a rump of pro-Cameron Tories.

The upshot for Scotland was that weak Labour governments in Holyrood and Westminster, both led by unionist Scots, were left to push through an independence package that neither agreed with, and from which support had ebbed in Scotland.Looking back at 2014 10 years afterwards, it all seems a terrible waste of energy and time. This spring, as the collapse of the pound finally forced the Alexander government to begin negotiations to join the eurozone – with the Murphy government meanwhile urging the UK to keep the pound – the new European commission president, Nick Clegg, was caught on a microphone warning: “Be careful what you wish for in politics.” It is hard not to agree.

Now, that’s what I call imaginative reporting!

Separating - the book

It’s not every day that one’s home country decides to separate from the larger state which has been a crucial part of its identity for 300 years – so my readers (particularly in the US and Ukraine let alone in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania) will understand why I have chosen to focus my posts of the past week on what appears to be this imminent event.

One of the problems with a blog is that you are reading backwards – from the last post to the oldest. And you do lose what narrative there might be. So I’ve decided to collate them – unedited – starting with the oldest……
All I've added is a Preface and a final section for hose of you who want a reading list.

I’ve called the little book - Separating – home thoughts from abroad

It is simply a record of the reverbations of the debate which has reached someone who loves Scotland but who has been absent for 24 years.At the best of times, we hear what we want to hear; and, in my case, I am hearing the debate via the internet….with echoes from the memory chamber of the 1970s and 1980s.

Collating the posts I thought might be useful as a historical record –

- to give a sense of how a Scot expat had responded to the (growing) prospect of separation

- to list the readings which I had found helpful as I struggled both for myself and for my foreign readers to identify (and comment on) the key issues

- to link all this to the experience I have had since 1968 of leading and managing people involved in systems of government

In Praise of Doubt

Expect productivity in Scottish industry and commerce to decline dramatically in the next 10 days as those living and working in the country renew their arguments (in some cases with themselves!) about the precise nature of the “independent country” to which the ballot paper entices them on September 18^th. The arguments – after the latest poll – are now for real.

In March I sensed we were drifting apart 

As an ex-pat who has no vote (no residence) but who follows the various discussion threads, I am amazed at the self-confidence of all who take part. Where is the agnosticism and scepticism which such a portentous issue requires…..??Donald Rumsfeld is not normally someone I would quote, but his comment about “unknown unknowns” deserves respect and understanding.  In all the discussion, I have seen no serious attempt to try to set out the different political, fiscal and social scenarios for Scotland - let alone for England. Wales and Northern Ireland - which would follow from a “yes” outcome on 18 September.

It is obvious that a highly- developed country of 5 million people could operate as a nation state – there are about 40 members of the United Nations and a quarter of EU member states with smaller populations.The real questions are more on the following lines -·         How independence would affect the dynamics of trade, currency and investment (public and private) in Scotland - and in the residual (disunited) Kingdom
·         With different scenarios for relations with Europe and the Euro
·         What precise additional benefits will independence give - which the traditional and post 1999 measures of Devolution don’t
·         How these benefits measure against the risks suggested in the first two sets of questions….
·         And the distractions which negotiations (and the subsequent settlements with international organisations) will bring to those in charge of negotiations on the Scottish side  

 Outsiders with no obvious axe to grind have reduced all the academic analysis and political rhetoric to the following -

Where the nationalists are still on very boggy ground is convincingly describing what would happen the morning after Scotland woke up to find itself independent. The two sides have now shelled each other with so many rival claims about oil revenues, currency and borrowing that they have numbed each other and probably the electorate as well.

What should be telling is that the only tax cut that Salmond has promised is one which will be of most benefit to large companies: an independent Scotland would set its corporation tax rate at 3p in the pound less than George Osborne. On his Glasgow walkabout, the SNP leader was stalked by no campaigners baiting him with placards bearing the slogan: "Tax cuts for the rich!"

Whatever he says about job creation, making a priority of handing more money to multinationals sounds like a funny way of laying the foundations of a more egalitarian country. The big hole in the nationalist prospectus is that it promises Scots that they can have Scandinavian standards of public services with American levels of tax. 

The other disingenuous element of their case is about sovereignty itself. An independent Scotland would obviously be free to make more choices about its future: gone would be the Trident nuclear subs. But many of its choices would still be constricted within parameters set by major external forces. Those forces would include London, a city with more people and money than the whole of Scotland put together.

If Scotland did somehow manage to retain the use of the pound, its interest rates would be set by a bank governor and a monetary policy committee appointed by a Westminster chancellor. If it was readmitted into the European Union – which, after some aggro, I expect it would be – an independent Scotland would have to negotiate many of its choices through Brussels.
The value of its oil and gas would be determined by decisions made in Riyadh, Tehran, Moscow and Beijing. The cost of its borrowing would be set by bond traders in New York and Frankfurt

And three weeks ago, one of Scotland’s most disputatious intellectuals (who favours independence) expressed things well with this piece on the power and absence of doubt in the nationalist case

I have never actually very sure about Gerry Hassan. His voice has been an engaging one in Scotland in the past decade and, at one stage, I thought he had something interesting to offer in the fight against neo-liberalism. But then I discovered that he was one of them! But his piece echoes some of my thoughts all of 6 months ago – and also reminds me of Brecht’s great poem – In Praise of Doubt which you can read as it is meant to be read in the link.....(the formatting is too complicated here)

Deafened by commends, examined For his fitness to fight by bearded doctors, inspected by resplendent creatures with golden insignia,admonished by solemn clerics who throw at him a book written by God Himself Instructed by impatient schoolmasters, stands the poor man and is told That the world is the best of worlds and that the hole In the roof of his hovel was planned by God in person Truly he finds it hard To doubt the world

There are the thoughtless who never doubt Their digestion is splendid, their judgement infallible They don’t believe in the facts, they believe only in themselves When it comes to the point The facts must go by the board. Their patience with themselves Is boundless. To arguments They listen with the ear of a police spy.
The thoughtless who never doubt Meet the thoughtful who never act They doubt, not in order to come to a decision but To avoid a decision. Their heads They use only for shaking. With anxious faces They warn the crews of sinking ships that water is dangerous....

You who are a leader of men,

do not forget

That you are that because you doubted other leaders

So allow the led

Their right to doubt

Clarity…..but Confusion

The reverbations resound loud and clear this Sunday morning the length and breadth of Britain – as people south of the border wake up to the realisation that, in little over a week, the Scots will have probably voted for independence.

The Yes or No choice on the ballot paper seemed clear – if you’re not with me, you’re against me. But things in real life are never that cut and dried – particularly in matters of national identity and statehood. As long as Yes seemed a simple protest option, what harm was there in going for it. Who indeed wouldn’t??

But some Scots will certainly this morning be reviewing the situation – and asking themselves what Yes actually means….

Earlier this year one of our constitutional lawyers gave us 11 reasons why a Yes vote left so much up in the air 

But in fact it was 13 months ago when the waters become really muddied – with Scotland’s First (ie Prime) Minister suggesting that we had six Unions only one of which would dramatically change in the event of a Yes vote.

This political union is only one of six unions that govern our lives today in Scotland – and the case for independence is fundamentally a democratic one."A vote for independence next year will address the democratic deficit which sees policies like the punitive Bedroom Tax, the renewal of Trident or Royal Mail privatisation imposed on Scotland against the wishes of Scotland’s democratically elected representatives."But that will still leave five other unions intact.  We will embrace those other unions while using the powers of independence to renew and improve them.

"We will remain members of the European Union – but with a seat of our own at the top table, and without the uncertainty of a referendum on membership, as proposed at Westminster.

"We will still be members of Nato – co-operating with our neighbours and friends in collective security. But we can still decide not to be a nuclear power – like 25 out of 28 current members of NATO.

"We will be part of a currency union with the rest of the UK – but we will finally have the full taxation powers we need to promote jobs and investment.

"And we will retain the monarchy – making the Queen the Head of State of 17 independent countries, rather than 16. However, we will adopt a new constitution, written and endorsed by the people, asserting rights as well as promoting liberties and enshrining the ancient Scottish principle that ultimate sovereignty rests with the people.

"The final union does not rely on the choices made by politicians and parliaments – the social union unites all the peoples of these islands. "People in England will still cheer Andy Murray, and people in Scotland will still support the Lions at rugby. People will still change jobs and move from Dundee to Dublin, or from Manchester to Glasgow. With independence, we will continue to share ties of language, culture, trade, family and friendship. The idea that these ties are dependent on a Parliament in London are and have always been totally nonsensical."

 Most Scottish political parties (except the Nationalists) now support Dev-Max – fiscal federalism. But these parties have lost all credibility with Scottish voters.

No Way Back

For the first time this morning, the polls show a majority of voters in Scotland voting for independence and has Westminster politicians in panic mode - now apparently poised to offer a Constitutional Convention. 

But it was an article in yesterday’s paper which expressed things most clearly for me

The debate has intoxicated Scotland. Feeling involved in something BIG has intoxicated Scotland. People have seen the opportunity to seize power. It has become worthwhile to take an interest in political issues, achieve an understanding of them, discuss your own understanding with others, start formulating your own ideas…… The saddest thing is that what most Scots want – what I want – isn’t even on the ballot paper. I don’t want the UK to break up. It’s a unique institution in which four individual countries operate in concert, as a single state, in comradeship. It’s a beautiful thing. Or it should be.

But the democratic deficit across the UK is highly problematic, and likely to become more so. Supposedly apathetic voters often say during general election campaigns that “however you vote, you always get the government”. It didn’t occur to Westminster that this referendum could be the exception – that this vote might shatter the status quo

 It was the British Prime Minister apparently who removed a third option (“DevoMax”) from the ballot paper and who created the stark choice Scottish voters have faced during this 2 year campaign. At the moment he did that, the polls showed – as they had consistently for years – that only one third of voters actively wanted independence……..a referendum was therefore conceded in full confidence that the independence option would be rejected……

But the question on the ballot paper asks simply whether people “agree that Scotland should be an independent country”. That was what we Scots call a “No brainer” – who in his right mind would vote for “dependence”?? And no one has ever denied that Scotland is a country or, indeed, nation. Everyone considers themselves “independent”   

Hardly surprising that, during a conversation which has lasted at least 2 years (more like 4 – since the last General Election), a slow shift in opinion has taken place. Indeed what is surprising is that it is only now that “Yes” voters seem to have reached the majority.

 

But – and it is a very big but….. the Leader of the Scottish National Party has made it clear he wants to leave only one of the six unions Scotland apparently belongs to. He has been widely mocked for actually not wanting independence at all – but for wanting something the papers have called “independence-lite”

Things are now going to get very confusing….…..if this strongly-touted, last-minute concession of a constitutional convention is announced, the distance between the British and Scottish Governments will become very small…It will be the “Yes “ voters who may well be left behind.
If Salmond, the Scottish Leader, had argued for a clearer break – no pound, no European Union, no “social union” (whatever that meant) – then things would have been very clear. But he has fudged the issue very cleverly – way back in 2011 he talked about “fiscal autonomy within the UK” as his preferred option – what others have called “Devo-Max”. But this was ruled out. It is not on the ballot paper – although it has been the consistent line of Salmond’s talk during this campaign when his line has been that there would be no difficulties in keeping the pound and membership of the European Union. Big questions were raised about this – but in a manner I commented in February which would not satisfy the voter

My inclination this past year has been to vote yes - like the vast majority of Scots, I simply feel the political class in London is a different ideological race. And the tactics these past few weeks of the Westminster (and Brussels) "so-genannten" leaders certainly make me feel a bit “stroppy”. The suggestions of cretins such as the EC President (Barroso) and the UK Finance Minister that there could be no currency link between England and an independent Scotland ; or easy negotiation to EU membership  is pure shock tactics…..and so counterproductive.
These idiots don’t know my countrymen – who will simply come off the fence – and vote yes. The only reason the “No” vote (which a few months ago was so strong) is collapsing is because the UK is now ruled by neo-liberal feudalists who, for Scots, are aliens at 2 removes. 

Yesterday’s Guardian article continued

Yet something strange, even sinister, has come to light during the referendum debate. It’s that pro-unionist politicians are the ones who seem least willing to change the union in order to preserve it. They scoff at the idea of a shared currency, of a single market, of a shared membership of the EU. They say that they won’t co-operate with any of that. They want only the union they’ve got, not the union they have the opportunity to create, one held together by what they have in common, yet one in which members are able to go their own way, if and when they wish to.These people cling to this clapped-out, 300-year-old union, even though it’s clear that reform is long overdue.

Weird anomalies abound. Embarrassing anomalies. Only in the UK and Iran do religious prelates automatically take a seat in the legislature, with the established church, the Church of England, by default in effect the church of the UK. 

As for the downright perverse situation, in which Scottish MPs have the right to take part in votes that shape the future of England but are irrelevant to their own constituents, under devolution, what’s the plan on this glaring example of democratic deficit – to let it drift for ever? Scotland has become impatient. It wants the UK to start taking democracy seriously. If it won’t, then Scotland is perfectly capable of doing that for itself, alone.

England’s electorate is starting to see that a referendum it doesn’t have a vote in could change England for ever. This, it is generally considered, is not very fair. But the unfairness doesn’t emanate from Scotland. It emanates from a Westminster that assumes the political passivity of the UK and everyone in it. David Cameron wasn’t too bothered about giving Scotland a vote on the future of the UK. It was easy to ignore the fact that the rest of the UK was being excluded, simply because he didn’t think it was going to come to anything.

Even if Scotland doesn’t vote yes, and merely comes close, it will still have called Westminster’s bluff. Many politicians ask sneeringly what Scotland would gain from the“independence lite” that Alex Salmond is suggesting – an independence that does not break up the UK. They miss the point for a simple, awful reason. They are unused to thinking too much about the electorate, other than at election time, so they cannot see that the revolutionary change would be in how people felt about government, how much greater a stake in government the individual would perceive herself as having.

Members of the establishment see voters as giving them a mandate. They are not interested in sharing the mandate with the people who have granted it. 

The Better Together campaign says: “Leave it to the big boys. It’s all too complicated for you lot to understand. Get on with your work. Look after your kids. We know best.” The Yes Scotland campaign says: “Think about how government impacts on your own life. Understand it. Reflect it back. Don’t be intimidated. Get involved. Get your workmates involved. Get your kids involved. We can work out what’s best together.”

One campaign says: “Be quiet.” The other campaign says: “Speak.” Is it any wonder that yes has gained converts, while no has not?Scotland got its referendum because it asked for it. Westminster’s been “asking for it” for a long time. It underestimated the Scots, and it underestimates the rest of the people of Britain too. Everyone in the UK can seize the initiative, as Scotland has. Start thinking about possibilities, instead of accepting stasis. Start seeking conversation, instead of putting up with pontification. Start talking. Start hoping.

 So far, so good. But the article’s final paragraph had me a bit confused……

Developed and sophisticated democracy can thrive in our four countries, replacing a tired old adversarial system, built for days gone by and resting on its withered laurels. Join Scotland, people of the UK, and liberate yourselves. For that, paradoxically, is the only thing that can keep us together.

 But that’s no longer on the table.