I'm going to court controversy in this week's Wed-Head by (to some extent) showing my hand on the quintessentially contentious question of Scottish politics: independence. Since I'm not an ethnic Scot I elected to abstain in the 2014 referendum, on the grounds that Scots had had no say in the matter for three centuries - long before the universal franchise - so it wasn't really any of my business. However, that argument only applies once: I will certainly vote next time. Furthermore, next time will be very different because, apart from anything else, the Yes campaign will surely be armed with a currency policy that passes basic tests for sanity - about which implied judgement on 2014 you needn't take my word: Jim Sillar's withering verdict that Alex Salmond's then policy was "stupidity on stilts" would indeed have had me voting No if I'd somehow been forced or obliged to cast a ballot. I suspect that, for me, the deciding factor next time will be another fairly contentious issue, that of European Union membership. I also suspect that will be true of many, many other voters**. On that question I have somewhat mixed feelings, but on balance I think that Scotland had better not leave the UK without establishing the means by which it will rejoin the EU. In other words, at present I feel that independence from both would be too risky for a country of six million people and one land border to another non-member island nation. But I'm not very sure and, within the ranks of the Scottish nationalists, there is certainly no shortage of eurosceptics who will disagree with me about it. Happily for the others, though, I think it very likely that EU membership would more-or-less sail through. [[ **In 2012, The Economist (Jan 28th) reported that "opinion polls suggests [sic] most Scots will base their vote on whether they think independence will make Scotland richer or poorer." (source: <https://www.economist.com/britain/2012/01/28/more-than-just-words>); it's hardly much of a leap from that finding to the significance for a future referendum of the ongoing debate about the economic merits and demerits of Scottish EU membership a decade later. ]] My reason for believing this is that it was the view of the late Charles Kennedy MP, who of course did not support independence in 2014. But to his honour and credit he refused to exploit the issue to cast doubt on Scotland's ability to remain in the EU if the Yes campaign was successful. He was very clear that Scots enjoyed an abundance of goodwill in Europe, and that if an independent Scotland sought membership it would be granted. The situation today is admittedly rather different: the UK has left the EU and Scotland would have to re-apply 'cold' rather than 'hot'. Nevertheless, I do not think that would in the end make the difference between being re-admitted and being kept out. I'm now going to court even more controversy by saying that I think it is inconceivable that Scotland could re-join the EU without making a commitment ultimately to join the Euro, though. However, this does not necessarily make a nonsense of the present (ie new, relative to 2014) currency policy following independence, because Scotland would be able to point to the elastic Swedish commitment to do the same - to which no timescale is attached. A Scottish commitment-in-principle but (perhaps) not in practice would probably be good enough if whatever other obstacles that exist (eg Spanish reservations) were surmountable, which I think is overall fairly likely. The Swedish commitment to join the Euro, by the way, dates back to their 1994 accession treaty, but the Swedes rejected membership in a 2003 referendum and public opposition has almost never fallen below sixty percent in the last decade**. So don't hold your breath. [[ **source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_and_the_euro#Results>. ]] In his foreword to the consultation document concerning the precise wording of the independence referendum question in January 2012, (then) First Minister Alex Salmond wrote that "Scotland is not oppressed and we have no need to be liberated. Independence matters because we do not have the powers to reach our potential. We are limited in what we can do[...]**." I think that, if true, this "reach our potential" argument is about the strongest out there to be made in favour of independence. (Hence, I'm very sure unionists will need to make a much stronger counter-argument next time than they did in 2014 if they are to prevail; interestingly, our very own Ms Kate Forbes MSP said something quite similar to the BBC's Nick Robinson earlier this year in his Political Thinking podcast of 21st May - a fully recommended use of thirty-six minutes of your time, when you can spare it, at <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09j7xy1>.) [[ **source: <https://consult.gov.scot/old/elections-and-constitutional-development-division/scotreferendum/supporting_documents/00386122.pdf>. ]] Loyal readers will be aware of my promise to explain today "exactly why" I chose to guest-post Craig Smith's overview of the Scottish Enlightenment two weeks ago. I hope the light is dawning now. It was certainly not to be able to say or imply anything along the lines of "Hey, look how great Scotland became in the century-and-a-half following the Act of Union, therefore independence is a terrible idea." That is not a valid argument - far from it. What was (arguably) right for Scotland in 1707 might very well be totally wrong for her today, and that is the case Alex Salmond was making in 2012. He is surely right that Scotland is not reaching her potential, and I posted Dr Smith's essay to evidence how very great that potential was and is. I do not believe anything very fundamental has changed in that respect; the question is: are we "better together" - or not? A couple of years later, near the end of a speech in London on 4th March 2014, Mr Salmond recalled another address (from the year of my birth, as it happens) when he said that "One of the finest Scottish political speeches of my lifetime was the Glasgow rectorial address given by Jimmy Reid in 1972. He spoke about the alienation felt by many people in society. He described it as 'the frustration of ordinary people excluded from the forces of decision making. The feeling of despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their destinies.' It’s a speech which still resonates today. If anything, its relevance has increased over the decades. Independence on its own won’t address alienation – although it will give us the powers to do so." The second half of that last sentence is perhaps questionable although, strictly speaking, Mr Salmond did not say that "ONLY it [independence] will give us the powers to do so" even if that's clearly what he meant. The first half is undeniable, though: independence might (perhaps) be necessary, but it cannot possibly be sufficient. Similarly, turning the question around, if we are "better together" then that will be at least in part because together we are better able to address "the frustration of ordinary people excluded from the forces of decision making" and "the feeling of despair and hopelessness that pervades people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their destinies," about which nationalists could be forgiven for retorting: "Well, if it was gonna work, it would've worked already!" The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act which universalised adult suffrage was passed in 1928, for instance: if ninety-three years and counting isn't a long enough trial period, what would be? Something else Alex Salmond got dead right in 2014 was his diagnosis of the root cause of a good many of the "imbalance[s]" afflicting Great Britain in the twenty-first century. In both his 4th March London speech and another in Carlisle on 23rd April** - St George's Day - he quoted the LSE's Prof. Tony Travers's warning that “London is the dark star of the economy, inexorably sucking in resources, people and energy. Nobody quite knows how to control it.” Underlining his point, Mr Salmond was able to quote both Vince Cable ("The UK Government’s Business Secretary, recently called London 'a kind of giant suction machine, draining the life out of the rest of the country'") and, of all people, the Prime Minister ("David Cameron argued before he became Prime Minister that 'an economy with such a narrow foundation for growth is fundamentally wasteful and unstable'"). [[ **I have not provided links to the text of either speech because I obtained them somewhat deviously, but the exact dates given above are intended to allow others to do the same - with a little ingenuity ;-) ]] Joking to his London audience that "I’m much more moderate in my views than Vince Cable," Mr Salmond went on to say that "London is one of the great world cities; much of its success is to be celebrated. And the economic gravitational pull of London is nothing new. [..] But London’s influence is infinitely stronger now. And it’s impossible to deny that the attraction of capital and talent to London is now one of the defining features of the UK economy." Then, speaking in Carlisle the following month, he went further: "The real danger for both Scotland and the regions of the UK lies with the current system. We’re part of a UK which has become profoundly imbalanced. There’s a strong consensus that the economy of this island has become overly dependent on London and the south-east. [..] Now, let me be clear: in my view London is a great world city. But there is a real issue here. [..] It’s an issue [..] for every part of these islands. Economic disparities between different parts of the UK have grown significantly in recent decades – in fact, the UK now has the highest levels of regional inequality of any country in the European Union. And although the UK Government recognises the problems caused by regional disparities, there’s little evidence of any change whatsoever. Indeed, the disparities are accelerating." That was nearly a decade ago, of course, but I've got the short end of a big bet that the most recent data will tell much the same story, showing that little if any significant progress has been made. In every part of Great Britain** in which I've lived during my adult life, or what passes for it in my case - the English Midlands, the home counties, north-west England, north and south Wales, and, since 2010, Highland Scotland - I have consistently seen that regional consciousness is always 'London-relative'. London is like a polarising magnet held under a sheet of paper on which iron fillings have been sprinkled though a cut stencil of mainland Britain: everywhere else has become oriented in relation to it. Nor is that likely to change, whatever happens to the UK in future. Furthermore, hosting one of the great cities of the world must, on balance, be a good thing. What we are not doing is getting properly to grips with the downside(s), something Mr Salmond has been pointing-out for donkey's years. And readers of these columns will be entirely unsurprised to learn that my remedy for this and, indeed, many other regional ailments, would be a determined, wholehearted, and radically localistic commitment to civic renewal by community empowerment. I am pretty much unshakeably convinced that this is the only realistic means by which new and well-founded hopes can be kindled in the breast of "people who feel with justification that they have no real say in shaping or determining their destinies." [[ **whenever I refer to 'Great Britain', I always mean the name of an island - ie a geographical entity, not (eg) a political one. ]] I've always admired Alex Salmond even when I've disagreed with him - which isn't true in this case anyway, up to a point. But here's the rub: whereas I think his diagnosis of the serious difficulty the UK as a whole has accommodating one of the great world-cities is acute - and it is a diagnosis made by others across the political spectrum, as some of the above quotations demonstrate - I'm far less convinced that he has discovered the cure, or a cure, even for Scotland. Her location makes it impossible sufficiently to evade the consequences of English economic imbalance(s) to 'go it alone' without paying (or continuing to pay) what could become an increasingly heavy price, which is partly why Labour's Jim Murphy has argued that Brexit has weakened the case for independence. On the other hand, we're ALL paying a heavy price for those imbalances right now, and who knows which price is heavier? Not I. Nor can I judge for certain whether the English and Welsh would be less or more likely to tackle the problem if Scotland were to leave the UK, although without the Scotland's perspective contributing there's ample reason to be pessimistic about that. The best course, I think, would be for the UK to stay together for the time being and tackle the damn problem! Failing that, as far as I can tell the (economic, mainly) case for independence does look relatively finely balanced - although there are, of course, other grounds for judgement that will carry more weight with, say, voters of a more patriotic cast of mind (either way). Another independence referendum will not happen soon. But it will happen. If it were to happen tomorrow, because it would preclude my "best course" above, I would probably vote No. But a referendum will not happen tomorrow, and whenever it does happen it will follow many weeks and, indeed, months of discussion and debate. By polling day, just like last time, many of us will be heartily sick of the whole damn thing - which will not stop us putting our cross in the right box as we see it. Which box is right? Which way will I finally go after those weeks and months? I don't know: as with Brexit, I scorn easy answers - there are none. And in this Wed-Head I've tried not to answer the question but to frame it appropriately, in terms of the pervasive "frustration, despair, and hopelessness" that confronts ever Westerner who confides, even if only to their pillow, that the promise of democracy is supposed to mean more than what is fulfilled by what we have in place, now. That, I believe, is the right way to look at it. That way will decide my vote.
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