[Expect mildly entertaining whiteboard picture soon!]
Your vote could change the world.
That is a scary thought – but an equally empowering one. The UK is
one of the most conservative and assertive states on the world stage, and we in
Scotland may be able to forever alter the very makeup of that state by simply
putting a cross in a box.
Yes voter or No voter, we have the opportunity now to
contribute to the most exciting political movement that has happened, certainly
in my lifetime, on Scottish soil. The people will be able to speak.
So much has been written carefully, tweeted recklessly,
uttered thoughtfully, bellowed drunkenly, and campaigned for passionately on
both sides of the Scottish independence debate that it’s understandable to
start feeling almost overwhelmed. But we shouldn’t be – we should be revelling
in this.
This is what politics is meant to be. Exciting. Vibrant.
Scary. All-encompassing and egalitarian. A channelling of conflicting and
controversial views into some sort of consensus. The fact that this is not the
norm, that British democracy is in fact not nearly as regularly accessible as
we would be led to believe, is a troubling one.
I have found myself discussing and debating independence in
arenas where politics would never normally enter. I've spouted numbers between
mouthfuls at family dinners (And in my family the dinner table is never
normally a place for weighty debates). While interrailing this summer, I found
myself making my case to genuinely interested roommates at a cheap Budapest
hostel. Deep observations on the future have been made with friends while
watching the sunset from Edinburgh’s Salisbury Crags.
And all of it has been leading up to tomorrow, the 18th
of September 2014.
Here’s why I’ll be crossing the Yes box:
It’s Not Nationalism,
it’s Democracy
Call it simplification if you want, but in my opinion local
government is one of the basic, fundamental rules of democracy.
What real reasons are there for Scotland being ruled from
the far south of an island of which we occupy the far north? The MPs living
there don’t know what’s going on in the streets of Aberdeen. They don’t know
the craic in the highland villages flowing down the Great Glen. The priorities
of farmers in Stirlingshire certainly won’t seem immediate or of any national
importance when London’s own issues and affairs are right there in front of
them.
The desire to have your seat of government closer to home
hardly seems like a nationalist slur to me.
It means, for the first time in centuries, the most
important decisions for Scottish people will be being made not in that fancy
old building on the TV, but in the fancy new building just a twenty-five minute
walk from your front door (In my case, anyway).
It means that when MPs muck up, we can march to the
parliament building and tell them so, not just post about it on facebook and
mumble bitterly at BBC web pages.
It means that serious politics won’t just be that distant,
inaccessible thing on the news. It’ll be right there, living and breathing on
our own soil, where we can watch it and scrutinise it.
Westminster is
old-fashioned, slow and flawed
The Westminster Model encourages division and conflict. On
one side of the crowded, antiquated House of Commons sit the government, on the
other sit the opposition. They take turns to stand and shout, spitting across
the room into each others’ faces.
In Scotland’s devolved Holyrood parliament, and indeed in
parliaments across mainland Europe, this form of politics is brutal and
confrontational by comparison. Instead of two sharply contrasting sides facing
up to one another, there instead sits a spectrum of colours and ideologies in a
sweeping arc, with the dominant political force in the centre. Here, they are
the focus of scrutiny and the axis the debate revolves around.
In Scotland, the electoral system is meant to produce coalition
governments, a government with representation from multiple parties. This means
that Labour and Conservative governments won’t be our only options – we might
see a Green transport minister, a Lib Dem health minister, an SNP foreign
minister, all under a Labour prime minister. The fact that we currently have an
SNP majority is pretty amazing.
Meanwhile, in Westminster, it is (usually) one or the other.
The electoral system (first past the post) means that the only times we get a
coalition government (Like the current, ideologically baffling Con-Lib
government) are when people are so divided and dissatisfied that they don’t
know where to vote with conviction.
The Westminster Model is also ridiculously centralised and
conservative. Devolution came slowly, unevenly, with a great deal of pressure
forcing it through. Federalism (Far too radical and fair a notion for
Westminster to advocate) is out of the question, unless the Lib Dems
miraculously get into power. Meanwhile, outside of London, English people have
little power of their own. Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs can vote on
English education, transport, health etc., but not the other way around due to
the lack of any English assembly or parliament.
Westminster rejects change and is horrified by reform.
Instead of the fair federation it should have become long ago, the UK remains a
centralised state with one house dedicated to confrontation, and the other (The
House of Lords), which isn’t even democratically elected, dedicated to slowing
down the system even further.
Scotland is a
European nation
Scotland is currently treated as a single region by the EU,
and as a result we, as a whole, elect 6 MEPs to the European parliament. After
the May elections, we ended up with 2 SNP, 2 Labour, 1 Conservative, and 1 UKIP
MEP. That sixth seat, so hotly contested, leaves a foul taste in my mouth.
As an independent state, we would have twice that many MEPs.
Scotland is politically diverse and needs the representation to express that.
For example, if Edinburgh’s vote had represented the whole of Scotland, the
Green party would have had more votes than UKIP. But by lumping the whole
country into one constituency, we ended with a far-right representative in
Brussels instead.
Beyond the European parliament, Scotland has a lot more potential
links with Europe it would be able to freely explore with independence.
As previously mentioned, the similarity of the Scottish
parliament’s system to continental systems makes our governments and
legislatures much more European in nature. With less media attention focussed
on London, we may be able to learn more about and interact more with our
neighbours across the water.
Some studies (Such as the Atlas of Productivity by the Jimmy Reid Foundation) have suggested
that Scotland could potentially further embrace it’s currently overlookedNordic nature. It could take part in Northern European projects, with more
ferries, links, and joint ventures between Scotland and Scandinavia. It could
also be a more active player in the Nordic push for renewable energy, and the
protection and development of the Arctic Circle.
Scotland could also punch above its weight in developing European
Union institutions. The External Action Service, a sort of foreign office and
peacekeeping force, is one example of an institution which is currently
severely underfunded by large European states like the UK as they try to cling
to false national sovereignty.
If Scotland were to contribute to EU peacekeeping instead of
committing to the UK’s extensive and questionable foreign ventures, not to
mention its outdated and dangerous nuclear deterrence policy, it could keep all
of its soldiers in a job for a much smaller budget. It would provide jobs and
give Scotland leverage in European foreign policy, and on an ethical level
Scottish troops would find themselves providing peace and stability in
dangerous places, not taking part in invasions and sowing discord.
If Scotland stays in the UK, it may be giving up its chance
to become a truly European nation.
Instead, UKIP and the Eurosceptic factions in the
Conservative party may drag us, and the rest of the UK, into isolation.
It’s a Globalised
World
I don’t buy into all these clashing economic arguments being thrown at us. I think they've
received too much attention, and that players on both sides have tried too hard
to score points with the economy.
I believe (and a number of impartial economists seem to agree) that
today’s economies are so globalised that it is international forces, not purely
internal decisions, which will determine the health of a currency. Ten years
from now, Scotland’s economy is unlikely to be affected by whether 2014 saw a
Yes or a No vote. The economy, if managed sensibly, will slot into the
international system (And I have plenty of issues with that system, trust me,
but that’s a debate for another time) and it will be resource management, not
politics, which determines the country’s prosperity.
I also believe that sterling is an international currency.
The UK parliament will have hardly any more control than the Scottish parliament over private and independent institutions like the Bank of England.
It makes me sad that some people have turned this debate
into a counting game when there is so much more at stake.
Cultural Boom
A common theme in modern Scottish writing, from Robert Louis
Stevenson to Janice Galloway, is a little something my English teacher taught
me a few years back called ‘Caledonian Antisyzegy’.
Yes, it is a word.
And what it describes is the attitude of defeat, of
insignificance, and of dual personality which has pervaded Scottish art for a
long time. Look at the split personality in Doctor
Jekyll and Mr Hyde, for example, or the melancholy in Neil Munro’s historic
novels John Splendid and The New Road.
Could a Yes vote bring about a new resurgence in Scottish
art? I think it could – just look at how much has been written, presented on
screen, performed on stage during Festival season, sang in the streets, in the
run-up to the referendum. Just this week, a pro-Yes concert featuring Mogwai,Amy MacDonald and Franz Ferdinand took place in the Usher Hall. And the Scottish
government-funded ‘James Plays’ at the Festival Theatre this summer, while not
taking any sides, were an outstanding look into Scottish history and identity.
Indeed, it has been suggested that if the referendum were to
take place purely among Scottish artists, writers, and musicians, the resultwould be an overwhelming Yes.
Britain needs radical
reform
When Scotland votes for independence, the desire for
autonomy in northern England, Wales and Northern Ireland may reach a level
where Westminster will have no choice but to start respecting them more.
Independence, they will realise, can happen on the modern-day British Isles,
and if the UK wants to stay together as a state, it needs to reform politically.
That’s not to say that the British Isles, as a community
rather than a state, will not stay together. After a Yes vote, the British
Isles will consist of three separate but socially, financially and culturally
interlinked states: the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and Scotland.
It will be in everyone’s interest to maintain a healthy,
happy relationship over our shared isles.
We can start looking
at the bigger issues
Poverty at a local level, political representation at a
national level, international peacekeeping and climate change at a European
level. No Westminster bureaucracy in the way. Need I say more?
If I hear the term ‘Best
of Both Worlds’ one more time…
Title says it all really.
Will the economy collapse under independence?
No.
Will the world shun Scotland after independence?
No.
Will a meteor hit an independent Scotland?
I hope not.
What does the UK
stand for?
What is there to be proud of in the UK? You could claim that
having four distinct nations working together is an achievement, but that would
continue to happen, and probably happen more effectively, with independence.
The UK just happens to be the framework we currently use to interact.
But regarding the UK as a national entity, what can we be
proud in?
There was the Second World War, yes. The Blitz spirit which
I’ve heard a lot of pro-No voters advocate. But what about now? Was the Iraq War a moment of national unity? The banking
crisis? Was the royal wedding in 2011 really anything other than some glitzy
pomp?
It was the case of Craig Murray, former British ambassador
to Uzbekistan and current ‘English Scots for Yes’ campaigner, which really
hammered home the lack of pride many of us have in the UK and its principles.
When my flatmates and I watched this video, we were stunned into silence.
“When I first became a British ambassador, and first went
out in my own flag car with the union jack flying on the front […] I had a lump
in my front. It was a proud moment for me. It was only six months after that I
discovered that in the country where I was ambassador, we and the Americans
were shipping people in order for them to be tortured. And some of them were
tortured to death. As you may imagine, my worldview changed.”
The UK’s role in the world needs to change. That’s unlikely
to happen any time soon. Scottish independence, perhaps, may act as an
eye-opener.
People are campaigning on every street corner in Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Aberdeen and beyond. ‘Yes’ and ‘No Thanks’ signs are emblazoned in
windows across the nation, polls shout confused messages of 50-50 splits, and
debates rage daily as we hurtle towards the only poll that really matters.
The fact that an 80% turnout rate is expected in
unprecedented.
And the fact that the Yes side has made such immense gains,
despite facing the full force of the British establishment, including a biased
media and the intervention of business leaders with vested interests, is
incredible.
History is going to be made tomorrow, whether the vote is a
Yes or a No. And all of us will be a part of it.
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