Scottish Independence Referendum Weekly Update

H-Nationalism Scottish Independence Referendum Weekly Update

Discussion published by Amy Clarke on Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Amy Clarke of the University of Queensland, Australia and Emmanuel Dalle Mulle of The Graduate Institute, Geneva, bring us the fourth of a series of weekly updates on the Scottish Independence Referendum. Feel free to comment on this post.

The most important news of the week is the sharp rise in support for independence since last week’s debate between First Minister Alex Salmond and ‘Better Together’ campaign spokesman Alistair Darling. While in the first hours after the contest there did not seem to be a decisive impact, two polls conducted between August 29th and September 1st have put the yes at an all-time high of 47% versus 53%. Professor John Curtice (Strathclyde University) has published two articles on these polls for WhatScotlandThinks.org; the first on the 29th of August discussing the Survation result, and the follow up on 2nd September covering the YouGov poll. For those interested in keeping track of these polls, the following websites may be of interest:

YouGov Document archive, with regular updates on the Scottish referendum

BBC News ‘Poll Tracker’ offers a graphic representation of several polls concerning the referendum

UK Polling Report website has a dedicated section for Scottish independence voting intention polls which is updated regularly

Professor Curtice has also written an op-ed article on the ‘missing million’ this week, discussing the group of eligible voters who do not register or simply do not vote. The ‘Yes’ campaign are suggesting this group will be decisive in swinging the outcome of the referendum on September 18th.

On September 2, another TV debate saw three ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaign leading representatives face each other on issues such as the economy, currency, Europe, welfare and social justice. Debating on behalf of the ‘Yes’ campaign were Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish Green Party co- convenor Patrick Harvie, and Scottish Independence Convention chairperson Elaine C. Smith. The ‘No’ campaign was represented by Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander, Scottish Conservative Party leader Ruth Davidson, and Labour Shadow Education Secretary Kezia Dugdale. The event, which was staged in the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, went largely unnoticed by the media, perhaps because it was not helmed by Salmond and Darling. For those interested the entire show can be seen on STV News.

Discussion has continued this week about the perception of the Scottish independence debate elsewhere in the UK. In an interesting piece published on 2nd September for BBC news, Nick Eardley

Citation: Amy Clarke. Scottish Independence Referendum Weekly Update. H-Nationalism. 09-04-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/3911/discussions/39986/scottish-independence-referendum-weekly-update Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Nationalism considered how much people outside Scotland cared about the forthcoming referendum. Katrin Bennhold in a piece for the New York Times on 30th August reflected on how the referendum might impact the nationalist movement in Wales, while an article on the 28th of August in the West Briton considered the issue from a Cornish devolution angle. This comes after earlier BBC reports concerning the likely impact of Scotland’s independence on Wales and Northern Ireland published at the beginning of August.

People outside of the UK are watching the Scottish independence campaign with interest too. On the 3rd of September, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper publically commented on the issue after it was suggested that those in favour of Quebec separation would take note of the Scottish debate. In an article for The Guardian, Peter Preston considered the impact of the independence campaigns currently active in Scotland and Catalonia (a non-binding vote is being held there on 9 November). Arthur Midwinter (University of Edinburgh), John Curtice (Strathclyde University) and Michael Keating (University of Aberdeen) have considered the global implications of Scottish independence on other nationalist and separatist movements in a co-authored piece published today (4th September) for The Conversation, and in an article for The Herald Scotland, David Leask has suggested that the ‘Yes’ campaign in Scotland has become a model to be emulated by other movements around the globe (note: access to this article requires subscription).

In other news:

In an article for The Spectator on the 2nd of September, Alex Massie has commented on the sudden surge in ‘Yes’ support, and the role of emotion in the closing days of the campaign;

Former SNP member Derek Philips has explained his decision to quit the party and his doubts about Scottish nationalism in a letter published by The Southern Reporter on the 29th of August;

Magnus Linklater has written a piece for The Times in which he suggests the ugly side of nationalism is beginning to be seen in Scotland (note: access to this article requires subscription);

Brendan O’Neill has suggested in an article for The Telegraph that the ‘Better Together’ campaign needs to find a new approach as their current campaign angles are unconvincing;

Paul Ingram (former Executive Director, British American Security Information Council) has discussed the future of Trident (Britain’s submarine based nuclear weapons system) after independence in an article on 28th August for openSecurity;

In a 3rd September article for The Conversation, Bryan Glass (Texas State University) has suggested that an independent Scotland would not be able to afford the welfare levels that are

being promised by the ‘Yes’ campaign;

Nils Pratley’s piece for The Guardian, published 4 September, suggests that the City of London (the UK’s finance and banking hub) has suddenly begun to show signs of concern over the issue of Scottish independence; and

The former UK Ambassador and recently retired NATO representative Dame Mariot Leslie has penned a letter to The Scotsman in which she has publicly claimed that an independent Scotland would be welcomed into NATO.