Yes or No? A collection of writing on Scottish independence Neal Ascherson, Menzies Campbell, David Marquand, Linda Colley, John Kay, John Kerr PROSPECT 2014 2 Introduction he vision of an independent Scotland will not disap- articulate a compelling case for the Union other than one based pear, even with a No vote in the referendum on 18th on prophesies of doom for Scotland if it goes it alone. This is September, which opinion polls suggest is likely. As partly because the question that David Cameron chose to pose Neal Ascherson argues in “Why I’ll vote Yes,” that in this referendum—full independence, or no change at all—is idea, now that it has taken root, will not go away. the wrong one. There should have been the option on the bal- TWhen Scots looks south, Ascherson writes, they see little of lot of “devo-max”—full autonomy, minus responsibility for for- themselves there. And all the while, the internal voice which eign policy and defence. Yet Cameron ducked that, wanting muses that “my country was independent once” gets louder. to force Scotland into a No vote; even though that is the likely Like many countries before it, Scotland sees independence “as result, the tactic has backfired by forcing serious consideration the way to join the world, modernise and take responsibility for of the Yes option. their own actions and mistakes.” Whatever happens on 18th September, Britain will have to Yet for all the feelings of national identity and self-assertion rethink the way it runs itself. The writer and former Labour MP that the referendum campaign has stirred up, economic ques- David Marquand imagines a federal future for the UK which tions—particularly concerning the currency and membership of grants autonomy to the constituent parts of the Union, short the of European Union—have dominated the debate. However, of outright secession. A vision which is shared by Sir Menzies as the campaign enters its final weeks, there is still an alarm- Campbell who discusses his reports on home rule and shares ing lack of clarity on these key issues. The arguments have not his thoughts on how a cross-party consesus could be achieved developed much since January 2013, when John Kerr argued after a No vote. And Linda Colley, the distinguished historian, that it would not be quick, easy or cheap for an independent argues that one effect of the referendum campaign has been to Scotland to rejoin the EU. As for the economic benefits of inde- put the case for a written UK constitution firmly back on the pendence, these too remain unclear, as John Kay shows in his agenda. article “Give me liberty or £500.” Whether the result is independence or not, this historic vote If the economic arguments are inconclusive, then what is left is likely to be the trigger for fundamental constitutional change is vision. It is regrettable, therefore, that the Better Together in Scotland and beyond. The United Kingdom will never be the campaign, alternately complacent and tentative, has failed to same again. PROSPECT 2014 4 Why I’m voting Yes neal ascherson Published in the August 2014 issue of Prospect y uncle was an officer in the Royal Scots, “the adult population put their names to this painfully polite doc- First of Foot.” The tartan trews on his long ument, which began, “We, the people of Scotland...” Nothing legs made him magnificent. As a child, I once happened. The then Labour government, concealing its alarm, asked my mother, his sister, “But what are the told the stupid Scots to go away and learn that British politics Royal Scots for, if it’s peacetime?” “They’re worked through decisions by sovereign parliaments, not by ref- Mthere to stop the English taking away the Loch Ness Monster,” erendums or petitions. she said. Married to a naval officer and fiercely loyal to the Later, I saw a lot of the empire in terminal decay, in Africa White Ensign, speaking a cut-glass English she’d learned in and Asia. Everywhere I met people who saw national independ- London at Miss Fogarty’s drama school, she was also the touch- ence—even in nations recently invented by the colonial power— iest Scottish patriot. as the way to join the world, to modernise and take responsibility “Breathes there the man with soul so dead/ Who never to for their own actions and mistakes. In Britain in those first post- himself hath said/ This is my own, my native land!” As children, war decades, “nationalism” usually meant that struggle from we often heard that ringing round the kitchen. From Miss Foga- colonial status towards independence. It was only later, when rty, my mother also learned the art of outrageous, spellbinding most of those struggles were over, that left-wing imaginations exaggeration. It was only the outbreak of the Second World War turned towards the Holocaust and developed a vulgar syllogism: which made me wonder if the Royal Scots really had been patrol- “Nationalism equals racism equals fascism equals war.” ling the Great Glen to watch for cockney monster-kidnappers. For myself, I spent most of the 1960s in central Europe, in the But my mother had political instincts as well. She voted No in last phase of the Cold War. National stereotypes and prejudices the first devolution referendum in 1979, declaring that “a Scot- still abounded. But everywhere, under the puppet regimes of tish parliament will make Scotland more English.” This extraor- the Warsaw Pact, ordinary people made the connection between dinary remark staggered me. Maybe she was the only voter in national independence and personal freedom—a connection I Scotland who thought like that. But could there be something recognised from Scotland’s 1320 Declaration of Arbroath. For in it—a warning against replicating Westminster arrogance and the Poles, regained independence was not just a happy end complacency? Or was it, as I now think, a deeply patronising but a fateful moment of choice: “Poland yes—but what sort of opinion that Scots were not up to inventing our own democracy? Poland?” For Thomas Masaryk, the austere dominie who led the Loveable only in our very second-rateness? Czechs out of the Habsburg Empire, independence was about It’s easy to talk of “thoughtless nationalism.” Not thinking truth and high moral standards or it was nothing. “Nebát se a merely means that underthoughts are rehearsing their sound- nekrást” (Don’t be afraid, and don’t steal) he told his people. less melodies in your head. Put it like this. In every Scottish Back in Scotland, the bargain which supported the 1707 Act brain, there has been a tiny blue-and-white cell which secretes of Union was crumbling. The empire was over; the Scottish an awareness: “My country was independent once.” And every industrial economy was in steep decline even before Margaret so often, the cell has transmitted a minute, often almost imper- Thatcher took her chainsaw to it in the 1980s. The centralised ceptible pulse: “Would it not be grand, if one day…” welfare state, for all its virtues, was sapping the autonomy of But this stimulated other larger, higher-voltage cells around great Scottish professions—education, law, medicine. For the it to emit suppressor charges: “Are you daft? Get real; we’re too first time in three centuries, political nationalism, in the form wee, too poor, that shite’s for Wembley or the movies.” One way of the Scottish National Party (SNP), came out of the wings and of describing what’s happening to Scotland now is to say that paced the stage. the reaction of those inhibitor cells has grown weak and erratic. Now working in Edinburgh, I supported the devolution plans Whereas the other pulse, the blue-white one, is transmitting which finally produced a Scottish parliament in 1997. But it louder, faster, more insistently. This is why the real September seemed obvious to me that devolution was a running process, referendum question is no longer “Can we become independ- which would quite probably end in independence. The archaic ent?” It is: “Yes, we know that we can—but do we want to?” Anglo-British power structure would provoke growing fric- In 1949, standing in the fish queue in Kilmacolm, I watched tion between London and Edinburgh. And sooner or later—so warmly-dressed ladies collect their haddock fillets and then sign I guessed—a Tory government might find it best to boot Scot- the “Scottish Covenant,” the petition for a Scottish parliament land out of the UK altogether. Much as Václav Klaus had booted which lay on the slab by the door. I signed too. Nearly half the the surprised Slovaks into independence a few years before, in PROSPECT 2014 WHY I’M VOTING YES 5 order to dominate the Czech Republic without challenge. nother heavy-lifting job is institutional. For three But I hadn’t foreseen the surge in SNP popularity which led centuries, the loss of a parliament was replaced by to an absolute majority at Holyrood in 2011 and now to the Sep- various blocs of largely unaccountable power—often tember referendum. Until then, my own preference for a next benevolent but seldom democratic. This is a prob- step would have been “devo max”—full powers for a Scottish Alem that England does not know. Among such blocs today are government within the UK. The big fruit of independence, I the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Faculty of thought, needed a few more years to ripen. Advocates and the Educational Institute of Scotland, the high- Two things changed that.