What a great post, Emeraldorc, truly,
I just wish that the debate had followed the Quebec independence referendum, where there were several stages of decision, rather than a blunt ‘yes/no’…
It all feels like a desperate move by the SNP to regain popularity…
I also do not believe in fairy tales, and while optimism is good, and a certain degree of risk is necessary
for any new venture to be undertaken, I do not agree that the SNP have a sound monetary plan:
Bank of Scotland money reserves, upon leaving the union, would be insufficient to monetise its own
currency… There are basic questions like these left unanswered… It would be like asking you: do you
want to keep yourself from starvation and be happy for ever more? Then make a decision tomorrow:
Buy or Sell the dollar… I mean… Life does not work like that… It would have been better to have a first
round of referendum voting over which model of independence the people would have preferred: for
example, the Scottish Labour party could have devised an alternative model (e.g. not independence
but a revised devolution), and then the Scottish Conservative Party and the SNP could have done the
same… The winning ‘design’ could then have gone to a second round of voting, following a period of
Q&A from the public, the media, and the Parliamentary Committee for independence both in Holyrood
and in Westminster…
But, as you say, whatever the results of this vote, the seeds of change have already been sown:
since the Act of Union, now over three hundred years old, there has been a great flow of people
up and down the former Roman barriers (Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall)… Unfortunately,
independence will feel very overrated because, in truth, nobody wants to or can afford to cut this
flow… Many parts of Scotland have been populated by incomers from England (not to mention overseas)
and, conversely, a lot of Scots have not had much of a choice but to populate parts of England, in a search
for better opportunities… In the end, neither the SNP nor any independence can stop Scots continuing to
leave this small part of the Kingdom in search of better opportunities: this has been a great problem for
the Scottish Highlands and Islands, and this is exactly why Gaelic has been dying out… Many islanders in
the Hebrides, for example, had no secondary school to go to and had to go to the mainland to continue
their education, and, in doing so, had to renounce speaking their language; equally, those who did not
face losing a language, may have found that the ‘high road to London’ was the only way out of poverty…
The inner city areas of ‘Auld Reekie’ (=Edinburgh) have received worldwide attention thanks to that
film that shot Ewan McGregor to fame: Trainspotting. Indeed, there is and there has been much deprivation
in Scotland, and it is not at the stroke of a pen, or through independence from ‘England’, that it will be
magically resolved…
When I worked at a grain factory at the Edinburgh docks, back in my undergraduate days, it was a time
of great debate, as the late Donald Dewar was pushing for devolution… which was a Labour conquest,
let it be known, not an SNP one… My fellow workers, who were not Italian migrants like me but local
through and through, had views about this, saying that it was not needed and that it would cost a great
deal: indeed, building the Scottish Parliament was a massive and spiralling bill which the public had to pay;
outside, the Edinburgh City Tram project ground to a halt, delayed by years of disputes and delays…
Indeed, I would love for someone to have an assessment of ‘What devolution has done for the Scots’ in the
last fifteen years, and, based on that, deciding if ‘Devo Max’ (i.e. independence) really would be worth the
cost… Instead, we must all vote on promises and hope…
Whatever happens, if people will not like the new Scotland, there will be many trains and many roads
leading out of it. Let us hope that it will not come to this, for many people will not even have the luxury
of choice.
