Freedom?!

So in a scant few months the Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland may come crashing down, ending 300 years of successful partnership (albeit with the usual neighborly bickering from time to time). Is this right? Is it proper? Why is it happening now? What will happen should this event come about? And perhaps most importantly... can we invade if it does?

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I should begin by pointing out I am a shining example of practical double-think when it comes to the issue of Scottish independence.  One the one hand I am with Mr Denny Crane in considering the idea that part of my country could just break away as both treason and heresy. On the other hand I'm of the view that if you don't want to be part of the group then the sooner you leave the better. As with many things (education, gaming groups or anything else), if you don't want to take part, fine, leave. Just don't hang around and whinge while incurring costs to everyone and yourself.

Thus in the interests of this not descending (more than necessary) into a string of rants on the topic of nationalist heresy, I'm going to focus more on my expectations for probable outcomes of the referendum and some of the conceptual and political challenges they face.

From current situations it seems there are four possible outcomes in September; a minor yes vote or a minor no vote on a small turnout (55% either way, maybe 50% turnout), or a strong no vote on a minor or moderate turn out (65%+ on a 55%+ turnout). I'd be willing to expressly rule-out a strong "yes" vote - all the main polls conducted so far show a roughly 2-1 slant in favor of retaining the Union in representative and sensibly sized samples. The challenge for the "Yes" camp is to mobilize a biased enough voting population to overcome the underlying splits, and to make full use of the likelihood that those in favor of a split are more likely to be engaged and enthusiastic (and therefore more likely to vote). It is in furtherance of this agenda that the voting age has been lowered to 16, and any Scots living outside Scotland have been removed from the electoral role. The former group (young people; no real economic awareness, limited, or no, experience of the job market, and easier to bribe with things like university tuition fees) are generally more pro-independence, while the latter (older, probably worked and lived in a variety of roles and regions etc) are generally more pro-union.

In turn then;

Cry "Freedom!"
-A minor yes on a small turnout

This is possibly the worst outcome for almost all concerned. Contrary to media image the SNP do not necessarily want an independent Scotland- it opens the door on months (years) of messy negotiations, transfers responsibilities for all the ills in Scotland from Westminster to Holyrood, and robs them of the main plank of their political agenda (the Scotland / England tension). Instead the true objective here is some form of "Devo-Max" where the Scottish Parliament gains the powers to raise tax in Scotland and set things such as welfare levels, but continues to receive additional financial support from the rest of the UK, and Westminster picks up the bill for foreign and defense policy. Independence is simply a ploy to push for this increase in power for the Scottish politicians .It will be a bitter blow to those who consider themselves British (and will therefore be saddened to see nearly a tenth of our country break away), and will no doubt be exceptional difficult for those with businesses, jobs, and families which will now exist in a foreign country.

I say "almost" all concerned because there is one group that benefits from a Scottish breakaway - the Conservative party. With the Conservatives all but wiped out in Scotland, and Labour holding a number of seats, simply removing the Scottish MPs presents an opportunity for the Conservatives to counteract the bias in constituency boundaries by effectively eliminating 40-50 Labour MPs. The cynical may wonder to what extend this consideration has played on the minds of senior conservative ministers and party mandarins, maybe the splitting of the country would, for them, be seen as a political coup rather than damning indictment of failed governance. 

There are also significant democratic issues with this outcome. A 55% yes vote on a 50% turn out means only 27.5% of the population actively voting to dissolve the Union, amongst them potentially a high proportion of 16-17 year olds, whose opinions will have generational consequences in terms of diplomacy, politics, macro-economics, foreign policy and military affairs. While we may assume that apathy with general elections is a consequence of many people not caring for any of the main parties and thereby accepting any outcome as equally awful, it requires a certain sangfroid to consider that 75% of the Scottish population don't care whether they are an independent country or part of the UK. IF this is indeed the case the question should (but won't) be raised as to why people are so uncaring, and if they are why it is being portrayed as such a huge political issue in Scotland.

Sorry I didn't hear you
- A minor No on a small turnout

This is possibly shaping up to be the most likely outcome, a 55 / 45 type outcome in favor of retaining the Union ("No"), on a relatively low turnout (around 50% again). While this has slightly less democratic issues than the yes vote  - effectively your maintaining the status quo so a low level of support suggests most people don't care enough to vote for change though the issue of why people don't care is still reasonable.

The biggest problem with this is the question of what happens now. The independence-campaigners will come up with an excuse as to why the result isn't binding and begin calling for a repeat referendum. A no vote with anything less than a shattering majority does nothing to resolve the issues, and potentially gives the SNP another route to making noise (by claiming the referendum was won by threats, bullying or outright cheating). There is also the potential controversy around whether a Westminister government with only a few months to run before a general election will want to cede significant new powers to Holyrood, even with the Union intact, as has been mooted.

In effect a minor-No simply resets us back to a where we were when the referendum was first suggested, and we can go through the whole rigmarole again.

No changes here
- A strong no on a small turnout

In practice this has virtually no differences to the minor no on a small turnout. If the polls are to be believed we may see anything up to a 65/35 split without the outcome being unexpected. However, as with the point above there is nothing to stop the whole cycle being repeated. A strong no will do nothing to dismay the SNP (who are already running fine with the polls 2-1 against independence), and if anything this just gives them slightly more leverage to bully Westminster into handing over more power - "See," they will say, "we want to stay British, but in payment we want more local power."

I would not all be surprised to see this type of result portrayed as a "Vote for Devo-Max" by the SNP, regardless of the fact that that wasn't the question asked. The fact that maybe people want to stay in the Union and have Scotland and England run with similar policies will be ignored, and instead the narrative will be that people don't want to break the union, so they must want more power in Holyrood (see point above about this, conveniently, being the SNPs desired outcome).

United we stand
-Strong no on a high turnout

Almost certainly not going to happen, but included here on a off chance it does. The polls do not support the idea that a high turnout will return a Yes vote. As the size of the voting population goes up, so to does the tendency for the result to reflect the majority views of the populace, which are, in this case, largely against a 'hard' split from the UK.

What will happen with this result then?

My feeling here is a similar spin war to that mentioned above, where the SNP will paint a picture of a call for more powers to be moved from Westminster to Scotland. The only difference is potentially a stronger bargaining hand for Westminster. With a strong vote in favour of the Union on a high turnout (preferably enough to be a solid majority of the total voter population), the SNP have far less leverage to force another referendum, and thus less bargaining power overall.

Most likely the whole issue will be dropped (in the same way as voting reform following the referendum on that issue), and we will continue on as if it had never happened in the first place.


I'll maybe try and pull together something regarding the finances of an independent Scotland, and its political possibilities, though the only point it seems worth mentioning on this at present is that the White Paper produce by Salmond some time ago has increasingly been shown to be full of lies, statistics and huge assumptions. Therefore the logical assumption is that, having reviewed the matter, the SNP analysts concluded the truth was bad for them, and they would need to present an amended version of reality. That maybe says it all.


Happy Trails

/Z