A month from today the people of Scotland will finally be given the chance to declare whether or not they should become independent. It will be a monumentally important day in the history of the country, building upon centuries’ worth of struggle to give us the opportunity to make our democratic wishes heard. Polls suggest that it’s going to be close, and it’s still there for both Yes Scotland and Better Together to win (or lose). After years of thinking about the issue though, I’ve made up my mind.
I’m going to vote Yes, and I think you should too.
We’ve heard all the arguments there is to hear either way about independence at this point. There’s been nothing new in the debate for months. But all I can say is the more that I’ve heard from both campaigns, the more that I’ve sided with the Yes arguments. You may read nothing new here in this article, but these are the reasons I find independence a far more compelling option for Scotland than staying in the UK.
I’m Scottish. I may have a British passport, but never would I class myself as British ahead of being Scottish. Democracy is based around being part of a political community with which you identify. With the current UK government, MEPs and the prospective governments ahead – it’s not hard to see why I don’t identify with British politics as a whole. The way in which Scottish people vote and respond to political issues shows that my feelings of disaffection are common and that we are indeed different communities. Westminster parties (and UKIP, of course) are opposed to immigration, when Scots support it and opposed to the EU, when Scots support it. And they are just the most recent and topical examples. I want political decisions about my country and I to be taken by people from my country, and that’s the democratic argument for independence. Of course in a democracy we risk being drowned out by larger majorities at the ballot box, but in an independent Scotland those majorities will be much more likely to hold similar values to my own. This is all true regardless of your political affiliation and will continue to be true for decades to come as it is the nature of democracy.
62% of Scots in the 2011 census considered themselves Scottish only too, while only 18% said they were equally Scottish and British and only 8% considered themselves only British. When so many people feel the same way about that, it’s strange that we believe in our country patriotically but don’t believe that that country should rule itself. We call this our country and feel we belong to it, but that it should belong to someone else. This isn’t right. It might sound all “Cap In Hand”, but we Scots are more a part of a Scottish nation than a British one and as such are better placed to decide what we want for ourselves. That’s what independence lets us do.
A lot of people wonder whether Scotland will work as a political democracy after independence. For me I doubt it could be any worse than the current situation in the UK. We’ve been thrust under austerity measures since 2010 that have left a lot of Scots feeling worse off, even though there has been some economic growth. There is still a lot of poverty in this country, and despite that fact welfare is being cut. There has been a 400% increase in the use of food banks in Scotland in the last year alone. Scots are suffering from these problems whilst we’re ruled by a government in which Scotland is represented by just 12 MPs, one Tory and eleven Lib Dems, out of 364. Scotland is being forgotten in Westminster, and because we are only a small proportion of the UK population we always will be.
The political system in Westminster is as far removed from the issues of the people of Scotland as it could be. Next year we’re faced with the unappetising choice of David Cameron, Ed Miliband or Nick Clegg as our Prime Minister – with these politicians and their parties not offering the sort of policies that Scots voters want. They have to appeal to the majority of voters, and with Scotland being only a small part of the country, and one that is easily predictable in General Elections, they don’t focus on us. Scottish people have very little impact in how the country we’re part of is run. Only in two elections (1964 and 1974) since World War II has the Scottish vote influenced the outcome of a General Election. But in 2016 we could have a wide choice for our new government and Prime Minister, and you can vote out Alex Salmond if that’s what you want to do. Voting Yes is not a vote for the SNP or for Salmond, but it is a vote to separate Scotland from the out-of-touch establishment of Westminster. We can decide the rest for ourselves.
The Scottish economy has grown 4% between the start of 2011 and the start of this year, while the UK economy has grown 4.8%. We’ve lagged behind because of Westminster’s one-size-fits-all approach to the economic recovery. The Scottish Government hasn’t got the powers it needs to affect any change in the economy, only to make sure we get the best out of the block grant we’re handed down from Westminster. Independence would see us being able to tailor our economy to Scotland’s strengths rather than the UK’s.
The economy is the most important matter to almost everyone in the independence debate, but I do believe we will be better off as an independent country. By making our own decisions we can service our share of the UK’s national debt whilst targeting the economic issues of our own people. And if times of crisis do hit our economy again I believe that this will help us; just as a smaller ship can make quicker adjustments so can a smaller economy. Setting up our new country will cost us some money, without a doubt, but it comes with a greater sense of political and social opportunity that is hard to put a price on. The rest of the world is not going to suddenly stop trading with us and leave us on our own if we become independent. On the contrary, we’ll be able to set up our own deals and have our own place at the trade table.
Scotland will have far more of a voice as an independent country than as part of the fading former power of the UK. We’ll be able to make entirely our own decisions about things such as oil, broadcasting, energy and react on our own to international events. Being part of the UK has not helped us do any of these. One of my key arguments against independence back when I supported No was that we’d have a weaker defence. However, with Scotland not having been attacked in any capacity since World War II, I now think that a scaled-down Scottish defence would be a good thing instead of being part of Britain’s post-colonial hangover. A smaller defence doesn’t mean that we can’t provide support to military actions such as the air strikes on Libya in 2011, it just means that we can control whether or not we take part in them and spend less money in doing so – giving our schools and hospitals more spending power. We don’t need to be a part of the UN Security Council, which is largely a proxy battle between the US and Russia. We’d become a member of NATO as well, if we decide that we want to. Scotland will stand stronger on its own than sitting behind the UK.
Some No voters seem to think that we are going to have to build a state for ourselves from scratch and will never be able to manage it. I completely disagree, and actually relish the thought. We’re a nation that has produced some of the brightest minds the world has ever seen. Scots invented penicillin, the telephone, television, the fridge, golf etc. But it was also Scots who invented modern economics (Adam Smith), sociology, the US Navy and the Bank of America. We have more universities ranked in the top 200 in the world than any other nation on Earth. By any means we are a nation of intelligent people. Yet we still have an inferiority complex about us that’s evident when some say that we aren’t capable of creating a state for ourselves that works successfully and efficiently for our needs. It’s time for us to think a little more positively.
We get to start again by making a state that works best for us. We get to have a written constitution that defends our rights, rather than have a Government that actually wants to repeal the Human Rights Act. We get to completely redesign our welfare and tax systems so they don’t waste so much money and actually do what they are supposed to do. We get to get rid of nuclear weapons, multi-billion pound money-sinks that we won’t ever want to or have to use. All this is massive change, I know, but it’s all for the better. And if some things don’t quite go perfectly, we have the power to change them. We don’t have that power at the moment and will never have that power as part of the UK.
Our transition between the UK and Scotland might take a few years, but it’s in everyone’s interest to make it as smooth as possible. National insurance, pensions, tax credits, benefits etc. will all be ironed out and transferred as-was across to Scotland’s control. The infrastructure for many of these welfare programmes is already in place in Scotland. While we are still UK citizens the British Government has an obligation to do what’s in our best interest, and they surely wouldn’t damage relations with what would become one of their largest trading partners with sour grapes tactics that make things more cumbersome than they need to be. I don’t imagine that the new Scottish Government’s policies when it comes to pensions and welfare would be dramatically different from the UK’s in the first few parliaments either, so that there isn’t a shock to the system, but from then on we can work towards having a more efficient system that benefits more of us in Scotland. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will an independent Scotland – but the long-term gains far outweigh the small short-term cost of setting up our own country.
If we want to talk about uncertainty, there seems to be as much uncertainty with Scotland staying as part of the UK than becoming independent. We’ve been offered more powers if we vote No, but nothing formal, nothing tangible. Boris Johnson, a very important figure in the Conservative Party that may well become a majority government in the next election, claims there is “no reason” to give Scotland more powers. In 1979, former Tory Prime Minister Alex Douglas-Home assured Scottish voters that if the result of that year’s devolution referendum didn’t produce a Yes vote that the Conservatives would introduce legislation for another one. The next referendum was 18 years later after Margaret Thatcher and John Major’s governments came and went without any progress towards Scottish devolution. There’s no guarantee that this won’t happen again. Voting No is not a “safe” option or a vote for the status quo, as our relationship with the rest of the UK will undoubtedly change after the referendum. The only way Scotland can guarantee getting the powers it craves is to vote Yes.
In any case, even if we do get more powers in the event of a No vote – can we really be content with some crumbs off of the Westminster table for any longer? Back when the terms of the referendum weren’t set in stone, and the idea of “devolution max” was included in opinion polls it was the most supported option almost every time. Even as recently as February a poll indicated this would be option that Scots would really want. This included transferring almost ALL powers to the Scottish Parliament apart from defence and foreign affairs and giving it full power over income tax. Such power transfer will likely never happen without independence. This year’s referendum might well be our only chance to secure Scotland’s independence, and I think that the people of Scotland’s desire for more political power over their own affairs will only be satisfied if we vote Yes in September.
The two big spectres hanging over independence seem to be the EU and the Pound. With both, we’re told by Westminster and Better Together that we won’t get in – but important individuals from within both institutions have said that there’s ways and means of us doing so. In reality both will take negotiation, but Scotland will do okay. I think we’ll get into the EU, seeing as we already meet all of the entry criteria, even if it does take us a year or two to go through the process. The real threat to our EU membership is actually staying in the UK, as opinion polls show that Britain as a whole wants to leave the EU while Scotland wants to stay in. With a referendum on that subject likely in the coming years, Scotland would once again be powerless to avoid an unpopular decision if current trends hold, unless we vote for independence.
I’m less certain of keeping the pound, but wouldn’t rule it out. Alex Salmond has come under massive pressure for not stating his “Plan B” should we not keep the pound – but we need to remember that Salmond, the SNP and even the Yes campaign’s position isn’t the be-all and end-all if Scotland gets independence. Of course Scotland will have a currency. Salmond is driving a hard bargain to keep a strong position going into any negotiations on the issue, but whether or not he is successful: Scotland will have a working currency. Without the pound, we can either join the Euro or have our own currency. These might cost our economy a little in the short-term, but I think having control over our fiscal policy and being able to address any problems ourselves is a price worth paying. A Scottish currency would be backed by what is already a strong economy and a lot of oil wealth. Will the Pound be as strong when the UK’s oil revenues plummet as it loses 90% of its share of North Sea oil?
I think perhaps the best example to illustrate how little the two issues of the EU and the Pound will mean in the long term is Norway. Norway is not a member of the EU and has its own currency. It is a rampantly successful country in social and economic terms, with the world’s highest standard of living according to the UN’s Human Development Index and the 4th highest GDP per capita in the world. A lot of this wealth came from their share of North Sea oil, something that Scotland will also have when it becomes independent. Norway set up an “oil fund” for its citizens in 1990 so that future generations could reap the benefits – an oil fund that is now worth £500 billion. The UK Government, in control of Scotland’s share of North Sea oil from its discovery in the 1970s, had no such foresight and we haven’t seen quite as much development from our vast natural resources as we could have or should have. There is still as much as 24 billion barrels of oil in the North Sea to extract and industry experts Oil and Gas UK suggest that the oil industry will still “be active beyond 2050”. We have time to put our oil revenues to good use for the people of this country. We also have massive potential with renewable energy, with approximately 25% of Europe’s wind and tidal energy resources that will last long after the oil does run out. Scotland may have its own unique challenges when it becomes independent, but the proof that we can survive without the EU and the Pound is just across the water. And that’s the worst case scenario.
All I want is for what’s best for Scotland, and I think that independence is the best way of making our nation a fairer, more prosperous and better place to live. We have never had an opportunity in our history to assert our will as a people to be free and independent and I think that missing this chance would be something we’d regret. It might be more uncertain, but Scotland’s future would then be OURS to decide.
There is still a month to make up your mind which way you will cast your vote, and if you’re undecided I understand completely. Don’t decide based on the polls or the general consensus of those you know. Look at the arguments, look at the Scotland around you today and decide which option will give us the opportunity to truly make Scotland a better place.
But the way I see it, without independence the Scottish people have no such opportunity, but if we vote Yes we do.