Yes, or, No.
The Question:
Should Scotland be an independent country?
As a resident Scotsman, I feel I should blog something of this.
So, here goes!! Big breath!!
This all comes with the caveat of being my personal relationship with the Scottish Referendum.
Once the Scottish National Party (SNP) gained a surprise majority voice in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in 2011 (a surprise because the Parliament Constitution was designed so no single party could have a majority government, unless with overwhelming votes) then a referendum for Scottish Independence was inevitable.
The UK Government agreed it "was for Scotland to decide."
Scottish Government published their white paper in late 2013.
The White Paper is one of the most complex documents relating to a constitution ever published anywhere. It details every aspect of a new nation: from NATO membership through to Eurovision Song Contest entry.
Keeping out of the politics (if possible) I have been hugely interested in the ways this question of independence has been debated by the two campaigns.
The movement for independence for Scotland quickly established themselves as the "YES Campaign".
The YES campaign has revolved around the concept of "positive politics". This is borrowed from the SNP who, in the early 2000s, changed from being a party of protest to one of promises.
The SNP leadership, the story goes, were transformed in their thinking by leader Alex Salmond who had a epiphany when seeking the answer to how to win more votes.
The positivity of their [SNP] election strategies... only started before the 2007 election following a workshop with the Really Effective Development Company where, amongst other things, they learned about Martin Seligman's research on how it's the most optimistic candidate in American presidential elections who usually wins. - http://www.scottishreview.net/CarolCraig172.shtml
Later, at the training day, the SNP leadership sat down to an activity to demonstrate the new way. They each put down a pile of coins in front of themselves and were asked to make political arguments on policy subjects. Each time one of them made a negative argument to support their stance, that person had to give a coin away. Once out of coins, you were no longer heard.
The outcome was a Party which talked only of what good things it could do - accentuate the positives of everything, deny or ignore the dissenters and refuse to engage with those who queried their statements.
Other parties looked outdated and out thought in contrast and the result was for all to see in 2011. It was a form of political Barcelona tika-taka.
The YES campaign has taken this philosophy to his heart. The campaign strategy is built on it. Led by Alex Salmond and his government, the campaign made an easy transition to this style. It even improved on it: The YES campaign has a "happiness guru" providing coaching for those speaking publically on behalf of the campaign. They don't talk about "freedom" but "opportunity".
Because of this, the YES campaign, ironically, claim a non-political elite movement. YES are keen to repeat they are a "grass routes movement" with and for the people of Scotland. They don't discuss voters, but "the People of Scotland". YES say independence is a vote for the confidence residents of Scotland have in themselves and each other in making independence a success. The YES campaign has been marked by a happy band of supporters with smiles, music, jokes and a ferocious embracing of social media, with activists openly and relentlessly sharing their views and political arguments on social media. Even the campaign leaders are taking obligatory "selfies" with those attending rallies.
YES supporters enjoy being part of what they view is enlightened politics and striving for something better than they, and equally everyone else, already have.
They do not refer to the Battle of Bannockburn, but of future grandchildren's Scotland.
It is cool socialism for the 21st century. Hell, YES campaigners even refer to an independent Scotland as "iScotland" because this socialism is as cool as Apple.
YES, in positioning itself as the positive, condemns all those who don't agree as negative, scared and bereft of ambition. In the main, the campaign has remained steadfast in it positivity, however, as with all grass route movements, The YES campaign does have a militant side.
Commonly referred to as "cyber-nats", these are members of the campaign who actively direct ire on any and all who do not share the YES view. Think of them as the crazy Directioners who post threats to kill any one who announces the like a Taylor Swift song, and you're sort of there and also have an idea on how they should be treated.
Essentially the YES argument for independence is this:
The residents of Scotland are better served by a universal and direct Political Will in Scotland.
The campaign against an Independence Scotland have called themselves Better Together.
Better Together is a different concept to YES.
Happy to be called and call themselves the "NO Campaign", Better Together positions itself as the realist to the YES idealist.
Recently the Better Together campaign changed their stance from NO to NO THANKS. With a heart shape round it. This seemed to be a reaction to soften the message when the common view is Better Together is running a negative campaign.
Better Together has run the campaign as one of posing questions (What will the strength of the financial sector be in an Independent Scotland? Where will an Independent Scotland be seen on the international stage?) with their leader, Alistair Darling answering them: Scotland is better served by being in a union with the other nations of the United Kingdom.
It has been a campaign which has called out the risks to YES policy rather than making an argument for maintaining the Union.
Although separate from the UK Government, it has relayed a number of policy decisions which the UK Government have since been drawn upon.
The Better Together campaign has been marked by running along more traditional party political lines. The activists, too, are in a more traditional role of holding banners and shouting slogans and - in the likes of the Orange Order - have... er... uber-traditional supporters.
Like the main campaign, the Better Together support has been less vocal than YES. As the campaign has gone on, Better Together supporters have found a voice similar to YES and now enjoy active participation online and through social media.
Their supporters, too, have their minority of militants who enjoy disrupting events and making ridiculous Twitter death threats.
The stance and statement of Better Together is this:
Scotland is in a stronger position within the safety of the United Kingdom infrastructure.
The national debate has been going on in Scotland for over 3 years now.
Because of the Scottish Government decision to allow all residents of Scotland, including 16 year olds to vote (people who should have been concerned with underage drinking and just how did Ted meet his children's mother, for the past 3 years), the largest demographic ever has been invited to join in the national discussion.
There has been volumes of newspaper commentary written, screeds of online comments uploaded, televised rabbles hopefully termed "debates" and enough spoken about it to send a hot-air balloon to Mars.
We've had YES badges and No lollipops, leaflets, rallies, community hall speakers.
We've been subjected to propaganda posters, great big wooden signs in gardens, LED signs in city apartment windows, sexist campaign adverts, a frankly bizarre ill-judged declaration of opinion by Ross Kemp:
We've had President Obama talk about it, Alan Cumming fly over and give a view and Groundskeeper Willie chip in:
We've argued if we can keep the UK currency, continue to drive on the left and if we'll need to smuggle in episodes of Doctor Who from off rowing boats in Leith Docks.
I've heard the YES campaign promise what's important in an Independent Scotland will be to keep the pound, keep the Royal Family, retain EU membership, still watch the BBC i-player, and have free interaction with England as we do now and, in practice, be no different at all from how we live in Scotland today if it is a Yes vote. And I've heard Better Together promise what matters in Scotland is new powers of budget and taxation, improved benefits packages, better employment opportunities and better living standards and these changes will come with a No vote.
At times, I won't lie - it's been odd.
Scotland is now a nation of economic experts, oil industry directors and we all have a copy of the Lisbon Treaty annotated in our own hand hanging on the kitchen wall.
The turnout for the vote on Thursday 18th is expected to be somewhere between 80-93%. This is amazing. If the referendum has achieved one thing all sides can be happy with, it is in engaging the electorate. It has been an interesting time to live in Scotland.
And now, with less than a week to go where has it got us? According to the polls the result is too close to call.
In the past month the campaigning has predictably ramped up, as a consequence.
Suddenly the English media has moved up North to stand on picturesque hills in Edinburgh and at the side of the River Clyde in Glasgow, the Scottish media has extended it's journalistic programming. It is on every terrestrial channel. All the time. The referendum debate is literally washing over us in (air)waves.
The social media has become electrified in gibber: some from those ineligible to vote now trying to get their head's around a 3 year long conversation realising the potential implications that's only getting more heated and involved, the rest from people (like me!) deciding we need to have some form of outpouring of a view before it's over.
The UK Prime Minister said this was a decision solely for the Scottish residents. Perhaps a clever move, given his own political persuasion not being popular North of Berwick Upon Tweed. Last week he and the other UK party leaders came over the boarder to make an appeal on behalf of the Better Together campaign.
And why? Because, well, YES might just get the most votes.
How has it come to this? Surely the case for either side should have been made beyond all doubt by now?
For me, the reason is based in the arguments made by each side.
The YES stance has maintained a single position. It has been unabashedly positive and populist. It has only spoken of the best possible outcome. There is enough resources, employment and wealth to be taken in Scotland to lower taxation, increase child care, remove food banks and in the future probably create a 4 day working week.
YES has worked the positive stats almost to breaking point.
It has campaigned hard over the 3 years. It has adapted to the new ways to reach the hearts and minds of voters. It has been a slick operation from the beginning.
This is not a surprise. In Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon YES has the 2 most effective political campaigners and speakers arguably in Britain right now. With cross-party support coming from minor parties (the Greens and independents) compared to the SNP, YES has not needed to compromise their vision. The SNP is largely in control have been preparing for this for 30 years and it shows.
By determinedly only accepting the most positive line, YES have been susceptible to the Better Together Campaign when asked to consider any potential difficulties. The YES response has been one of incredulity and to accuse Better Together of being "Project Fear".
Interestingly, the Better Together campaign have never said Scotland couldn't be independent, despite YES building the straw argument to knock down.
If this was a vote on the best campaign, YES would win in a landslide.
The campaign has stuttered and failed to get a momentum apace with YES.
Better Together, has struggled to maintain a single line of argument. Unlike YES, the parties involved have more to lose if Better Together win. All of a sudden the campaign will split after the vote and the parties will return to their individual polices. For the Conservatives to be seen agreeing too much with Labour (and vice versa) may well come to mean a loss of core voters come the election season.
Better Together have kept with a line instead, therefore, of not offering a coherent future vision, but entrenched in attacking the YES policies as being "wishful thinking" and the White Paper as the "longest suicide note in history". Better Together talk of risks an uncertainty which come with stepping out and becoming independent.
Better Together have been complacent. They quite possibly felt the Scottish population would come to the "sensible" conclusion and vote comprehensively to stay within the Union so why divert too much effort.
Better Together has only really started to talk about the benefits for Scotland to remain in the UK latterly. It has only begun to talk to voters in a constructive manner. The reason is surely because they have seen the polls tighten.
All of this has culminated in every point being rebutted from both sides. Arguments have raged to a standstill.
Here is an example of the sort of thing (reconstruction, not actual verbatim):
YES: We will keep the pound sterling, with a currency union with the Bank of England.
NO: The UK Government say Scotland will not have a currency union, so what then?
YES: We will. The UK Government, as part of Project Fear, is bluffing.
NO: The UK Government is not bluffing. You need a another option.
YES: It is in the UK Government Treasury's best interest to join a currency union with an independent Scotland, so we will keep the pound in a currency union.
NO: You can't. The UK Government is not making that union possible.
YES: That's nonsense. Wait and see.
NO: That's nonsense.
Good, glad that's cleared up.
NO: Only with a No vote will powers be guaranteed.
YES: Name 6 powers Scotland will get with you.
NO: Er...
YES: You can't because there is none. I can name 6, 7, 15, 50 detailed powers right now a Yes vote will give.
NO: You make promises you can't possibly keep. You will not have the resources.
YES: Why are you scaremongering? You know we do. Think of the future!
NO: Why are you not being realistic? You know you don't. Think of the future!
Excellent. Much clearer.
Both sides talk about trusting the People of Scotland with the facts to base their vote on, not relying on old political party politics. What has happened is politicians unable to agree any fact at all and debate shamefully with only their own power and point-scoring as priority. Someone has to be right - why not admit it?
Both sides talk about ignoring "personality" politics, yet both sides are quick to call out the other on their "snake-oil salesmen" and "smug, toff classed" opponents.
Both sides talk about making the arguments for the common man and woman on the street to relate to then discuss university grade economics and the ins and outs of nuclear decommissioning.
There is no facts, no actual trust, only campaign approved, self serving "truths". No wonder the population is completely split.
What then, of my vote?
I've read, I've listened, I've had conversations... and I'm no further understanding it all. All arguments have a counter argument. No one can say what the political plane will be like in 5 years, 25 or 100 years from now.
A Yes vote might be a cure for Scotland, or put the lunatics in charge of the asylum. The No vote might keep us on a ship to navigate the storms, or have us in the cargo hold as it crashes on the rocks.
Will an independent Scotland settle into a successful nation, will it have to become more right-wing as it evolves separately, will it lose its international presence and be swallowed up, will it be a country modern designed to survive better than any of the old western ones?
I don't know.
This is the fault of both campaigns. I considered not using my vote. Neither deserved it.
Then I had another idea. There is someone I detest. Thanks to the penchant for people placing posters of YES and NO THANKS in their window I actually know which way they are going to vote. Now, I don't know if independence will be the right or wrong thing, but I know on the 19th September, as sure as the sun rises and sets, I'll still detest that guy. So I'm going to use my vote for spite and negate theirs.
....
....
This last bit is a joke, obviously. Please don't panic. I have taken this all very seriously. I will vote with my best intentions. But there is no way I am publically saying which way. My friend Jaf sums up my thinking pretty well on that here.
Well, that's it. Back to blogs about Scottish things which amuse me from here on! Fun things like this.
OH! Actually, it turns out this is part one of a two part blog! If you'd like to read the second, superior part where I write about the 18th and 19th of September, please vote now:
Should I read the Second Part of this blog?
NO [ ]
YES [X]
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