We need to talk. If we're going to
divorce then there needs to be an orderly transition. But some of my
English friends don't seem to grasp the fundamentals, so I'm going to
try to explain why Scotland has to vote 'Yes' in the upcoming
referendum and hope that they will understand and support us.
It has nothing to do with hating the
English. They've been our neighbours since before time was measured
and we live in harmony with them most of the time, but we're
different. The real problem is that my English friends can only see
me through English glasses. They ascribe to a completely different,
a fundamentally different set of norms and values to those that
prevail north of the border and it affects their vision as my life
experience shapes mine.
English kids are brought up with heroes
who represent State and Empire. From Drake, Nelson and Kipling to
Churchill, the Union Jack and the Royal Family, a sense of
Englishness is rooted deep within them from their early years. They
ingest it with their mother's milk and it lasts all of their lives.
State and Empire are so deeply rooted that when Scotland becomes
independent it might be the first country to become independent of
Westminster without a shot being fired. No doubt someone wiser will correct me.
But Scots kids learn about missionaries
like Livingstone and Park who, while deeply involved in expanding the
Empire in reality, are presented as spreading Christian values in
savage worlds. Their heroes are Helen Crawfurd, John Mclean, Willie
Gallacher, Jimmy Reid, Mick McGaghey and others who led ordinary
people in a struggle against the state to improve the lives of
people. (It's just occurred to me that many of my English friends
will never have heard of Helen Crawfurd. She stood with the women of
Glasgow when they defied the English tanks in George Square in
Glasgow in 1919. But it probably didn't make the papers down there).
But back to the point, Scots kids are taught that if they have good
luck it is a gift given to them so that they can improve the lives of
others as well as their own. It's a universal duty of care and share
taught to our kids, which doesn't always last forever but is
sufficiently deep rooted to make us different. I know that this view
is controversial, but please don't tell me an anecdote about a Scot
you met who didn't ascribe to these values, I know as many of them as
you do, and there are many. But producing an anecdote and trying to
pretend that it overwhelms a mass of solid statistical evidence as
presented in social attitude surveys is a particularly Tory strategy
which might fool Sun readers but is really quite shallow. If I
deserve abuse then I'm sure I deserve a better standard of abuse than
that.
In Scotland we try to be a more
compassionate, caring set of people. Put on one side all of the
debate over how much money we get from the Barnett formula. That can
be interpreted by either side to get the result they want. Instead
look at how we spend the money we get. It is used in the main to
improve our society as a whole, to improve the lives of those who
need it, students, the disabled, the elderly and others who in
England are regarded as a drain on the economy, as welfare junkies.
Look at the social attitude surveys and
year after year you will see that we have completely different
aspirations for our society from those that prevail down south. We
integrate our immigrants to the point that they don't ghettoise
themselves, they become part of our society recognising that our
national social values are those to which all caring people can
aspire. I know that in England they feel excluded in the same way as
Scots often do. We don't always understand your ways just as much as
you don't always understand ours. Kindness to strangers is an
inherent part of our national character.
My English friends believe that the
economy will be the deciding factor in the referendum, but they
couldn't be more wrong. The economy and the currency come only half
way up the crucial factors according to respectable independent
polling. It's really more about the psyche of the Scots people. We're
different by choice. It's a set of values instilled in us from
childhood. And it's not something we want to change. We want our
children to have those same values when they grow up. We don't aspire
for them to be rich, only to be comfortable and free of the worry of daily financial struggle. That means a welfare system that provides not
just a safety net but a platform, it shouldn't be the miserable
existence some would wish on them should they fall upon hard times.
That's a sacrifice Scots taxpayers are prepared to make which English
taxpayers seem to resent very deeply. We don't want to fund a
clinging to the last vestiges of Empire by maintaining a grossly
over-large military and a nuclear capability which impresses nobody
in the world, but allows us to intervene in all sorts of foreign wars
so we can claim a seat at the big table. We'd rather have peace and
eat with the staff.
I don't blame my English friends for
not understanding all of this. They can't possibly understand because
their whole lives has been dominated by the values of the society they
were reared in just as mine has. Their views of Scotland have been
peddled to them by a right wing media because they recognise that the
social values we have in Scotland are a danger to the obscene wealth
of their owners. So they have been fed stories of whingeing Jocks and
subsidy junkies to the point where they really believe it. They have
been encouraged to believe that our much valued social housing is an
affront to their property values. Housing for them is sold as a
competitive sport hence the ludicrous concept of a housing ladder
that leaves their kids homeless or burdened with debt. We fight hard
for our social housing but our views have been suppressed and ignored
by various Governments and media consisting of Tories of all shades.
And the bottom line is this. If Jesus
Christ himself came up to encourage us to vote 'No' in the referendum
then I would guarantee that if he had an English accent then he would
be sent homewards to think again and the 'Yes' vote would increase.
We just wont be told that irrespective of whether we vote Yes or No, if Cameron doesn't like it then we are stuck in the status quo. We
wont be told that the pound is non-negotiable. If the pound is strong
then we have suffered the hard work and austerity that has made it
strong along with our English cousins. We have made a proportionate
contribution to its strength, so we wont be treated like that … not
any more. We're not a colony of the Empire and we wont be talked
down to or partonised any more.
The economics are important but not
crucial or anything like as important as the English politicians
think they are. It's all about pride. There's a feeling abroad in
Scotland that it's our time, our opportunity to build the kind of
society we want for ourselves without the English Government that we
didn't elect coming along every five years with the wrecking ball and
setting us back on our heels again.
So I hope my friends down south can
understand that it's not about dislike or malice, it's only about
difference. You have your way and we have ours, for better or worse,
completely and incommensurable paradigms, and if you can't help us in
our hopes then at least don't hinder us. We can do this on our own
but we can do it so much more easily with your co-operation, and you
would end up with a very good friend and neighbour, and you never
know when you'll need a friend.
