On Sept. 18 Scotland held a referendum with one simple question on the ballot: Should Scotland be an independent country? Yes or no.
In a 55-45% split, Scotland voted “no” on the referendum, choosing to maintain their 300-year relationship with England. As Americans and as Notre Dame students, this choice can seem bewildering.
In the wake of a “no” vote, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world is asked to determine what this referendum means for the future. Scotland’s ultimately unsuccessful move towards independence still demands that England take action to mend that relationship.
In the days leading up to the referendum, it was clear that while the “no” vote was definite, Scotland and England were #bettertogether, many still believe Scotland deserved more freedom. Perhaps one of the most internationally prominent proponents of the “no” movement was J.K. Rowling, whose Twitter the weeks before the referendum was a mass of “no” support.
She tweeted, at one point, her hope that “Devo Max” would be offered to Scotland if they voted to stay with the U.K. and her regret that the option had not been included on the ballot originally. “Devo Max” stands for devolution max. It is system which would grant Scotland most of the powers of an independent nation, short of defense and foreign affairs.
Now that Scotland has voted “no,” British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a program to give further fiscal powers to the Scottish Paliament, according to an article on EurActiv.com. How far these powers will go remains to be decided.
Of course, the future of Scotland was not the only interesting issue dredged up in the debate surrounding the referendum. Scotland is not the only region that has ever looked at freeing itself from a larger world power but it is one of the only to have the chance to peacefully change that situation.
A week before the vote, the New York Times published an article comparing how the Scottish movement towards independence has inspired other separatist movements. The article featured interviews with people from Flanders, Kurdistan Taiwan, the Basque Country, and even Texas. The interest in what was going on in Scotland was widespread and clear, even if it was unsolicited.
Perhaps even more interestingly, the New York Times published a later article examining how the reasons behind the Scottish referendum are not unique to the U.K. In fact, the writer postulates that the movement is emblematic of world-wide issue, something he calls “a global crisis of the elites.”
Neil Irwin compares the Scottish independence movement to movements like the Tea Party in the U.S. On the surface, this makes little to no sense as the Scottish movement would have had more social welfare programs for its people and was a little vague on the economics side of the argument.
Irwin compared the two movements in that they both express major discontent with government the way it stands.
“Power is not a right; it is a responsibility. The choice that the Scots [made] on Thursday is about whether the men and women who rule Britain messed up things so badly that they would rather go it alone. And so the results will ripple through world capitals from Athens to Washington: People don’t think the way things are going is good enough, and voters are getting angry enough to want to do something about it,” Irwin wrote.
Perhaps the most significant thing about this segment is Irwin’s recognition that the very need for the referendum indicates that something has to change. The question that was really asked on that ballot was whether the Scots believed the U.K. government could fix what it had broken. Evidently, things were not so bad as to need a complete split (though, only according to 55% of the people).
The American psyche is not created to understand the impulse to stay with a conquering nation. Two days before the vote, Buzzfeed interviewed Americans on their thoughts about the Scottish Referendum.
Of those Buzzfeed reported on, most did not know about the referendum before the article. Still, many decided to form an entirely uninformed opinion anyway. Nearly all of the Americans featured in the article encouraged Scotland to vote “yes” on the referendum.
A quick perusal of the issues surrounding the referendum give pretty clear reasons as to why people would have wanted to vote no. Forbes called Scottish Independence an “economic disaster” even before it was voted on and the pure economic uncertainty surrounding the idea was truly horrifying to most economists looking at the situation.
At the core of the debate was the currency question. It was never made clear as to what currency an independent Scotland would use. This was because there was no clear sign that Britain would allow them to continue to use the pound and there was no clear sign they would be allowed to enter the E.U. After being part of the U.K. for 300 years, Scotland may have been forced to create their own currency, without an established national bank system to support them.
In terms of the economic fall out, some issues were almost definite to appear. A week before the vote, the first poll predicting a “yes” vote was released. This poll, the only one of its kind, actually caused a ripple effect in the stock markets. Yes, Scottish and British stocks actually experienced a decline because of a singular poll predicting that Scotland would be independent. Imagine what could have happened if “yes” had won.
The sheer length of the relationship was enough to give some people pause. What would it mean if Scotland was independent? That had never happened in the modern world and customs from 300 years ago would hardly be applicable in the modern-day. From an American perspective, consider that Scotland has been a part of the U.K. for longer than the U.S. has been a country. That’s not a transition that could possibly be easy.
All this said, there were plenty of reasons why this was even brought to a vote in the first place. It was primarily a sovereignty issue. The Scottish people were questioning whether they would be better served by a smaller, more local government that could worry about Scottish needs rather than weighing them against the needs of a much larger nation the way the U.K. must.
There was something almost romantic in the idea of an independent Scotland that captured the mind of separatists and nationalists everywhere. At a school where the mascot is the Fighting Irish, the Notre Dame student body can definitely more easily relate to the desire to be free. For that reason, the “no” vote can seem incredibly disappointing. In places where the need for an independent nation is perhaps more pronounced, Scotland’s decision to stay with England leaves them exactly where they were, without any guidance for a peaceful peace process. Though, in some ways, the possibility of a peaceful independence process might negate the need for such a move anyway. After all, it’s not really tyranny if staying is a choice.
The general consensus seems to be that Scotland made the right choice in staying with the United Kingdom. From an economic standpoint, there doesn’t seem to be much disagreement. A perusal of news after the fact shows that there is still a lot of work to be done to make both nations happy again but, for now, the most fantastical bit is over.
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