A Free Left Blog

Around 45% of people voting in Scotland’s independence referendum voted for a separation of Scotland from the United Kingdom, and therefore a severing of the Scottish from the British. As media interviews with Scots during the campaign seemed to show, this desire for severing and separation came largely from a resentment of, dislike and contempt for ‘the English’, who have been perceived to be doing all sorts of nasty things to the Scots from their remote base in London or specifically Westminster. This is quite an interesting phenomenon on a number of levels, not least for how it shows how similar feelings north and south of the border can be funnelled in different directions by the action of opinion – otherwise known as politics. The Scottish nationalists have shown how effective they are at this, though alas not effective enough to win the referendum. This distaste for ‘Westminster elites’ as spat out by angry Scots is actually largely shared, though not in such org...

Scotland is a great nation. It already is and always will be, within the union or out of it.  But the United Kingdom is a great entity of its own: an accident of history that gives space for different nations and different peoples to express themselves within a bigger whole: a union of nations and peoples. That is something special and almost unique within the world.  But it will be damaged, perhaps irrevocably, if Scotland departs. To me, the Scots Independence debate seems to have shown a yearning not so much for separation, but rather for a state and a country that means something - for a better democracy.  I think we can (and definitely should) all share that aspiration, but the idea that Scotland by cutting loose will be free from the denationalising forces of global wealth and power that bear down on us and our governments is fanciful – if anything it will be more vulnerable to them, as will the rest of us. There will be positive aspects in coming to term...