Scottish independence hangs on to a narrow lead heading to referendum day

The Yes vote has taken a narrow lead, but the vote is too close to call ahead of September 18’s vote on Scottish independence. Increasingly, however, many Scots are saying ‘what have we got to lose by separating from a London-centric United Kingdom?’

The Yes vote has taken a narrow lead, but the vote is too close to call ahead of September 18’s vote on Scottish independence. Increasingly, however, many Scots are saying ‘what have we got to lose by separating from a London-centric United Kingdom?’

There has always been a vocal minority in Scotland happy to express animosity towards the English. Famously, whenever England has lost a football match, this group has loudly cheered those defeats in pubs up and down Scotland. But the majority of Scots hold no ill-will towards the English and if they are to end their 307-year intermarriage with England, the motivations must be sought elsewhere. 

If there is not anti-Englishness, there may be something akin to anti-London feeling in Scotland. The Scots have debated their position in the UK passionately for two years and they are acutely aware of the deep fissures in the British economy. The OECD says London and the rest of the South East contributes 35% of UK economic output. In comparison, New York generates 7.3% of national GDP. In the last four years, Government figures indicate that London has created four fifths of new jobs, whereas Britain’s next nine largest cities have accounted for a meagre 10% of net private sector jobs. 

[quote] “In the UK, more and more power is centralized and the London domination of the economy is of grave concern to the regions,” said Dan Macdonald, one of Scotland’s leading property investors who set up the influential N-56 Scottish economic policy think-tank. [/quote] 

“London’s dominant financial sector provides great benefits to London, but there’s a growing feeling in Scotland that the rest of the UK doesn’t see as much benefit. It’s not just about Scotland, of course. If we compare London with mid-Wales the contrast is startling. Mid-Wales has been devastated in the post-industrial post-mining period. It’s obscene that we have allowed that situation to develop.”

MacDonald says the UK Government, since the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, has been locked into centralist thinking. [quote] “The centralist perspective is so deep-rooted in the political and economic culture of Britain that they can’t do anything about it. Something dramatic needs to be happen from the periphery before there are changes,” he said. [/quote]

That dramatic event could well occur on September 18. The Yes campaign had been trailing for months, but the most recent poll for YouGov gives it a two-point lead. The under-40s, working class and women voters are all shifting towards the Yes camp.  

In many ways, independence for Scotland would be the culmination of a gradual process. Scotland has long had separate legal and education systems. But the nation’s sense of autonomy has grown since Westminster granted devolved powers to the Parliament of Scotland from 1999. 

[quote] “The Scottish parliament has made a huge difference to Scottish confidence,” said Dr Michael Rosie, senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. “Social surveys show the Scottish have much higher levels of trust in the Scottish Parliament than in Westminster. Last year, 59% of Scots expected the Scottish Government to make decisions in Scotland’s best interests compared to 26% for the UK Government.” [/quote]

The Scottish Parliament has embodied a national sense of social and political difference by diverging frequently from England on key issues. It opted to keep university tuition fees free for Scottish students as they soared to a maximum of £9,000 in England from 2012; it voted to scrap the right to buy council houses from 2016, abandoning a key Thatcherite policy; and it has refused to allow the Scottish National Health Service to succumb to the creeping privatization which is occurring to the NHS in England and Wales. 

Meanwhile, there has been a shift in the Scottish psyche. The Scottish sense of distance and estrangement from the hotbed of British power has intensified. The question on many Scottish lips is “why should we be ruled by David Cameron’s Tory party in London, when Scotland has only one Tory Party MP?”

The Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond – a charismatic and brilliant debater – has driven the Yes vote forward. A trained economist, Salmond has spoken authoritatively about Scotland’s economic prospects. In his vision, the smaller Scandinavian nations offer a superior model. Neighbouring Norway, for example, also has a small population of five million, but has used its oil revenues to build a national pension fund worth more than £360 billion. Scotland could do the same with its large deposits of North Sea oil, he argues. Salmond claims that an independent Scotland could raise £54 billion in oil revenues over five years. He bases his calculations on the oil industry having an “asset base” of £1 trillion, including reserves. He also envisages Scotland’s huge offshore wind and tidal energy capacity creating 100% of electricity by 2020. 

Dan MacDonald has a lot of respect for Salmon’s economic thinking. He describes him as “by far the best economist we have with the most far-reaching, innovative thinking”. Unsurprisingly, much of Salmond’s vision is echoed in the N-56 “Scotland Means Business” 33-page economic blueprint for an independent Scotland. 

The report was authored by London’s Capital Economics and its vision is neo-liberal rather than social-democratic. Much of the programme would be business-as-usual in the UK.  Mark Pragnell, head of commissioned projects at Capital Economics, said: “Whether independent or not, Scotland and the rest of the UK should ensure a stable regulatory framework, competitive tax regime and sensible immigration policies to retain talent in Scotland and attract individuals to work in the sector from elsewhere as well as more company divisional or corporate headquarters to locate there.” 

The N-56 report says Scotland must copy the best things from several countries. Infrastructure development, for example, could be financed by Scottish Infrastructure Bonds – a similar system has worked well in Singapore. New Zealand’s 100% Pure national brand would be the model for a Scottish exports strategy and Denmark’s development of its wind turbine sector could prompt investment in renewable energy.

Smaller nations are excellent role models for Scotland, MacDonald believes. OECD figures say Scotland would be the 14th wealthiest economy in the world based on GDP per capita, ahead of the UK. The IMF suggests most of the world’s richest countries are small nations, including Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden and Iceland.

[quote] “Contrary to what most people think, smaller nations are more successful economically. We want to benchmark ourselves against New Zealand and Scandinavia. We think we can become the fifth-richest economy on the world,” said MacDonald. [/quote]

MacDonald is also aware that the UK has become one of the most unequal countries in the Western world. Over the past two decades, the richest 0.1% of the UK population has seen its wealth grow almost four times faster than 90% of the population. Meanwhile, food poverty has climbed and last year saw a 19% increase in people hospitalized for malnutrition. “Inequality is one of the major driving forces behind the Scottish independence movement. We don’t want to see all the food banks in Scotland. It’s the biggest issue we face after independence,” he said.

MacDonald shares Alex Salmond’s faith that a low taxation economy is compatible with greater social equality. Like Salmond, the N-56 think-tank favours lowering corporation taxes. “Ireland has led the way in this respect,” said MacDonald. “They’ve attracted lots of research and development industries to Ireland and led the way in some areas of medical science as a result.”

But not everyone agrees lowering taxation is consistent with creating more egalitarian societies along Scandinavian lines. [quote]Michael Keating, the author of Small Nations In A Big World, said: “The Scandinavian countries have high levels of social investment the public sector provides around 30% of jobs. They usually have high levels of taxation – close to 50% – and social partnerships where employers, unions and government get together to make long-term plans,” he said. “The UK, including Scotland, is a very different market-driven economy rather than a more negotiated one. So Scotland could make the shift, but it would take time and it would be costly.” [/quote]

Keating says a weakness of Salmond’s vision is he refuses to abandon key elements of neo-liberalism. “Salmond hasn’t faced up to the tax implications of his policies. He wants to keep taxes pretty much as they are and even cut corporation tax. Neither do I see a willingness in Scotland to engage in Scandinavian-style social partnerships. The trade unions are up for it, but they are out of the game at the moment,” he said. 

The Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins also rejected Salmond’s Scandinavian vision: “His socialist heaven of tax and spend, floating on a lake of oil, must be rubbish. He offers voters an extra £1,000 a head after independence, when the reality must be public sector belt tightening. Scotland’s budget would lose Treasury underpinning. Its borrowing would be at risk. Its ministers would be on their mettle. Financial crisis would lead to Greek-style austerity, whereupon voters would chuck Salmond out. The Tories might even revive as the party of discipline and offshore capitalism.”

But despite his misgivings Jenkins comes out in favour of independence for Scotland. “I would vote yes because Salmond’s lies would precipitate a crisis that would lead to a leaner, meaner Scotland, one bolstered by the well-known advantages of newborn states and more intimate governments……It would be driven towards true self-sufficiency, capable of resembling Denmark, Norway, Ireland or Slovakia as a haven for fleet-footed entrepreneurs.”

Whatever happens on September 18, Scotland’s raging political debates will have widespread consequences for the whole of the UK. It seems increasingly likely that a federal structure will emerge in England. The North of England – an area roughly three times the size of Scotland– feels the same frustrations as Scotland. But the Northern regions have not been granted independent parliaments, and the economic issues of the North are marginalized in the London-centric English media. 

But the Scottish referendum campaign has set much of the North thinking. [quote] “The genie is now out of the bottle,” said Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester city council. “We’re now on a slow road to devolution in England as well.” [/quote]

In this respect, the result of the Scottish referendum does not matter. In England’s North West, Yorkshire and the North East, the devolution word is already being spoken. Whatever the vote on September 18, the whole of the UK has been changed forever.