This isn't a rant or anything, it's just that some people have asked me in mumble/steam about the whole Scottish independence thing and what I think about it - I'm not good at answering that kind of thing off the top of my head so I'm gonna write it out here. Hopefully it'll interest some of you
Here's the background. In Britain there are traditionally three main parties: Labour on the left, Conservatives (a.k.a the Tories) on the right and the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) somewhere in the middle. Let's rewind to the 80s, when Margaret Thatcher of the Conservatives was Prime Minister. In what I'll admit is an oversimplified version of events, the Tories introduced the ill-advised poll tax - a tax toward which everyone paid the same amount of money, making it unfair to the working class - and decided to give it a trial run in Scotland before rolling out across the UK. Scotland, which has almost always been more left-leaning than England, wanted Thatcher's head on a plate for this. Tory support has never been the same since. In fact, right now there is only one elected Tory candidate
across the whole of Scotland, despite them being in power in the UK.
Fast forward to more recent times and Labour continued to receive more or less popular support in Scotland, with the Lib Dems getting elected in the far north, Highlands/Islands areas. But then the big economic crash happened, the entire world (more or less) went into recession and shit hit the fan. As Labour were in power at the time they got the blame, which personally I think is a bit unfair given that this was an unprecedented, worldwide event, but there y'go. The result is that Scottish people aren't voting Labour and they aren't voting Tory either.
So that leaves the Lib Dems... sort of. The thing with the Lib Dems is that they'd always been the least popular of the three big parties. Off the top of my head I don't think they've ever been in power outside of the current coalition government. Voting for them has historically been a bit of a pointless vote.
Alright then, the Tories hate Scotland, Gordon Brown has personally ruined the economy and it turns out the Lib Dems are mythical creatures.* What's the alternative? The alternative is the SNP - the Scottish National Party.
*Sarcasm intentional
Thing is, I think voting SNP has generally been a pretty good idea, even without process of elimination. When you're voting for a local representative you want a person who's going to fight for local causes, and to give them their due our local SNP reps have generally been alright at that. When you're best positioned to appeal to people at a more local level you're going to get the local vote, and that's what happened right across Scotland. And so the SNP became the majority power in the Scottish Parliament.
But the thing is, one of the key goals of the SNP was to hold a referendum on Scottish independence. And so they did. And this is my main problem with the whole independence thing:
we didn't elect them because we wanted to have the independence conversation - we elected them because they were the best alternative to the 3 main parties - and we almost certainly wouldn't even be thinking about independence if the SNP weren't in power. Continuing devolution of powers from Westminster to Scotland had been working well, and I don't see why it won't continue to do so in the future if the 'no' vote goes through. I firmly believe that there is no need or appetite for any more drastic change than this. And independence is a really, really, *reeeaaallllllyyy* fucking drastic change.
There's more to it than that, I might get into it if there's any interest in this thread, but this post is already very long and that both gives you some background and covers the the biggest reason why I think independence is a bad idea.
Why, then, are so many people voting yes? I've noticed that a lot of 'yes' voters I've talked to are people who desperately want a change in their life. Maybe they're struggling financially, or they're from a shitty neighbourhood, or something like that. And then suddenly, independence is this big, glamorous idea that promises to solve all their problems. I think it's very easy to underestimate the destabilising effects of independence and overestimate the improvements it claims to bring when you're in a crappy situation.
There are loads of other reasons but from the conversations I've had I'm guessing that's the biggest one. I could also talk about suspicions of people not bothering to engage with politics the rest of the time and just assuming the system is broken, and that some Scottish people (morons) just plain hate the English, but then that's partly true and, if I was being honest with myself, partly me being patronising.
So! That's independence as I see it. Basically it's a bad idea and doesn't have anything to do Mel Gibson. For the record, I wear kilts to weddings and similar formal occasions, I memorised Burns's "A Man's A Man For A' That" and then forgot it like a week later, I thought Braveheart was shit and I tried to watch Highlander but couldn't get past how 70s it was. AND I fucking love haggis. Seriously, you should try haggis from a proper butcher if you haven't before, shit's awesome
tl;dr haggis