State of the Union
Aug. 11th, 2014 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rich_jackoIn a little over five weeks' time, Scotland will vote on whether or not to leave the UK. Opinions from those I talk to vary between those (like me) who hope the Scots vote to remain part of the Union, those who feel envious of the opportunity theys have, and (less kindly) those who wish they'd just hurry up and bugger off already.
I watched the first televised leaders debate last week (no thanks to STV!). It didn't really help. Darling had some good points but failed to elaborate or hammer them home. Salmond had the stronger opening and closing statements, but in-between he was simply awful. He repeatedly equated the UK with England in an attempt to turn the whole thing into a nationalistic pissing contest. Then he wasted the entire cross-examination round on personal attacks and trivialities about who said what and when. Apparently Scotland should vote for the biggest constitutional shake-up in 300 years because Alistair Darling was a bad chancellor six years ago (he wasn't) and one of his colleagues once made a crap joke about taxes from outer space. Seriously?
So if the debate didn't help, what is it all about?
Democracy? What democracy?
The main point seems to be political self-determination. A lot of spin gets put on this. Alex Salmond would have you forget that every Scottish voter has just as much say over electing the Westminster Parliament as every English, Welsh or Northern Irish voter. (Well, not quite as much as the Welsh, since Wales has smaller constituencies, but no one seems to be campaigning about that, so we'll ignore it.) Scotland's voting habits aren't vastly different from lots of other parts of the UK. It's a myth to say no Scots vote Conservative - 17% did at the last general election, only slightly behind the SNP's 20%. A disproportionate number of Scottish MPs have held Cabinet roles over the years, including the top two jobs in the last Government (Yeah, thanks so much for Gordon Brown, Scotland!).
The argument, however, is that Scottish votes don't tend to sway the overall outcome. Well, yes. Scotland represents just over 8% of the UK electorate, so you might expect that. Also, Scotland would never vote for the Tories in a majority, but so what? The difficulty with these arguments is that they have no obvious end point. Should the Home Counties become an independent country because they never vote for a Labour majority? Should Sheffield go its own way so that it never gets the Tories either? Within Scotland, there are plenty of folk in the highlands and islands who resent central belt dominated politics - Should they each become independent from the rest?
That's not to say there isn't a problem here and we should just have the one government. Population-wise, the UK is quite a large and diverse country. Politically and economically, we are far too focussed on London, to the detriment of investment, jobs, culture and other political attention and economic activity elsewhere in the UK. Cultural investment per capita is 15 times greater in London than elsewhere, certainly in England. There are huge complaints about the cost of investing in high speed rail up north, but no one bats an eyelid at blowing £30 billion plus on Crossrail to get from one side of the capital to the other. Lots of parts of the UK, from Scotland to Yorkshire to Cornwall, are calling out for more political clout.
Are we really "better together"?
I don't think separatism is the answer. There are some things which are simply more effective when done at the UK level. The size of our economy (6th largest in the world) gives us a strong presence on the international stage. Most visibly, our armed forces can play a big role in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions around the world. Of course, not everyone agrees with our military actions, but there are plenty of other ways being a larger country is useful. Just to take one specific example I'm familiar with - My team at work has some occasional involvement in international trade deals. It's remarkable how much effort goes into securing a good deal for Scotch whisky exports. Offering a market of 64 million customers in return allows the UK to negotiate a much better deal than Scotland (5.3 million customers) would on its own.
You can't, however, raise that sort of example (or anything else) with the SNP as a positive aspect of the union. Their standard tactic is to spin every positive into a negative, call it scaremongering and accuse you of saying Scotland couldn't cope on it's own. Of course it could, but would it be as well off and influential as it is as part of a bigger union? There are some who would say it doesn't matter that Scotland would have a smaller voice; the important point is that it would be its own voice.
Sentiment comes into it a lot. I will admit to loving this mad, patchwork union of nations of ours. I feel English and British in equal measure. It sounds trite to say it, but if Scotland were to separate we would become further apart. That's down to so many little things. We'd go from being economic partners to competitiors. We have so much shared history and culture together. We watch most of the same telly and hear about each other's news and weather. We wave the same flag for Team GB and cheer the same sports teams in competitions where the UK competes together. Andy Murray winning Wimbledon was great because it was his home competition. If Scotland wasn't in the UK, it would be just another foreign grand slam for Scottish fans and just another foreigner winning for English fans. National identity is about so much more than whichever set of vile politicians you least object to being governed by, but even being able to bitch about the same politicians unites us.
Vive la devolution!
If not independence, what is the answer then? I'm a firm believer in decisions being taken at the most appropriate level. Some things, like those mentioned above, are best done at the UK level. Others are best done on a smaller focus. Scotland already has powers over its own health, education, justice, and several other areas. Even if there is a "No" vote, it will get more power over tax and welfare. Scots are not unique in wanting more of a focus away from Westminster. Why not the same for other parts of the UK?
More devolution then. It's already there for three of the four nations. Devolution for England has been tried before but unfortunately fell flat on its face. A "North East Assembly" was rejected in a referendum and the whole project quietly dropped through lack of support. The current government's plan of "more powers for cities" seems equally doomed to fail. Part of the reason is that the powers on offer in both schemes are utterly pathetic compared to what Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have. Another is the unwillingness to create another layer of government. A sense of shared identity is clearly important too - hence all the Saltires being waved in the "Yes" campaign - and no one really identified with the European/government office regions in the 2004 scheme.
So what's my solution? Lots of similar sized or smaller countries than the UK operate successful federal systems, with most power devolved to individual states/territories/cantons. I'd go for a fully federal UK, with equal powers devolved down to each constituent part. There'd be a much slimmed down central government to deal with the UK-level stuff (foreign affairs, defence, interest rates, etc).
Because I wanted to, I had a play with the map and came up with this :o)
In my fantasy UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be devolved as now. England would be devolved into an approximation of the old Saxon kingdoms (plus Cornwall, which as any Cornish person will tell you, wasn't originally part of the heptarchy!). I've fiddled it a bit to reflect modern boundaries, particularly the England/Scotland border - Much as Northumbria might want Edinburgh back, I suspect the Scots won't let it go. But hey, borders were fairly fluid back in the eighth century, so a bit of cheating's allowed! The point is these are areas people still identify with, often quite strongly. We are a country of history nerds. The kingdoms all still have surviving flags. Many of their names survive in things like regional police forces or radio stations. Cornwall and Mercia have their own separatist movements at least; others may have ones I don't know about.
It could of course be done in numerous different ways. Maybe Greater London should be separate from Essex (although some may feel they deserve each other...). Maybe if London is separate, the smaller south-eastern "kingdoms" would want to join together. Maybe the whole of England minus London could be a single devolved region, though I doubt that would work. There are some who would want Yorkshire to be separate from Northumbria, though I must admit one of the reasons I did it this way is I rather like the idea of being part of a devolved Northumbria. Comprising everywhere that identifies itself as the north of England, it would be awesome - With a population of nearly 15 million and several of the UK's largest cities, it could be a real economic powerhouse. Five of those cities have shown just last week that they can work together to produce grand plans for developing our region.
Is this all a pipe dream? Maybe, maybe not. There just needs to be the will to make it happen. It's true turkeys don't vote for Christmas, but there'd be enough devolved government jobs going that Westminster MPs shouldn't see decentralisation as too much of a bad thing. There is certainly growing ground support for more devolution. If Scotland votes "No", it will still get more power. The West Lothian question will become more important. (The most famous example so far being Scottish MPs forcing through university tuition fees in England in 2004, despite a majority of English MPs voting against them.) If Scotland votes "Yes", we should still go ahead and do it anyway.
Divorce settlement
Back to reality, just what would happen if Scottish voters say "Aye" on 18th September, for both Scotland and the rest of the UK? For starters, Scotland wouldn't magically transform into a socialist utopia as some seem to think, but nor would it go bankrupt as others imagine. Economically it would probably stay more-or-less the same. The most obvious effect is every voter in Scotland would get 1,000% more say in who forms their central government. Less dramatically but still noteworthy, every voter in England, Wales and Northern Ireland would get 10% more say in who forms theirs.
Nothing would change immediately. The SNP proposes an "independence day" of 24 March 2016. This is transparently self-serving, so they can stitch everything up in time for the next Scottish elections on 5 May. The best hope for an amicable settlement would be if Labour were in power at both Westminster and Holyrood at the time of the final agreement, but that's not going to happen. We can expect both governments to be at each other tooth and claw for the next 18 months. What fun!
The obsession of the moment is currency. The Scottish Government want a full currency union with the rest of the UK; all the main parties at Westminster don't. If he doesn't get what he wants, Salmond's back-up plan seems to be tokick and scream and call England a bully use Sterling anyway, without the benefit of a central bank. There are various reasons why this is a terrible idea. Much better to forge a new currency. It could be called the "Scottish pound".
A currency union between two independent countries is very different to the full economic and political union we have now. The Eurozone shows us that (albeit Scotland's economy is rather more similar to the rest of the UK's than, say, Germany's and Greece's). The idea needs a mandate from voters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as the Scots. This could be done either through a referendum or party manifestos at next year's general election. The Westminster parties have backed themselves into too much of a corner to not have a public vote of some kind. Weighed on the plus side, a currency union would mitigate some of the drawbacks of separation, keeping trade and travel easy between the UK and Scotland. On the other, UK taxpayers would be acting as lenders of last resort to the spendthrift policies of a foreign government (whose white paper promises to spend money like it's going out of fashion if there's a "Yes" vote), plus the tedious prospect of future Scottish Governments continuing to blame any economic woes on the UK. It wouldn't really be true independence. I honestly don't know which way I'd vote.
Scotland would be part of the EU. It may not even have to wait very long. And even if the rest of the UK votes to leave the EU at some point, it would remain in the European Economic Area. So there would continue to be free trade and jobs between the two countries. There is a question mark over whether Scotland could keep the UK's various EU opt-outs. A returning Tory Government trying to win a looser relationship with Brussels is hardly likely to waste its limited negotiating capital fighting Scotland's corner. Would Scotland have to join the Euro (rendering the currency question moot)? What about Schengen? No one wants border controls between Scotland and the rest of the UK, but if the former joined Schengen, there would have to be. The EU requires full controls on every external Schengen border.
If both countries remain in the EU, students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as members of another EU state, would have to be treated the same as Scotish students when they went to Scottish universities. They would get the benefit of no tuition fees. The Scottish Government reckon they can argue out of that, citing a clause which allows for exceptional treatment in exceptional circumstances. (So much for an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK being "good neighbours"...) It seems unlikely that "They're next door to us" would be sufficiently exceptional grounds, but ultimately this would be decided in court.
Scotland would, in time, get rid of hosting nuclear weapons it doesn't want. Triudent would move south, most likely to Barrow. Future UK navy shipbuilding contracts would go exclusively to Portsmouth. Both places must be relishing the prospect of all those extra jobs.
None of the moronic names suggested for the remaining UK would stick. We would be "The United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland". Or "the UK" for short. Our citizenship would probably remain "British" for want of a good alternative. The Union Jack in all its awesomeness would not disappear. As a royal flag symbolising the union of crowns it predates the Act of Union, and since Scotland has no plan to ditch the monarchy its significance as a royal flag would remain. None of the various Commonwealth countries who incorporate it in their own flags would need to "lose the blue". We could choose to keep it unchanged as our national flag as well, although I'm quite attracted to the idea of swapping out the blue for a green field or St David's black and giving Wales some long overdue representation.
Whichever way people in Scotland vote on 18 September, I wish them and the rest of us the very best of luck. There'll still be a lot of work to do in either outcome. Oh, and Rule Britannia, may Britain (whatever form it takes) be GREAT, etc! ;o)
I watched the first televised leaders debate last week (no thanks to STV!). It didn't really help. Darling had some good points but failed to elaborate or hammer them home. Salmond had the stronger opening and closing statements, but in-between he was simply awful. He repeatedly equated the UK with England in an attempt to turn the whole thing into a nationalistic pissing contest. Then he wasted the entire cross-examination round on personal attacks and trivialities about who said what and when. Apparently Scotland should vote for the biggest constitutional shake-up in 300 years because Alistair Darling was a bad chancellor six years ago (he wasn't) and one of his colleagues once made a crap joke about taxes from outer space. Seriously?
So if the debate didn't help, what is it all about?
Democracy? What democracy?
The main point seems to be political self-determination. A lot of spin gets put on this. Alex Salmond would have you forget that every Scottish voter has just as much say over electing the Westminster Parliament as every English, Welsh or Northern Irish voter. (Well, not quite as much as the Welsh, since Wales has smaller constituencies, but no one seems to be campaigning about that, so we'll ignore it.) Scotland's voting habits aren't vastly different from lots of other parts of the UK. It's a myth to say no Scots vote Conservative - 17% did at the last general election, only slightly behind the SNP's 20%. A disproportionate number of Scottish MPs have held Cabinet roles over the years, including the top two jobs in the last Government (Yeah, thanks so much for Gordon Brown, Scotland!).
The argument, however, is that Scottish votes don't tend to sway the overall outcome. Well, yes. Scotland represents just over 8% of the UK electorate, so you might expect that. Also, Scotland would never vote for the Tories in a majority, but so what? The difficulty with these arguments is that they have no obvious end point. Should the Home Counties become an independent country because they never vote for a Labour majority? Should Sheffield go its own way so that it never gets the Tories either? Within Scotland, there are plenty of folk in the highlands and islands who resent central belt dominated politics - Should they each become independent from the rest?
That's not to say there isn't a problem here and we should just have the one government. Population-wise, the UK is quite a large and diverse country. Politically and economically, we are far too focussed on London, to the detriment of investment, jobs, culture and other political attention and economic activity elsewhere in the UK. Cultural investment per capita is 15 times greater in London than elsewhere, certainly in England. There are huge complaints about the cost of investing in high speed rail up north, but no one bats an eyelid at blowing £30 billion plus on Crossrail to get from one side of the capital to the other. Lots of parts of the UK, from Scotland to Yorkshire to Cornwall, are calling out for more political clout.
Are we really "better together"?
I don't think separatism is the answer. There are some things which are simply more effective when done at the UK level. The size of our economy (6th largest in the world) gives us a strong presence on the international stage. Most visibly, our armed forces can play a big role in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions around the world. Of course, not everyone agrees with our military actions, but there are plenty of other ways being a larger country is useful. Just to take one specific example I'm familiar with - My team at work has some occasional involvement in international trade deals. It's remarkable how much effort goes into securing a good deal for Scotch whisky exports. Offering a market of 64 million customers in return allows the UK to negotiate a much better deal than Scotland (5.3 million customers) would on its own.
You can't, however, raise that sort of example (or anything else) with the SNP as a positive aspect of the union. Their standard tactic is to spin every positive into a negative, call it scaremongering and accuse you of saying Scotland couldn't cope on it's own. Of course it could, but would it be as well off and influential as it is as part of a bigger union? There are some who would say it doesn't matter that Scotland would have a smaller voice; the important point is that it would be its own voice.
Sentiment comes into it a lot. I will admit to loving this mad, patchwork union of nations of ours. I feel English and British in equal measure. It sounds trite to say it, but if Scotland were to separate we would become further apart. That's down to so many little things. We'd go from being economic partners to competitiors. We have so much shared history and culture together. We watch most of the same telly and hear about each other's news and weather. We wave the same flag for Team GB and cheer the same sports teams in competitions where the UK competes together. Andy Murray winning Wimbledon was great because it was his home competition. If Scotland wasn't in the UK, it would be just another foreign grand slam for Scottish fans and just another foreigner winning for English fans. National identity is about so much more than whichever set of vile politicians you least object to being governed by, but even being able to bitch about the same politicians unites us.
Vive la devolution!
If not independence, what is the answer then? I'm a firm believer in decisions being taken at the most appropriate level. Some things, like those mentioned above, are best done at the UK level. Others are best done on a smaller focus. Scotland already has powers over its own health, education, justice, and several other areas. Even if there is a "No" vote, it will get more power over tax and welfare. Scots are not unique in wanting more of a focus away from Westminster. Why not the same for other parts of the UK?
More devolution then. It's already there for three of the four nations. Devolution for England has been tried before but unfortunately fell flat on its face. A "North East Assembly" was rejected in a referendum and the whole project quietly dropped through lack of support. The current government's plan of "more powers for cities" seems equally doomed to fail. Part of the reason is that the powers on offer in both schemes are utterly pathetic compared to what Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have. Another is the unwillingness to create another layer of government. A sense of shared identity is clearly important too - hence all the Saltires being waved in the "Yes" campaign - and no one really identified with the European/government office regions in the 2004 scheme.
So what's my solution? Lots of similar sized or smaller countries than the UK operate successful federal systems, with most power devolved to individual states/territories/cantons. I'd go for a fully federal UK, with equal powers devolved down to each constituent part. There'd be a much slimmed down central government to deal with the UK-level stuff (foreign affairs, defence, interest rates, etc).
Because I wanted to, I had a play with the map and came up with this :o)
In my fantasy UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be devolved as now. England would be devolved into an approximation of the old Saxon kingdoms (plus Cornwall, which as any Cornish person will tell you, wasn't originally part of the heptarchy!). I've fiddled it a bit to reflect modern boundaries, particularly the England/Scotland border - Much as Northumbria might want Edinburgh back, I suspect the Scots won't let it go. But hey, borders were fairly fluid back in the eighth century, so a bit of cheating's allowed! The point is these are areas people still identify with, often quite strongly. We are a country of history nerds. The kingdoms all still have surviving flags. Many of their names survive in things like regional police forces or radio stations. Cornwall and Mercia have their own separatist movements at least; others may have ones I don't know about.
It could of course be done in numerous different ways. Maybe Greater London should be separate from Essex (although some may feel they deserve each other...). Maybe if London is separate, the smaller south-eastern "kingdoms" would want to join together. Maybe the whole of England minus London could be a single devolved region, though I doubt that would work. There are some who would want Yorkshire to be separate from Northumbria, though I must admit one of the reasons I did it this way is I rather like the idea of being part of a devolved Northumbria. Comprising everywhere that identifies itself as the north of England, it would be awesome - With a population of nearly 15 million and several of the UK's largest cities, it could be a real economic powerhouse. Five of those cities have shown just last week that they can work together to produce grand plans for developing our region.
Is this all a pipe dream? Maybe, maybe not. There just needs to be the will to make it happen. It's true turkeys don't vote for Christmas, but there'd be enough devolved government jobs going that Westminster MPs shouldn't see decentralisation as too much of a bad thing. There is certainly growing ground support for more devolution. If Scotland votes "No", it will still get more power. The West Lothian question will become more important. (The most famous example so far being Scottish MPs forcing through university tuition fees in England in 2004, despite a majority of English MPs voting against them.) If Scotland votes "Yes", we should still go ahead and do it anyway.
Divorce settlement
Back to reality, just what would happen if Scottish voters say "Aye" on 18th September, for both Scotland and the rest of the UK? For starters, Scotland wouldn't magically transform into a socialist utopia as some seem to think, but nor would it go bankrupt as others imagine. Economically it would probably stay more-or-less the same. The most obvious effect is every voter in Scotland would get 1,000% more say in who forms their central government. Less dramatically but still noteworthy, every voter in England, Wales and Northern Ireland would get 10% more say in who forms theirs.
Nothing would change immediately. The SNP proposes an "independence day" of 24 March 2016. This is transparently self-serving, so they can stitch everything up in time for the next Scottish elections on 5 May. The best hope for an amicable settlement would be if Labour were in power at both Westminster and Holyrood at the time of the final agreement, but that's not going to happen. We can expect both governments to be at each other tooth and claw for the next 18 months. What fun!
The obsession of the moment is currency. The Scottish Government want a full currency union with the rest of the UK; all the main parties at Westminster don't. If he doesn't get what he wants, Salmond's back-up plan seems to be to
A currency union between two independent countries is very different to the full economic and political union we have now. The Eurozone shows us that (albeit Scotland's economy is rather more similar to the rest of the UK's than, say, Germany's and Greece's). The idea needs a mandate from voters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as the Scots. This could be done either through a referendum or party manifestos at next year's general election. The Westminster parties have backed themselves into too much of a corner to not have a public vote of some kind. Weighed on the plus side, a currency union would mitigate some of the drawbacks of separation, keeping trade and travel easy between the UK and Scotland. On the other, UK taxpayers would be acting as lenders of last resort to the spendthrift policies of a foreign government (whose white paper promises to spend money like it's going out of fashion if there's a "Yes" vote), plus the tedious prospect of future Scottish Governments continuing to blame any economic woes on the UK. It wouldn't really be true independence. I honestly don't know which way I'd vote.
Scotland would be part of the EU. It may not even have to wait very long. And even if the rest of the UK votes to leave the EU at some point, it would remain in the European Economic Area. So there would continue to be free trade and jobs between the two countries. There is a question mark over whether Scotland could keep the UK's various EU opt-outs. A returning Tory Government trying to win a looser relationship with Brussels is hardly likely to waste its limited negotiating capital fighting Scotland's corner. Would Scotland have to join the Euro (rendering the currency question moot)? What about Schengen? No one wants border controls between Scotland and the rest of the UK, but if the former joined Schengen, there would have to be. The EU requires full controls on every external Schengen border.
If both countries remain in the EU, students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as members of another EU state, would have to be treated the same as Scotish students when they went to Scottish universities. They would get the benefit of no tuition fees. The Scottish Government reckon they can argue out of that, citing a clause which allows for exceptional treatment in exceptional circumstances. (So much for an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK being "good neighbours"...) It seems unlikely that "They're next door to us" would be sufficiently exceptional grounds, but ultimately this would be decided in court.
Scotland would, in time, get rid of hosting nuclear weapons it doesn't want. Triudent would move south, most likely to Barrow. Future UK navy shipbuilding contracts would go exclusively to Portsmouth. Both places must be relishing the prospect of all those extra jobs.
None of the moronic names suggested for the remaining UK would stick. We would be "The United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland". Or "the UK" for short. Our citizenship would probably remain "British" for want of a good alternative. The Union Jack in all its awesomeness would not disappear. As a royal flag symbolising the union of crowns it predates the Act of Union, and since Scotland has no plan to ditch the monarchy its significance as a royal flag would remain. None of the various Commonwealth countries who incorporate it in their own flags would need to "lose the blue". We could choose to keep it unchanged as our national flag as well, although I'm quite attracted to the idea of swapping out the blue for a green field or St David's black and giving Wales some long overdue representation.
Whichever way people in Scotland vote on 18 September, I wish them and the rest of us the very best of luck. There'll still be a lot of work to do in either outcome. Oh, and Rule Britannia, may Britain (whatever form it takes) be GREAT, etc! ;o)
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no subject
Date: 2014-08-12 09:19 pm (UTC)You are no republican eh? South Yorkshire could gets its monarchy. I suppose. I am sure Prince Harry might be happy to have his own mini kingdom. >;)
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 09:12 pm (UTC)So, how to you plan to start to using what influence you have, to get people with power to consider your fantasy UK?
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 09:51 pm (UTC)Oh, and I think you may be overestimating my level of influence slightly! ;o)