Early Spring

This piece from our friends over at Scottish Futures makes interesting reading, not only debunking myths of economic retardation but showing an intellectual shift away from being tithed to Labour...

A Scottish Spring for Independence

Gerry Hassan

Unedited version of Sunday Times (Scotland) article, 18 November 2007

In a week in which it became quicker to get from London to Paris by rail than Edinburgh to London it is not surprising that Scotland and England are beginning to feel more like separate worlds.

Alex Salmond this week made the prediction that Scotland will be independent by 2017 and set out to woo the waverers he needs to achieve this. He has made these sort of predictions before, but this time things are different with the SNP in power in Edinburgh and the Union slowly cracking up.

The argument for independence and the merits of the union has been going on for centuries and in contemporary times since the breakthrough of the SNP in the 1960s.

In recent times, Scotland has changed dramatically and I think in many ways for the better, while England and the notion of the UK has changed - but for the worse. This is why I have finally come round to the view that independence is good for Scotland, the UK and internationally.

Scotland has gained a degree of self-government. Edinburgh has become a capital city with a purpose. The nation feels a more thriving, confident place. It is less white, and more at ease with diversity and multi-culturalism. The arrival of an SNP administration has played a part in this change. It almost feels like a Scottish spring.

The United Kingdom has changed dramatically. Thirty-four years of European Union membership, yet the British state still cannot make up its mind whether or not it is European. The intimate relationship of the British and American political, military and security elites has developed into a corrosive and problematic relationship for the UK and wider world.

Britain in the Thatcher and Blair eras has become an over-centralised nation, where the centre has its finger in nearly every pie, despite devolution. The sad state of local government, which merely presides over central government diktats, is testimony to this. Even more, is the extent to which Westminster ministers decide the most minute local issues about what happens in relation to hospitals, schools, prisons and bridges.

The centralism of the UK is combined with a narrow idea of politics and democracy. The three main parties at Westminster - Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems - agree on everything (Iraq apart): the inequality and poverty which scars British society, the degree of corporate greed and irresponsibility, the fanatical commitment to the American relationship. British politics have become debased in the last few years, under Thatcher and then under Blair. And there is no sign that the warm words from Gordon Brown about constitutional reform show any sign of bringing about fundamental change.

Now we have figures from the respected Oxford Economics consultancy which show that the idea of Scotland being over-subsidised is just another myths - and that the part of the UK with the most public spending (Northern Ireland apart) is the apex of power: London. In terms of public spending the parts of the UK which do least well are the English regions outside London. None of these figures are really that surprising; we should know that the UK, given its state, politics and culture, has never really worked well for the majority of working people.

The interesting thing from these figures is that many of the Unionist arguments for Scotland remaining in the union were based on finances alone and Scotland being incapable of governing itself. Where do such people turn to now?