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Scottish Independence: Not Sure What to Think
I’m on Day 13 of my self-imposed news blackout, and loving it more each day. However, I did promise the editors that I wouldn’t be a stranger here, so I felt obliged to take a quick peek this morning. I figured it wouldn’t destabilize me too much to read the latest on the Scottish independence referendum. I found myself unsure what to think, so I figured I’d farm this one out to you.
On the one hand, the arguments for secession are lunatic. In fact, they’re nonexistent: The secessionists have no arguments, just very, very strong feelings. I’m sure you’re familiar with the outlines of this debate, so I’ll just review briefly:
So, what currency are you going to use? Oh, you haven’t worked that out. Well, I’m sure you’ll manage.
And who’s going to protect your bank deposits? You haven’t figured that out, either? Well, okay, no need to over-think things.
Have you figured out what you’ll do to prevent capital flight? You haven’t thought about that, either? I guess it won’t be a problem, so that’s fine.
Do you think it might be an important clue that the mere holding of this referendum has wiped billions off the value of Scottish companies? No? I guess I’m just a nervous nellie, I shouldn’t get wrapped around the axle about details like that.
I see that you don’t want nuclear weapons on your soil. I understand, nuclear weapons are really awful, aren’t they? But wait, you say you want to join NATO? You mean, you want to be protected by NATO’s nuclear umbrella? So let me get clear on this — you want to be a smaller, weaker country; and you don’t want to be invaded by a bigger, stronger country, but you also don’t want the nukes anywhere where they might make you feel icky? Have you asked yourself whether NATO will be very sympathetic to this desire? No? Well, I’m sure they’ll be understanding, once they understand how important this is to you.
And you want to join the EU, I gather. Have you considered the years and years that the UK spent painstakingly and painfully negotiating myriad opt-outs and rebates? Basically, you’d be throwing those out the window? You haven’t? Well, don’t get stressed out about that, I guess. You’ll sort it out.
So how are you planning to split up all those shared assets — the embassies, the BBC, all that government property? No idea? I guess that sounds like a good plan. The no-plan, that is. It sounds very spontaneous. Be here now, I always say. Lots of married people I know have found that the no-plan worked really well for them when their marriages went south.
And you plan to give up your seat on the Security Council to be, I guess, a sort of Greenland-lite? Fair enough, who needs power and influence in today’s world? Except Putin, maybe, he seems a little hung up on that.
I was wondering about, you know, institutions, like border police and whatnot — you have a plan for that? I mean, like, a detailed one? I guess you shouldn’t make yourself crazy about things like that, you’re a clever people, you’ll manage. Things like borders are easy to control, after all. And we seem to be managing fine without one in the US.
I love it that you’re going to live forever on North Sea oil. That’s just what I’d do, if I were you. I’m just, maybe, a little concerned: You’re going to run out of that oil pretty soon. Do your financial plans extend beyond “living off of it forever?” Well, it’s true that you’re Scottish, and Scotland is super-great. You’ll wing it. Okay on that too.
And finally: Scottish nationalism? Seriously, folks? And you are importantly different from Liverpudlians how, exactly? I mean, apart from having better golf courses. Oh, that’s right — you’ve got the Proclaimers and they don’t! Of course, I see your point now. That’s called “the narcissism of small differences,” by the way. But that’s cool.
Moving laterally, I must confess that at first glance, secession’s major boosters don’t fill me with confidence — although again, maybe I’m overthinking it?
The campaign battle over Scottish independence took a bitter turn on Saturday when a senior nationalist warned businesses such as BP that they could face punishment for voicing concern over the impact of secession. … former Scottish Nationalist Party deputy leader Jim Sillars went much further than separatist leader Alex Salmond, warning that BP’s operations in Scotland might face nationalisation if Scots voted for secession on Sept. 18.
“This referendum is about power, and when we get a ‘Yes’ majority we will use that power for a day of reckoning with BP and the banks,” Sillars, a nationalist rival of Salmond’s, was quoted by Scottish media as saying.
“BP, in an independent Scotland, will need to learn the meaning of nationalisation, in part or in whole, as it has in other countries who have not been as soft as we have been forced to be,” Sillars said.
I can envision some problems with this approach, if I really put on my doom-and-negativity-goggles. So I guess I still have my doubts, since I’m a bit of a worrier. I might even be tempted to recommend they not do this, since it will be pretty hard to take back.
But then again, it really does seem a bit rich — if not completely outrageous — for an American to say, “Well, we didn’t want to be be ruled from London. But we certainly recommend that to you.”
So you can see why this leaves me confused.
Published in General
Everyone following this thread should check out Edward Smith’s new post on the Member Feed (which I don’t know how to link to). The video is hysterical.
I think it could also be an argument for true independence. And I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical as to whether or not the long term maintenance of “true federalism” is even possible in the real world.
Hmmm. I think I participated in most, if not all, of those conversations, and I don’t recall anyone claiming “all these details will work themselves out later.” On the contrary, I recall several libertarian posters, myself included, repeatedly asking VirtueCons to lay out specifics. I generally added “that libertarians can get behind,” because the VirtueCons kept insisting they didn’t want to force their values on anyone, and I want evidence. It doesn’t matter, though; no such details were ever forthcoming, and among that, the insistence on a public sphere that’s consistent with VirtueCon principles, and an admitted refusal to read the libertarian literature, it became apparent that there was no intellectually honest discussion to be had in those quarters (with the eminently notable exception of with KC Mulville).
As I’ve sort of said elsewhere, I don’t really have a problem with the goal of independence. All else being equal, it’s a good. I do think though that the long history of interdependence makes “these details” enormously complicated and worthy of serious thought and planning — not just the assumption that they’ll work themselves out.
The thing is, the screw-up doesn’t only affect Scotland.
Say things go exactly according to plan, with a benevolent partition that grants Scotland full control over the North Sea oil.
So, Scotland nationalizes the oil fields, bringing BP to its knees. That means that nobody really benefits from the oil, because Scotland won’t be in any position to operate the oil fields with anything close to current efficiency.
The UK currently depends on that revenue to fund its welfare state. Maybe they’ll be able to reorganize and cut spending enough to make up for the lack of oil revenue. I’m skeptical. I think it’s more likely that the Conservatives will quickly lose the support of English voters if they need to cut services in order to avoid financial collapse.
If the politicians behind Scottish independence exhibited any measure of fiscal and/or political common sense, I could easily see a negotiated partition working out just fine, but they haven’t. Instead, they’ve loudly pounded on the drums of left-wing nationalism.
If there’s going to be any clan-based violence, it’s not going to be the Campbells vs. the MacDonalds. It’s going to be Rangers vs. Celtic.
Well, in this area I have to admit that I’m biased, but I am a strong believer in the long-term stability and viability of federalism administered in the Westminster tradition, as it’s done in Canada and Australia.
I guess I’m not well enough versed in how power is allocated between federal governments and the states/provinces in those two countries to comment. Here in the US, I can tell you we’ve taken what was supposed to be a very federal system of independent sovereigns and bollixed it beyond all recognition.
The two big differences: Until 1982 we had no constitutional bill of rights (and it buggered things up but good when we did get one, but that’s a topic for another day…), and it’s the federal level that gets the residual powers.
You would think that this would make our federalism much more centralized, but that’s not how it has worked in practice.
Because the provinces have enumerated powers, and the federal government has the residual powers, that means the provinces have a LOT of leverage when the federal government tries to legislate in an area of provincial jurisdiction.
Example: Health care is specifically a provincial responsibility. In the US, it should be a state responsibility (as per the 10th amendment), but since it’s not explicitly a state responsibility that means Washington has been able to worm its way into it under the veil of the taxing power.
There is no way that Canada’s federal government could impose any health care reform on the provinces. It must negotiate with them to get anything going.
Who said that independence should be the main goal? I don’t recall any discussion of independence at all. Especially independence to form a socialist tyranny.
Well, much more important than mere oil, Ukraine inherited the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
That’s exactly right. What Scotland has proposed cannot be called “independence” while keeping a straight face. Instead, it’s betting its future on the idea that Brussels will give it a better deal for its oil than Westminster does currently.
There’s a reason Norway is not a member of the EU. It doesn’t want Brussels to control its oil.
That’s way easier to resolve than oil. Ukraine simply gave up its nukes in exchange for empty promises, and Scotland claims it wants to expel Britain’s nukes from its soil.
Since Britain’s nukes are submarine-deployed this is at least plausible, though it’ll be freakin’ expensive for Britain to refit one of its other naval bases to accommodate the submarine fleet.
Sorry, I’m extrapolating. In that other debate, some participants said reducing the size and scope of the state is the main goal, and any messy details would be worked out by voluntary civic institutions that would spring up spontaneously. For example, see Tuck’s comments #62 and #70 on the thread Some Principles for Virtue Conservatism (http://ricochet.com/principles-virtue-conservatism/comment-page-4/#comments).
I admit nobody said anything about declaring independence in that thread. I’m asking the question sincerely to see if the principle transfers in their opinions.
Godel’s Ghost, please consider this a reply to your comment #63 as well.
That’s kind of amazing. Our constitution which is designed to preserve the power of the states fails to do so. Yours, which isn’t, does so. I guess that just proves (once again) the law of unintended consequences.
Let me ask you this though — do you have a federal income tax? If so, I suspect your federal government has a lot more leverage than I’d give it if I were king. I think where we really lost it was in the Sixteenth (and to a lesser extent) Seventeenth amendments. In combination they handed power (follow the money) to Washington and took away the only real structural check on federal overreach — appointment of senators by state legislatures.
Mark: fair enough. So as not to hijack the thread (further), let me just observe briefly that the admittedly selection-biased libertarians I know are all quite clear on the need for those civic institutions to be healthy first, i.e. for the proper entities for providing various goods and services that the State currently arrogates to itself to be able to realistically do so before smashing the State. Where we sometimes make it sound otherwise, I suspect, is in (loudly, repeatedly) observing that the State actively hampers precisely this shoring up.
Scotland will be fine, if they go that way. Actually, it will cause them to face the music and make more realistic decisions about how they are governed.
The breakup of Czechoslovakia, is the model. It truly has worked out for both.
Yes, the federal government charges income tax, and has much more other taxing power than the provinces. That does indeed give it much leverage when negotiating with the provinces in areas of provincial responsibility. That’s still not the same as having constitutional power to impose policy on the provinces. Also, as per the 1982 constitution, the federal government is obligated to share costs with the provinces for areas of provincial jurisdiction, without being granted the power to impose policy in those areas. As such, semi-regular Federal/Provincial negotiations on all sorts of topics are a big part of Canadian politics. There’s a full Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs to do the job.
There are key differences though.
Imagine if there had been an oil field in the border region. Imagine how acrimonious the negotiations for where to draw the line between ’em would have been then.
I just came back from vacationing in London, where the Scottish madness was all the news, that and the trial of that guy in South Africa that shot his girlfriend. Finally back in my native land where naught could be heard about the UK’s problems and here it shows up on Ricochet (which I guess was to be expected).
Are the Scotts mad? Yes they are, but what is to be expected of a bunch of European Socialists. All the Yes camp is awash in the stink and rhetoric of the Sinister side of the political spectrum. I heard it with my own ears. They want independence because they fear the NHS will be privatized and doctors might seek to make profits or students might have to pay tuition. As the old proverb goes “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first drive insane.”
Why does England want to keep Scotland? That is the real question. David Cameron knows that if Scotland votes Yes he will become the James Buchanan of England. I saw the desperation in his voice and face to avoid that fate. Miliband knows if Scotland votes Yes he will never be Prime Minister. The Queen will just be disappointed.
I say to my English brothers that if Scotland votes No the rest of the UK should hold a referendum on whether they still want Scotland in the Union. Frankly the whole UK seems just a step shy of Federalism, why not take the plunge? Where is England’s Parliament?
What do hockey and basketball have to do with this? ;)
To the larger question, as with most questions of UK politics, I follow a simple lodestone: If Billy Bragg is fer it, why then I’m agin’ it.
1) Westminster abhors the idea of a written constitution.
2) Those who lobby for an English Parliament are vilified by the media as extreme right-wing racists.
Now I’m dreaming about the Boston Celtics and the New York Rangers competing against each other in a game of, I dunno, football?
It is no coincidence that Canada’s first constitution was negotiated and signed in 1867.
But where will this non-sense end if not in dissolution of the union or in the establishment of federalism? The problem in Europe as it has always been is the ethnicity. If one is to be an ethnic based nation one must have only one ethnicity with only a very small minority. The other option is to create a new non-ethnic identity. Frankly as an American I favor the latter. But, you can’t try to have both. There is either one nation or four nations, and letting only 1/4th of the people decide that is madness.
At the very least it will be the cudgel the UK brings out in order to insist on an independent Scotland taking on its share of the national debt, who knows what other issues will come into it. I believe acrimonious will end up being an understatement.
First question: Why is there a picture of a…yak? I don’t think those are native to Scotland.
Second, an interesting study just appeared showing the % of people employed in Scotland by the government. Over 30% of the working population (by comparison the US is at slightly below 8%, at all levels of government).
I’m not sure why England would want Scotland to remain united with it, in the first place.
I’m also not sure why the Conservatives in England would want Scotland to remain. If Scotland goes, England can once again return (wishful thinking here) to a more market-driven economy as opposed to a quasi-Socialist economy.
So I say, all the more power to the Scots. You’ve got to learn the hard way. Who knows, maybe they will learn to be productive too, after a 200 year hiatus.
I assume you are referring to metric football.
Based on the topic at hand, it should probably be golf.
On the other hand, it can be argued that one of the reasons Canadian federalism works as well as it does is because there is one particular province that is ethnically distinct. When the provinces get together to wrestle with the federal government, one of their bargaining chips is the fact that Quebec can threaten to leave unless it gets special treatment. At that point, the other provinces say, “well if Quebec gets that power then we should all get it!” In order to keep the peace, the feds play ball with everybody.
If Quebec didn’t exist, the provinces would have to invent one.
It can be argued that this is precisely why Westminster abhors full federalism. It would mean that the parliaments of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland would be able to gang up and throw their collective weight around.
One of the reasons this paradigm doesn’t work in the US is because, with 50 states, it’s a lot harder to get everybody on board to form a united front against Washington. (Not to mention that when there were only 33 states, it led to civil war.)
Oil.