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How Would you Vote on Independence for Scotland?
Two views:
Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page:
Should the Scottish leave the U.K., it would fulfill an ancient quest for national self-determination. But they would also wind up with a state that is weaker, less wealthy and far less influential on the world stage. It would jettison 307 years of shared history that produced the Scottish Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and a vital and prosperous pillar of the Atlantic community today. History isn’t everything, and there are times when hard circumstances make separation unavoidable. But no such circumstances exist today.
Pat Buchanan’s latest column:
The call of blood, history, faith, culture and memory is winning the struggle against Economism, the Western materialist ideology that holds that the desire for money and things is what ultimately motivates mankind.
Economics uber alles. Here is Niall Ferguson in the New York Times wondering how these crazy Scots could think of seceding from England:
“The economic risks are so glaring that even Paul Krugman and I agree it’s a terrible idea. What currency will Scotland use? The pound? The euro? No one knows. What share of North Sea oil revenues will go to Edinburgh? What about Scotland’s share of Britain’s enormous national debt?”
A Scottish vote for independence, Ferguson wails, “would have grave economic consequences, and not just for Scotland. Investment has already stalled. Big companies based in Scotland, notably the pensions giant Standard Life, have warned of relocating to England. Jobs would definitely be lost. The recent steep decline in the pound shows that the financial world hates the whole idea.”
Niall Ferguson is not the kind of fellow who would have been out there at midnight dumping the King’s tea into Boston harbor in 1773.
And he would surely have admonished those stupid farmers on the Concord Bridge that if they didn’t put those muskets down, they could wind up ruining the colonies’ trade with the Mother Country.
“What currency will we use?” Ferguson would have demanded of Jefferson in Independence Hall in 1776.
The referendum will take place on Thursday. My own tentative reasoning–I speak here as someone with a few drops of Scottish blood, but only that–is that if I were a resident of Glasgow or Kirkcady or Edinburgh, I would most certainly vote “nae.” The so-called Scots independence movement doesn’t want independence at all. What it wants is a population still more dependent on the central government (albeit a new central government in Edinburgh instead of the old one in London) and a nation that will quickly beginning handing over its sovereignty to Brussels, becoming more dependent on the EU.
But that’s me. Good people of Ricochet, what about you?
If you were a resident of Scotland, how would you cast your ballot?
Published in General
Considering the questions peoples centuries ago fought and died for, is usually a good way to get into trouble. Consider the societies which make it their priority to base their policies of today, on the events of 500 years ago. Not the kind of societies that are flourishing.
Don’t you mean descendant? ;-)
I’m rooting for the Kurds; they are truly self-sufficient people and deserve national independence.
I agree, with caveats: First, when you look at the long-term effects, you’re guessing. No matter how much wisdom, historical knowledge, and foresight you bring to the question, it is quite simply impossible to predict the future, or to know what outcome might be best for all in 200 years.
For example, I agree that in the short- to medium-term England is likely to be better-governed without Scotland. That could last for decades, or any major world event or series of cultural and political changes on either side of the border could render that a moot point in 25 years. (How long has it been since California voted Republican?)
Second, looking at the big picture doesn’t mean considering the issue in the abstract, separate from the immediate circumstances, because those circumstances can suddenly acquire importance that will last for centuries. Scotland’s current leadership are not the type you want as your Founding Fathers.
What would have been the result had independence been put to a referendum of the citizens of the 13 colonies in, say, 1776?
She just looks young.
I agree with this. I don’t think that many people have fought and died over similar questions to the one currently faced. People sometimes suggest that the efforts of the Young and Old Pretenders were, but the 1715 and 1745 rebellions were attempts to replace one King of the United Kingdom with another (and the two rebellions are both probably best seen as conflicts between the Lowland and Highland Scots, with the Lowlanders finally winning out in the latter conflict after centuries of the Highlands be a primary foe of the Lowlands). Almost no one thinks that the Civil War conflicts were about independence.
Some people think that the conflicts over the reformation ought to be put into this category. The battlefield most familiar to Mrs. of England from those conflicts, though, St. Andrew’s Castle, reduced by a small French invasion in 1546, is a helpful reminder of how different the issues were. If Mrs. of England saw the vote as being about restoring or overcoming Catholicism in Scotland, that would certainly affect her vote, but it would also be insane.
The First Scottish War of Independence, that ended 700 years ago this year, was about independence, but again it’s hard to see how it argues one way or another. Pope Clement V was against independence, but then Pope John XXII overturned Clement’s excommunication and declared various acts of submission null and void, for instance. Is that an argument that Scotland should, or should not be independent today? Mrs. Of England lives near the church where Robert the Bruce murdered John Comyn before the altar, in one of the critical moments of the war. Should Bruce’s sacrilegious act be a reason to vote against independence? Should we say that Edward’s victory at Falkirk is an argument for voting no, or his loss at Stirling Bridge a reason for voting yes?
Not long before that, her region of Scotland was not part of Scotland, but a relatively independent kingdom.
Thankfully, Mrs. of England is not a libertarian romantic in the tradition of Rousseau who looks upon an invented history, imposes views upon it, and establishes an idea of a state of nature, then applies that to practical questions of politics. Rather, she is a Burkean who values the institutions that have supported her country (she mentions several in her comment) and a Hayekian who understands that we should reason upwards from what we know and avoid imagining that we know more than we can. Voting on the big picture, spreading over the centuries, assumes an ability to see forward over the centuries. Since that kind of model of planning is impossible and does not work, she would be wrong to be guided by it.
A sense of history is helpful and important for understanding the institutions that have grown up around that history, but 14th century wars really aren’t a very important element of that. Wars are often the exciting part of history, but the formation of identity, the structures of authority, the waxing and waning of trade routes and industry are all far more important to the likelihood of Scottish independence benefiting the stakeholders involved (Scots, English, the rest of the world).
She works professionally with Scottish history museums and has an encyclopedic knowledge of British history. She wouldn’t like me to ask you to randomly name a monarch and ask who their second cousins were through their maternal grandfather, so I won’t, but there’s a reason I hang the idea out there. If she knew nothing of history, then it might be a good idea to learn something, but the reason that she treats history as only a part of the picture is not because she’s ignorant of the history, but because she’s extremely familiar with that, and with the many other issues of economics, law, identity, politics, and theology that go into it. Her job is partly to educate the people of her region about this, and there have been many, many events, talks, academic papers and debates that have left her in this position.
I like the Iraqi Kurds, and support and respect their decision not to have regional autonomy but independence.
The Scottish National Party describes the UK’s immigration policy as “sheer prejudice”. All of the major parties in Scotland support increasing immigration; the parties that oppose immigration are both parties that do better in England. The Yes campaign is far from appreciative of military valor, describing the end of Scotland’s involvement in war as one of the primary reasons for separation.
If you have a hypothesis about the motivations for independence, it really is a good idea to read some contemporary Scottish sources to see if there’s any support for them at all. The internet brings Scotland to your door and you will learn far more from reading the leaders of the SNP or the supporters of the Union than you will from reading Pat Buchanan or the 19th century novels that created the idea of Scotland that dominated the UK until the mid 20th century and still dominate American views.
James, of course, always thinks of the medieval and modern period. In my own mind, I was thinking of Caledonia.
I think I covered that when I noted that her region didn’t become part of Scotland until relatively shortly before the First Scottish War of Independence. Are you’re saying she should vote no because the Romans used to run her region, making it not really Scottish? Would you feel the same way about the (massively more reasonable) claim that Illinois should secede because it wasn’t one of the original thirteen states?
It seems as relevant as asking whether the neolithic people who first populated the region have preferred having a government in Westminster or Edinburgh, if you could explain to them that there was a difference between the “very far away” and “also very far away” locations, each much more similar to each other than to the rest of the country.
I also live near the birth place of William Paterson, one of the founders of the Bank of England and an advocate of the Union of 1707. He is one of the reasons for the union in the first place, being the originator of the Darien scheme.
According to Roget, ancestor/descendant can be used interchangeably, but I submit to your corrections gentlemen.
I fail to understand the analogy of a devolved Switzerland and an independent Scotland, Surely Switzerland is a federal state and that is what you are arguing for and that is how the UK is changing albeit very slowly.
Huh? Does he also say that father and son are interchangeable?
Thanks for the clarification!