No to pigheadedness
LIKE many people, my feelings over the referendum were torn. I’m very much in favour of independence for countries that have been taken over and oppressed, or in cases like the Basques and the Kurds, where a single distinct culture has been split between two states.
Nevertheless I voted No, and I am deeply disturbed by the insistence of the Yes campaigners that anyone who voted No must have done so because they were scared of change or were conned by Westminster, as if there could be no other explanation. I voted No for the following reasons: Scotland already has a clear and recognised identity as a separate country: it doesn’t need isolation to give it nationhood. The Union is Scotland’s thing — our Stuart kings inherited control of England and came up with the idea of the Union, and Scottish Protestants later imposed William of Orange on the rest of the UK — so to leave would be like nagging someone to marry you, then divorcing them at the first sign of trouble. The only reason power shifted so far to Westminster was because the Scottish government in the early 18th century mishandled its finances so badly that the entire country went into receivership.
Scotland is not a monoculture, and not all its parts buy into the Yes party’s particular vision of Scottishness. Quite apart from the Gaelic-speaking areas, Orkney and Shetland are Scandinavian statelets that just happen to be administered from Scotland, and the borderers are borderers first, English and Scots second. A hard split between England and Scotland would drive a division through their culture, as with the Kurds.
The UK has existed for long enough to have a proud history in its own right and many people in foreign countries still regard the UK as a beacon of justice and democracy. To dissolve it now would be to betray their trust.
At present, England and Scotland balance each other politically, but the rise of Ukip and of the likes of Tommy Sheridan means there’s a risk that if we separate, England will drift to the far right and Scotland to the far left.
Last and least, after the debacle over the cost of the Scottish parliament building, I wouldn’t trust this shower to run a whelk stall.
CLAIRE M. JORDAN, West Calder, West Lothian.