Better together
Surely a died-in-
the-wool opponent of nuclear weapons like you has to be won over by the promise of a nuclear free Scotland? I said. Again, Duncan just smiled quietly. “I was on the anti-Trident demo earlier this year and I was given four or five flyers that said ‘Vote Yes to get rid of Trident!’ But I was there to disarm Trident, not to move it. I don’t believe that staying within Nato and moving the weapons a few hundred miles south does anything to disarm anybody. We have to win the argument to disarm Trident, not just have a nuclear free Scotland.” Was Duncan surprised at the most recent poll that showed that most 16-25 year olds want to remain with the status quo? “It’s only surprising if you take as gospel that the Yes Campaign is the optimistic one, while the No campaign is the pessimistic one. But, if you examine it, there are lot of positives in staying together. I don’t have a pat answer, but my gut tells me that the people of the United Kingdom have a huge amount in common: yes there are pockets of difference but they’re not defined by the
www.humanism-scotland.org.uk
“The most positive aspect of the UK is that we all have a say, and by working together, we can create a UK that’s the best possible outcome for the largest number of people”
border, and I’m happy with difference. If we were independent we’d have similar lines drawn across this country: we could draw one between the mainland and The Western Isles and say beyond here is Wee Free Country, for example. Would we want that? No. We need to be able to have these debates without feeling the need to divide ourselves in order to resolve them. The most positive aspect of the UK is that we all have a say, and by working together, we can create a UK that’s the best possible outcome for the largest number of people. For instance, it’s true that London dominates the cultural
and economic life of the country, and that’s not ideal, but we own the success of London as much as anywhere else in the UK does, and I don’t want to throw that away. If Scotland were independent London would still carry on dominating the life of these islands – but we’d lose the benefits.” “I also think that if
Scotland were to be independent, there’s a real danger that the country would join the race to the bottom to attract foreign investment of the kind that we’re beginning to realise is not the benefit that it once seemed. The Thatcherite, Reaganite notion of trickledown
economics, you know, the Laffer curve – that idea that if the rich get richer, the poor will benefit, and that all boats rise on a rising tide – has been exposed as fraudulent, but Alex Salmond has endorsed it. What that brings is companies like Amazon and Google moving their business to your new low tax area and staying there for as long as its worth it before moving their business to the next country that offers to fund their new factory.”
“The further we get into corporatism the less relevance nations have”, said Duncan, clearly warming to his theme. “In an ideal world corporation tax would be set at a European level. Did you know, for example, that six million pounds was paid to Amazon in terms of grants in kind to set up their factory in Dunfermline but they are delivering zero hour contracts that make their workers benefit dependent? Is that the Scotland we want? I don’t think so. Global capitalism presents big problems, and we will be better placed to tackle those problems together.” l
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