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W


ITH six months to go until the people of Scotland vote on the


constitutional future of our nation, Yes Scotland has launched a massive campaign to promote the message that Scotland can, should and must be independent.


As you might expect, I have no


disagreement with any of that. But, as you might also have anticipated, I have my own slant on this message.


That Scotland can be independent is a


given as far as I am concerned. The economics of it all have never been an issue for me. So long as I was persuaded that independence would not result in an economic catastrophe of epic proportions, the finer details could be of no more than academic interest.


Facing a decision with such momentous


implications for my country and its people, I find, at times, darkly comical and, at times, grossly insulting the idea that I might be swayed by necessarily tenuous promises and threats involving relatively trivial amounts of cash. Or threats involving large amounts that simply aren’t credible.


There is, of course, no economic


catastrophe looming. At least, not one caused by Scotland restoring its rightful constitutional status. We know what causes economic disaster, and it’s not the people exercising their democratic right of self-determination.


If the economics of it all have not been


an issue in the sense of something that causes me any significant concern, it certainly has been an issue in terms of the obsessions of unionist politicians and their friends in the media. They would have us believe that the economy is the only issue. That it is all about the economy. There are reason for this.


Firstly, the anti-independence campaign


knows that people tend to be pre- occupied with money.


Even if there were not genuine reasons


for worrying about how we are going to pay for the things we need, we are conditioned to fret about whether we can afford the things we want.


Democratic politics has all but been


abandoned in favour of a neo-liberal economic imperative. Politics outside the referendum debate long since forsook lofty or even merely worthy ideals. It has been reduced to unseemly squabbling over money.


Since this is all they know, the British


parties have tried to frame the referendum debate in the same terms.


Then there is the fact that economics is


the perfect territory for a campaign which, apart from the odd smear attempt, relies entirely on scaremongering. Nobody does


doom-laden prognostications to order better than practitioners of the dismal science.


obsessive focus on economic arguments serves to divert people from the areas where the No campaign’s arguments are pitifully weak or totally non-existent.


about democracy and social justice. As well they might be.


There is no economic


catastrophe looming. Don’t take my word for it. That is the verdict of authorities such as The Financial Times and credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s. Even David Cameron admits that Scotland is economically perfectly viable.


Anti-independence


campaigners will throw their hands up in horror at any suggestion that they are arguing that Scotland is “Too wee! Too poor! Too stupid!”, while simultaneously pumping out propaganda which suggests precisely that.


They don’t feel any need to


be consistent. Inconsistency and even total contradiction serves their purpose of creating a sense of confusion.


I absolutely abhor and totally


reject the suggestion that Scotland must tick somebody else’s boxes in order to qualify for that which is ours by right. But if those boxes must be ticked, then they have been. Scotland is a wealthy nation. Scotland can be independent. Next question!


I


CANSHMU But, perhaps most importantly of all, the They are distinctly uncomfortable talking


undoubtedly is, I would tend to approach the argument that Scotland should be independent on a more basic level.


I would argue that Scotland should be


N addressing the matter of why Scotland should be independent Yes Scotland builds its case on democratic


accountability, economic efficiency and social justice. And a very strong case it is too. An unanswerable case.


The argument that, as an independent


country with a government that we have actually elected, Scotland will “make better and more relevant decisions for our future than remote Westminster” is just about as solid as any political argument gets. Especially when one understands that the “remoteness” of Westminster refers, not merely to linear distance, but to an ever-widening gulf in political culture.


Impeccable as Yes Scotland’s approach


independent because it is fundamentally right. It is a matter of constitutional justice. Independence is normal. What we seek for Scotland is no more than the constitutional status that all other nations take for granted. It is not a question of whether Scotland should be independent but a question of whether Scotland’s anomalous constitutional position as an appendage of the British state can any longer be justified.


In fact, it is a question of whether that


anomalous position is tenable even in the relatively short term. I would argue that it is not. I would argue that we have reached a tipping point. I would contend that the political union between Scotland and England is broken beyond any hope of salvation.


I will go further and argue that efforts to


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