An Explanation of what is going on in Scotland

This is an answer to my friend in Switzerland who wrote this -

“Please take a minute to explain to me what all this Scottish political problem is and on what side of the divide are sensible people?

 From here it all sounds absurd...."

England and Scotland were originally two quite different countries/nations.

For many years they were sometimes friends and sometimes enemies – a bit like siblings, with England as big brother and Scotland the smaller less significant, younger one.

Sometimes they had different religions - when one was Catholic and the other Protestant (Church of England/ Presbyterian) – a constant source of argument and fighting.

The Scots always had a close relationship with France, whereas the English had the reverse.

The 2 countries had a different monarchy a different legal systems and a different culture.

For many years they squabbled at the border.

Then – in 1290 Scotland was left with no heir to its throne.

Seeing an opportunity, England went for it - and tried to take over Scotland in 1296.

This did not go down well and was the start of the Wars of Independence and William Wallace and Robert the Bruce and all that.

The film Braveheart was all about this - very Hollywood and historically inaccurate, but sadly – it whipped up nationalist, anti-English feelings here in Scotland

In 1314 at the Battle of Bannockburn - the Scots won

And in 1320 The Declaration of Arbroath was signed in which it was stated that Scotland should remain free from English Domination. This was the end of the Wars of Independence.

It is now 2014 - exactly 700 years from that famous Battle of Bannockburn and the Nationalist SNP party at present in power in Scotland have decided that this is the best year for this big vote - the vote to decide on whether Scotland should again become an independent country.

So why did Scotland ever unite with England?

Well it started when both countries ended up having the same monarch in 1603

The famous Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded by her nice cousin Queen Elizabeth of England.

The only one of the 2 queens to have a child was Mary. She had a son – James- and he became King of both countries.

However there were still lots of problems, mainly to do with religion until - The Treaty of Union was finally signed by The Scottish Parliament in 1706

Not only was this a decision made freely by the Scottish people but they were begging for it.

Scotland was in huge economic trouble – a bit like this last financial crash.

Scotland needed to be financially bailed out because it had invested heavily in the catastrophic Darien Scheme (setting up a colony at The Isthmus of Panama to hopefully reap the benefit of trade with the East) which bankrupted the country and most of its wealthy citizens.

So the two countries united and both thrived as a result

The British Empire started and Britain became Great and so did Scotland as part of it

There were no complaints

Until -

The end of The British Empire, North Sea Oil and Maggie Thatcher

Once Britain stopped being Great – after the two World wars – it began sliding backwards. Things stayed good in London and the southern area around it, but the further you got from London, the worse it became. The post industrial age had arrived and all the old areas of heavy industry (in the middle and north of England and the central belt and Glasgow in Scotland) -began to die. Unemployment breeds unhappiness and discontent.

In Scotland a feeling began to grow that no-one in parliament, in London, in England knew or cared about what happened in Scotland

Then oil was discovered - in Scottish waters.  The Scots began to wonder whether they could survive without England - because this North Sea oil was theirs.

Then Maggie Thatcher became Prime Minister. To many Scots it seemed as if she did not care about Scotland.

 I do not agree with this as my father was standing as a conservative MP candidate, when he was killed in a car crash on his way home from a political meeting. My parents knew her, she visited them in Scotland, and she did care about Scotland - as did my father.

However the great mistake she made was to introduce the very unpopular Poll Tax in Scotland well before doing so in England. It was as if she was using Scotland to test it.

The Scots will forever hate her and her Conservative Party because of this. The Scots see the Conservative Party as representing everything they hate most – the English, landowning, upper-class.

There is a weird class system thing going on here. Most of the estates in Scotland, until relatively recently were owned by aristocratic people whose speech sounded English. The same was true in England.

The Duke of Westminster, Duke of Devonshire, The Duke of Sutherland, The Earl of Dalkeith, Marquess of Lothian, Lord Lovat etc etc.

They sound English when they talk because that is the way that toffs talk - whether they are English or Scottish.

Your average Scottish man in the street does not realise this. If they hear an English accent they assume the person is English

The UK used to have a dreadful “old school” network thing, whereby people got jobs because of where they went to school and their network of friends. If you went to an expensive posh school then inevitably you would develop a posh accent (English) even if you didn’t start with one. You got access to the posh club and your posh accent was your entry pass.

I think, even now, there is some discrimination in the jobs market against those with local accents in England and in Scotland.

In Scotland this – quite rightly - has fed a feeling of discrimination. Why should a man with – what sounds like an English accent – get a job/promotion in Scotland in favour of another equally good applicant with a Scottish accent?

Why should someone with an English (toff) accent in Scotland act superior to someone with a Scottish accent?

Any resentment is legitimate and understandable.

To give an example – A young man I know, from a solid middle class background went to his local government state school and did well. He got a place at St Andrews University (later attended by Prince William). On his first night there, at dinner in his hall of residence, a game was instigated by a student with a loud braying posh English accent. Everyone had to stand up in turn and say where they had been to school. When it got to my young friend he stood up, and in his beautiful soft Scottish accent, he named his school. They pretended not to understand him, and he was asked several times to repeat it - with much laughter each time at the strange way he spoke. He was being bullied for having a Scottish accent - in Scotland - by a crowd of superior bullies with English accents.

I don’t know this young man’s opinion now on independence, but he will not be able to vote because he works in England. (Only those living in Scotland can vote)

There are never enough jobs for graduates in Scotland and many have to go South for work.

But there is a bloodless revolution going on.

Lord Lovat – chieftain of the mighty Clan Fraser, who led the brave commandos, with the pipes playing, into battle on D-Day - was Scotland’s most loved war hero.

His daughter Tessa stood for parliament in the area where her family were from. Previously it would have been a foregone conclusion, but she lost. People no longer liked how she talked or what she stood for.

In the last 20 to 30 years it has all changed.

Now – in Scotland - you do not dare open your mouth in public if you have an English accent.

No-one in the Scottish parliament has an English Accent – they would not get voted in.

BBC Scotland news programmes and debates are all reported with a Scottish accent.

The only people, who stand any chance of being listened to in the current independence debate, must have a strong Scottish accent – preferably central belt or Glasgow.

So it raises the question in my mind as to what this is actually all about

Is it about England and Scotland separating?

Or

Is it a revolution against the toffs – against those who speak posh - who may or may not be English -but who have always been at the top of the pile when those with Scottish accents were at the bottom?

Is it against the hated conservative party with all its old Eton pupils - the sons of the big estate owners who make decisions in London and are perceived to know or care nothing about Scotland?

It is interesting to note - that if Scotland does get independence - England will be Conservative for ever after. It is only the huge Labour Party vote in Scotland that prevents the Conservative party winning every time.

It is one of the points most often made by Scottish Nationalists – Why should they be governed by the Conservative party in London, when so few people in Scotland vote Conservative. It is a good point.

Could Scotland do it better if it were allowed to govern itself?

Because of this feeling the UK government in 1997 allowed Scotland to have its own devolved parliament in Edinburgh. We vote for our own members of parliament and our own first minister. At present the SNP are the majority party in power.

So Scotland now has quite a lot of powers to do things as it sees fit

It has been promised that these powers will soon increase to what everyone is calling DevoMax

 -Maximum devolution.

So why do we need independence?

We already have the best of both worlds.

I believe that Scotland is too small to survive on its own. We need our big brother down south.

We are better together

As always the main argument, for those who think, is about the economy and the pound.

If we separate - we lose the pound and the protection of the Bank of England

The best we could hope for, would be to join the EU and use the Euro

We would be divorcing England to be forced into marriage with Europe.

But it seems that the EU may not want us and we may not want the EU under the terms we may be forced to join under.

Originally the Scottish nationalists were quite keen to have the Euro but it is obvious to us here now - that Project Euro is a disaster.

For a shared currency to work, there must also be shared everything else, especially the banking system and tax and economic policies.

For the Euro to work there needs to be a proper Federation of Europe.

Britain is not keen on that and neither is Scotland because we feel that the EU and Brussels are undemocratic monsters that answer to no-one.

But the same principle applies to the pound

The Scottish nationalists would like to keep the pound after independence.

But it would not work unless there was still a sharing of the banking system and tax and economic policies.

Scotland would be in a worse position than it is now, because it would no longer have any say in those matters.

However England (big brother) would still probably have to bail Scotland out if it got into financial trouble. 

England has just realised this and – quite rightly – are not happy about it. Scotland has now been told that England will not allow it to have the pound (tied / backed up by England).   

And – The oil – Scotland’s Oil - Well it is mostly all gone. What is left is very expensive to extract.

Scotland has a small population with little industry except tourism and whisky, huge unemployment and an aging and unhealthy population

Outside Glasgow and the Central belt that population is very rural. Much is beautiful, uninhabited land that is commercially useless, with the occasional crofter trying to eke out a hand to mouth existence

But those who will vote for Independence are voting with their hearts and not with their heads. It is emotion, not thought that decides them.

They see it as the only chance they will ever get, for those at the bottom of the heap to get to the top, for the oppressed to be free of the oppressor. For Scotland to be in control of its own future and destiny and to be the way it wants to be.

Those are pretty strong stirring emotions – I feel them too

But

You cannot let your heart rule your head.