A great debate, a massive turnout (84.6%) – but nothing changes?
No – everything changes a bit.
You can’t have such an important debate, held with such passion, and then life goes on the same. It just isn’t possible.
Cameron has entered that dangerous ‘I haven’t got much time left to do something good’ period as Prime Minister and his statement this morning to move things on in England at the same pace as Scotland looks over-ambitious. His legacy should be to start things on a better footing not to get it all fixed before the General Election next year.
If anything were to change quickly, then why not give younger people the right to vote in Westminster elections?
The result keeps being described as decisive – but isn’t it decisively divisive? A 55:45 split is pretty much as close as one can get to a divided country. Mind the gap!
If you give people a real choice about their future then they become energised – will we be given a choice in the General Election next May?
There will be ‘Yes’ voters who, today, are feeling relieved that the vote went the other way, and ‘No’ voters regretting that they hadn’t had the courage to vote the other way. And there will be distraught ‘Yes’ voters and delighted ‘No’ voters too, of course. Sometimes you only really know how you feel when you get the result. Have you ever felt relieved that you weren’t offered a job? How do you feel about the result, now it is a result (and where do you live?)?
I feel a mixture of relief and disappointment. Living in England, my life would have been made worse by a Scottish ‘Yes’ vote but if I had been a voter in Scotland I would have been greatly attracted by the radical option. My hope would be that the ‘No’ vote opens up better radical alternatives throughout the whole of the UK – but, we’ll see.
The other emotion I have is the one that one often has after winning money on a bet – wishing one had invested more! Still, my return on investment in six months would have taken about 25 years to earn in the building society so that’s not bad (nay bad!).
As I walked through Edinburgh on Tuesday afternoon, and again on Wednesday morning, there was an air of excitement in the air. People were talking about the referendum and there were stickers and posters everywhere – even on Adam Smith’s shoulder (see photo below). It felt like Scotland might well be going to take a dramatic and decisive step out of the UK. That’s how it felt. But looking at the betting, for the last few weeks the odds have consistently shown that little money was being invested in a ‘Yes’ vote – in fact the odds on a ‘No’ continued to shorten. That seems to me to be an example of how one’s partial, anecdotal experience is less reliable than the collected views of many. Adam Smith, on his statue in the Royal Mile, would have heard much talk of the coming independence in the conversations of the people passing by him, but he would probably, as an economist, have followed the money to make his decisions.
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As a Yes voter, I have to admit part of me was anxious about the short-term disruption that it would have brought about, but I am disappointed that we have rejected the longer term opportunities that Yes offered. In particular I am disappointed that my taxes will carry on paying for nuclear weapons.
However, if my Yes vote paves the way to wider reform of the UK constitution then I will be happy with that, although I am not overly optimistic that much progress will be made.
Unfortunately for you Mark, I suspect that the Labour party will be the biggest loser in this no vote. By all accounts they have lost support in Scotland by siding with the Tories and big business in this campaign, and by promising new powers they have put themselves in a very difficult position. If they fail to deliver new powers, they will lose more support in Scotland, but I think that new powers will only be offered if Scottish MPs are no longer allowed to vote on English matters. That would make forming a labour government very difficult if its majority was small.
Paul – I think you make some very good points. Thank you.
There will be no meaningful UK constitutional reform. It is next to impossible in such a ramshackle state and it does not suit the main parties. Their response will be to make sure that this never happens again by, paradoxically, delivering powers which will weaken Holyrood. The vague powers already proposed are unusable and are intended to result in a loss of credibility for the Scottish Government. Any extension of those powers will give Scotland the responsibility for raising the bulk of its revenue without the macro economic powers, not least oil, needed to increase its revenue base, which was the point of independence. This will be accompanied by much less redistribution of UK revenue to Scotland. The so called ‘pool and share’ benefits we were sold as a reason for ‘No’ will disappear. Short of a genuine UK federal structure this is the likely outcome of tinkering with more powers . It is a poisoned chalice.
Scottish MPs will also lose the right to vote on English only matters at Westminster, which sounds perfectly reasonable, but it effectively means that they will lose the right to influence the overall budgetary direction of the UK with negative effects for Scotland.
All of this will give a platform to populist right wing English Nationalism (a totally different beast to the Scottish version) which will stoke the anti European trend in England, while simultaneously alienating Scotland, and will lead to UK withdrawal against Scotland’s will.
The important next event politically will be the next Holyrood election ( rather than the Westminster one) by which time the Scottish electorate will have glimpsed Westminster’s direction of travel and will reinstall the SNP. They will also have seen the vested interest which both UK and Scottish Labour have in the status quo, already confirmed by the ‘Yes’ majorities in Scottish labour’s heartlands. Scottish Labour will not only be weakened by the SNP but by the successors to the radical campaign for social justice which produced these majorities. Scottish politics and aspirations will continue to diverge from English.
Scotland’s pre eminent historian, Prof. Tom Devine said recently – ‘The UK is a failed state’. If he is right then the fun is not over. It has just begun.
What I do not like is the fact that approx 1.6 million people thought they had the right to affect the lives of what must be over 60 million other UK residents.
We would all like to have a say in our own community and to take it to extremes our parish of 54 houses would probably like to be independent.
Maybe it was all about a small fish in a big pond becoming a large fish in a small pond.
Almost everyone in England wish they had the benefits passed out to Scotland while I guess we subsidise it with our taxes,really laughable it ought to be a Monty Python sketch.
Dennis Ames
Scotland is one of the two states which were party to the Union. It is one of the only two constituent states of the UK. Scotland was considering the dissolution of that Union as is its right. So they were not just any old 1.6 million citizens. They were 45% of a distinct – non English (that’s the bit you can’t grasp) – electorate.
One of the interesting facts to emerge from the Referendum is that Scotland – on government figures – has been a net contributor to UK revenue for a century. The greatest recipient of public money, of public subsidy, is London, by a very long way.
My Daughter…who is very good with numbers…has looked at the break downs of the voting demographics. (released by the pollsters -who were right in the end)… She tells me that there was a very distinct age split in the vote. The yes vote was dominated by the under 55’s, the vast bulk of the No voters are in the cohorts over 55. The dynamic will be dramatically different in 20 years time. I was telling her that this was my third referendum since 1979 (my first vote). She told me that as I was a male living in the west of Scotland…. the actuarial types say I wont get another chance! Ouch.
Mark, you seem to have excised NI from your Union Jack…not intentional I presume?! or would you prefer it that way?
Camebrowns promises are hollow. I and many like me do not believe they will be delivered, not for a second. There was only one option which would deliver meaningful change throughout the UK and it wasn’t a no! Promises undelivered, as they surely will be, will simply add more demand for a YES in the next indyref (for surely there will be one) and when UKIP and the tories join forces, entrench themselves in their own little England and take the UK further from Europe those who voted no will look back and ponder what might’ve been. Who was it that said their greatest regrets came from saying Yes when they shouldve said no…I suspect that may be flipped on its head in this case.
Al – thanks. Yes I noticed that after I had loaded up the image. Well spotted.
Stevenson,I grasp it very well,fact is it has been beneficial for everyone for centuries to be together and surely Scotland does not think it could defend itself on its own.
Fact is also I would guess 45% of English feel unhappy about Conservatives ruling them,shown by election results.
This referendum will probably be detrimental to everyone in UK including Scotland as we now know there are 45% of very unhappy Scots.
Maybe a lot of English like myself who like the Scots will feel that like a footballer who is unhappy at his club and wants more money then let him go,if that is what the Scots wanted it would be better for them to go.
As a Scot I would be very tempted to point out that we have successfully defended the UK for centuries….occasionally with a wee bit of help. I think you will find that we told folk it would have a very major impact on everyone a couple years back…but nobody wanted to pay any attention. For me, the bottom line was that I signed up for the football team…. but the management of the club decided that rugby was a better game…
First and foremost, you have to admire the civility of the debate (for the most part), and the dignity of both sides in victory and defeat. Scotland has come out of this with great credit.
I’m agnostic on the question of Scottish independence, but I can’t help but feel sorry for the Yes campaign. A grassroots people’s movement took on the power of all the UK parties (with the honorable exception of the Greens), a universally hostile media, and the vested interests of corporate multinationals, and they nearly pulled it off.
My guess is that glorious weekend 12 days before the vote, when opinion polls suggested the dream might be within their grasp, and the British Establishment had a collective nervous breakdown, will stay with Yes campaigners for a long time.
If the referendum results in real constitutional change, then we might all have cause to thank the Scots for the debate they have started. The demands have already started here in Wales for sure. Both sides have said the referendum settles the issue for a generation, but if Westminster shafts Scotland, as Paul, Stevenson, and Al expect, then I predict another referendum within a decade.
This isn’t over by a long way.
There is no doubt at all that Westminster will shaft Scotland. Already Cameron is taking a conditional line on the more powers’ issue and Farage and his fellow travellers are taking a punitive line on it, both of them in relation to the ‘West Lothian Question’ – English votes for English issues. Neither of them has sustainable constitutional reform as his priority in that.
There is in any case no solution to the West Lothian Question’, especially if they use at as a political football. It is only the most obvious irreconcilable in a shambolic UK constitutional and political situation. Among other problems English votes for English issues would cripple Labour at UK level as much as Scottish independence would have.
Alec Salmond’s resignation speech made it clear that the field remains wide open for secession and the coming constitutional warfare at Westminster will reinforce that, as will the inevitable assault on Holyrood disguised as ‘more powers’.
And finally the 16-18 vote was 75% Yes, the reverse of the 55+ age group. There is everything to play for.
Circus,a very good point and one which I think the English people appreciate and admire the Scots for all their efforts in various conflicts which would make a break up really sad for lots of us.
As an Englishman now living in Scotland, and as a Yes voter, I felt that the best hope for Scotland was independence. I also think that, paradoxically, this would’ve driven improvements in constitutional reform in the rest of the UK.
If Westminster’s leaders remain true to their ‘Vow’, then the DevoMax option was always on the table and, arguably, they’ve wasted two years of our lives. If they reneged on their word, then they prove the point that Scotland would be better off without them.
Perhaps if Hen Harriers had been enfranchised… ?
My overwhelming feeling watching the results from each council area come in on Friday morning was disappointment.
Disappointment that my fellow Scots were not united in the quest for the autonomy of independence and had been frightened by the Better Together “parcel of rogues” that had joined forces to lie and intimidate and force their will on the Scottish people.
The big supermarket bosses marched into No. 10 and told to spread fear within our population and the bankers told to tell lies about moving to England and resultant job losses in Scotland.
The most disgusting thing was to see Labour on both sides of the border standing shoulder to shoulder with the Tory party. Alasdair Darling and George Brown “the men that bust Britain” spreading lies and fear even getting their party members to phone pensioners and tell them that their pensions were unsafe!
I suppose some good has come of this, Scottish Labour is finished and the SNP are guaranteed a third term in office at Holyrood. There have been around 10,000 new memberships taken out with SNP since the referendum.
The number of people who actually voted and really got involved with the referendum was immense and the young people 16+ voting for the first time really got involved too. This should hopefully awaken a new political dawn in Scotland.
To Denis Ames I would say that although there is more money per person spent on Scots we in turn put more cash in the pot than out English, Welsh or N. Irish counterparts so don’t worry about your taxes subsidising Scots because it’s actually the Scots who subsidise England.
Your typically English colonial rant about how England should have a say as it doesn’t want Scotland to leave the Union is complete rubbish too. As David Cameron said, before his panicked trip to Scotland “It’s for the Scots to decide” Our independence has nothing to do with England and the pathetic love bombing is only due to the panic felt as the cash cow big business has been milking for years has the chance of running dry.