Scotland & the UK: better together or better apart?

‘The No campaign’ may have been a more obvious and honest title but eschewing that negative connotation, “Better Together” became the name of the campaign opposing “Yes Scotland”

Better Together must be mindful of negative arguments and those that the Scottish people see as playing down our country’s ability to survive on her own. Indeed, on the Better Together website, their article ‘The +ve case’ starts by declaring “We love Scotland,” then getting to the crux of their argument: “Our case is not that Scotland could not survive as a separate country - it is that there's a better choice for our future.”

This is an incredibly interesting argument. A look at the history of sovereign states around the world would therefore say: Scotland and the UK are wholly unique in being “Better Together”

Over the last century or so, the vast majority* of people who have held independence referenda have voted ‘Yes’. Countries including Norway, Iceland, Ukraine and Croatia have decided that they would be better governed in an independent state.

Looking at nations who have won their independence, it seems impossible to find one who has later reverted to their previous union. Countries who have made this decision have universally gone on to better governance. These countries have not regretted voting ‘Yes’.

How unique our Union would prove to be if we decided that we are the exception. Alex Salmond once famously said “The fundamental reason for being independent is that Scotland is a nation and nations are better when they govern themselves.”

Voters in countries around the world have shared this belief in taking action to win their independence. In deciding that Scotland would be better off governed not by ourselves but by a government in a foreign country, we would be a lone voice in the crowd of world politics. What confidence we would need to have in the UK; what little faith in Scotland.

There is no doubt that this decision is monumental, the most important that Scottish voters will ever be asked to make at the polls. Collectively, we must make sure that we make the right choice so that as a nation, we are not left with regret.

Of course, the argument that Scotland will be “Better Together” should surely be backed by a look at our history together. Unfortunately for the Better Together campaign, there are many examples throughout the lifetime of Scottish voters where our country would have fared better governed by our own parliament.

In the 1970s, oil was discovered in the North Sea. While the money generated from this benefits the UK as a whole, as much as 90% is thought to be Scotland’s.

Norway has built a ‘rainy day’ fund with their oil revenue, a model that has allowed them to ride out the worst of the financial crisis. The fund began in 1996 with an initial investment of around $300 million, but reports in August placed its value at $600 billion. It now owns one percent of all equities across the globe. Experts now believe the fund could last a century or more.

According to the Guardian Economics article, ‘Britain has squandered golden opportunity North Sea oil promised’, “The UK has used its oil and gas receipts to pay for mass unemployment, tax cuts and current government spending.”

An independent Scotland could have followed Norway’s lead in placing its oil and gas riches in a huge pension fund, which it in turn invests in international stocks and bonds. Instead, the money has been squandered by a UK government who lead us into a recession. Thatcher’s deregulation of the banks and later, Gordon Brown’s decision to hand supervision of individual banks to the Financial Services Authority, lead us into an economic crisis.

One beneficiary of North Sea oil thrives; the other suffers a massive recession.

Scotland would have been better apart.

Tomorrow (Sunday 7^th October) marks eleven years of the war in Afghanistan. During this time, 430 Britons have lost their lives amid a total allied loss exceeding 3,000.

The UK’s expenditure is heading towards £20 billion; the same amount that the government is planning to cut from the country's National Health Service, one of just 10 good reasons to end the war which are laid out in Stop War’s article.

During this time, we have also invaded Iraq. In 2003, a rebel amendment was tabled against the war in Iraq by figures including the SNP defence spokesman, Angus Robertson. At the time, the Conservatives had only 1 seat in Scotland. Almost all of their 166 MPs voted to support Tony Blair.

By contrast, only 34 out of the 72 Scottish MPs voted to support the Government’s position.

What little say we had in the decision to invade Iraq. The war resulted in the deaths of 179 UK soldiers, 15 of whom were from Scotland.

Scotland would have been better apart.

The most baffling thing I find in the debate on independence is the huge number of people who see devolution as a massive success, but are unsure about voting ‘Yes’. Devolution has been a success precisely because nations work best when governed by their own people.

Consider this: since 1997, what are the main political decisions that have hurt the people of Scotland most? The decision to enter Iraq, entering Afghanistan and the decisions that lead to the recession were all catastrophic errors. Where Holyrood has made decisions we have generally fared well; warfare, the economy, things Westminster control, these are the decisions made for Scotland in the last fifteen years that have gone horribly wrong.

It makes sense that we have a university system the envy of many when we control education, or an NHS regarded stronger than elsewhere in the UK when health is another devolved matter. Decisions are made in Holyrood by MPs representing all of Scotland. Where in Westminster our views only make up a tiny 10% of the vote on any issue, why should we ever expect to be heard but on the few issues where Scotland and the rest of the UK have similar needs and views?

To me, that does not sound like a Union of nations who are better together. Agreeing with the success of devolution but choosing to leave Westminster in charge of such massive decisions makes no sense whatosever.

If you think devolution has worked, vote ‘Yes’ to take full control over decisions made for Scotland.

Devolution works because Scotland would not be Better Together, but better apart.

*Only the people of Quebec (by an incredibly narrow margin), Bermuda and Puerto Rico have voted no. Successful independence referenda are listed below:

1905 Norway 

1944 Iceland 

1958 Guinea 

1990 Slovenia 

1991 Croatia 

1991 Macedonia 

1991 Ukraine 

1991 Georgia 

1991 Transnistrian 

1992 Bosnia and Herzegovina  

1992 South Ossetia

1993 Eritrea  

1994 Moldova 

1999 East Timor 

2006 Montenegro 

2006 South Ossetia (retention of independence) 

2006 Transnistria 

2011 Southern Sudan