Och. I was doing so well too.
You have no idea how hard I’ve tried to be good about this. How often I’ve sat on my hands, and not commented, or liked or retweeted or shared or argued or said a single frickin’ word, because it’s not my business anymore. I HAVE BEEN SO GOOD! Ask DorkyDad how restrained I’ve been. Ask him how often in the last few months he’s heard me come out with some hideously bland and diplomatic answer when people have asked me about the Scottish Independence Referendum. He’ll pull this tortured face at you, like he’s stuck at a dinner party between Britney Spears and Kim Jong-un, and he just needs the whole thing to be over already.
But I’m so inspired and enthused by reading other people’s stories – so excited by the number of folk, women especially, who are finding their political voice for the first time – that I feel compelled to add mine to the chorus.
The only previous time I tried to write about the referendum was more than two years ago. I was living in England and feeling frustrated because I’d just found out that I didn’t get a vote. If I’d had a vote then, I would have almost certainly have voted no.
How things change.
Now I believe it’s absolutely right that I don’t get a vote. Why should I? The whole point of the referendum is let the people who live on Scottish soil – using Scottish schools and hospitals and infrastructure – make a decision about their future. To move the debate from one around civic nationalism to one around ethnic nationalism, and to start making judgments about who would or wouldn’t be qualified to vote would, as one friend said, be like opening up Pandora’s Sporran. It would be a very bad move.
But if I WAS still living in Scotland, and if I DID still get a vote, I am sure now that it would be an enthusiastic YES.
When I lived in Edinburgh, one of the things I loved most about that community was the appetite for knowledge. Every night of the week there would be a choice of a dozen public lectures you could attend. They would be organised by the university, or one of the city’s libraries, or by an NGO or a school or a church. And every night of the week, people would leave their homes to go and hear an expert talk about whatever his or her niche subject was. They would listen, and ask questions, and take that lovely gleaming pearl of new knowledge home to bed with them to ponder over some more.
That’s happening all over Scotland right now on an unprecedented scale. There is a hunger for facts, for debate, for imagination, for learning, for knowing the best case and the worst-case scenarios of a Yes Vote and a No Vote in the referendum. There is discussion around almost every part of government policy – energy, defence, land reform, education, health, welfare, environment, housing… And what’s most exciting is that those conversations are being held not just in the parliament, or in the pages of the national newspapers, but at a very local and very personal level. The chat is happening person-to-person, in pubs and public meetings, on blogs and Facebook pages and in queues for the bus.
Watching from a distance it looks like the majority of mainstream media outlets have failed the Scottish public in the run-up to the referendum. The front pages are just not reflecting the reality of the campaign. But social media is providing an alternative space for response – people are standing up and saying, ‘if you won’t tell our story we will tell our own’.
In addition to the sharing of stories, there is plenty of robust debate. But neither online nor during our visit to Scotland last month have I seen any evidence of the great divisions that some people have suggested are taking place.
Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m seeing people with many political differences uniting for the first time to campaign for independence. They are all kinds of people. Gosh, they are lawyers and poets, activists and artists, teachers and farmers, bankers and charity workers and students. It is hard to explain to friends outside of the debate that the voting intentions of Scots don’t seem to be falling along any traditional or predictable lines. You cannot say definitively that people are more likely to vote one way or another because of class or religion, education or sex. With the rising participation in groups like Labour for Independence, you can no longer even make predictions based on party affiliation.
There are dozens of reasons why I would like to see a yes vote. In almost every area of policy, I believe that independence would provide Scotland with more effective tools to create a fairer and more equitable society than it currently has. And if that prompted a similar social movement for change in the rest of the UK too, then all the better.
Of course there are uncertainties. There would be so much to negotiate after a yes vote. There would be untangling and dismantling and construction and invention. But that would be the really exciting bit. That’s when the different visions would get hammered out into a new reality. That’s when the representatives of the many hundreds of different interest groups could start getting into the real nitty-gritty of what an independent Scotland should look like.
But the main reason I want to see a Yes Vote is because I am so excited by the surge of energy that I’m seeing in the campaign. I am inspired by the optimism and the hope and the positive visions that people are coming up with for my lovely wee country. I want a win so that on September 19th all those tired activists find their second wind and spend the next five or ten years working hard to make Scotland the best it can be, rather than having to return to the same old fights with Westminster.
Campaigning is tough. It was my full time job for several years, and it is something I have done on a voluntary basis with charities, unions and political parties. It is hard to maintain a high level of energy and enthusiasm for a cause when it feels like you’re getting knocked back all the time, and it is hard to find enough points of agreement to make any movement a broad one. The pro-independence movement has broken through those barriers to become the most diverse and most passionate campaign I have ever seen.
You can’t manufacture a grassroots movement, especially on social media. It either happens or it doesn’t. I have looked and looked for pro-union bloggers setting out a positive case for staying in the UK, and I just can’t find them. The BritMums network – a parent blogging community in the UK that I am part of – was approached by a representative of the Cabinet Office to ask if any bloggers would consider writing about the referendum. Funnily enough, there just happened to be some heavily biased infographics that we could include in the post, setting out the benefits of remaining in the UK.
I still haven’t quite decided whether it’s funny or offensive that a civil servant thought that bloggers – even ‘mummy bloggers’ – could be so easily manipulated, but either way it provided a good contrast with the genuinely lively corner of the blogosphere that’s inhabited by Yes supporters.
There are people who have articulated their vision for an independent Scotland far more eloquently than I ever could; people who know their area of policy inside out, and are not just making a one-off statement about their voting intentions, but who are posting really meaty and thought-provoking articles, day after day throughout the campaign. Some of the ones I read regularly are Burdz Eye View, Lallands Peat Worrier, Lesley Riddoch, Adam Ramsay, and Derek Bateman. Bella Caledonia provides space for many different voices.
There are also several campaigning groups that are not affiliated to any political party, and their sites are well worth a read – Women for Independence, National Collective, Business for Scotland, Common Weal, and Radical Independence.
In less than a month, the referendum will be done. It is nerve-wracking, watching it all take place from the other side of the world. But as the wonderful Tom Devine says, Scotland has the chance to ‘develop a truly amicable and equal relationship with our great southern neighbour in every possible field’.
I hope that happens.
I hope Scotland votes Yes.
Dorkymum | Stories from Tasmania 
As someone English who has never lived in Scotland I obviously don’t get a vote. But as a former cilvil servant who has worked with colleagues north of the border on issues of crime, security and defence I’m watching the whole process with interest. My experience of the Government departments and public bodies that I worked with in Edinburgh and Glasgow is that there is absolutely no way on this earth that they would be able to operate properly without huge input from London or elsewhere in the UK. There was a lack of understanding of what was done for them elsewhere and constant calls for expertise from people south of the border on everything from process issues to technical problems. Obviously if there is a yes vote there will still be cooperation on issues like this between England and Scotland I expect (and hope) but I just struggle to believe that people have really taken this into account and think that independence is affordable.
Certainly if a yes vote goes through the process of unpicking everything will be fascinating (again with my former civil servant hat on – after all no one’s done this before), but I wonder if it will get to that stage and then suddenly all come crumbling down when they realise just how much England does for Scotland. I’m not saying that independence is impossible, but just far far more complex than I think people realise – and I’m only thinking about it from the small bit that I have experience of.
As I say I’m watching with interest.
I don’t get a vote and I live in Scotland…will have for 10 years by the referendum! If I did have a vote I’d vote yes. It is really funny because my parents in America both are yes (not that they get a say) but my in-laws are no. Maybe something about American mind-set of wanting control over our own country or taking risks…or maybe just because it doesn’t affect them.
I hope that everyone who can vote does vote. There has been some VERY scary stuff coming out of BT campaign including a lot of patriarchal BS so I hope that people make an intelligent decision and let Scotland decide what’s best for Scotland!
Really well said. I get to vote, and even though I was a bit reluctant about independence at first, I think it’s the best thing that could ever happen to Scotland. So it’s a Yes 🙂
Great stuff Roo!
Hi Ruth, great piece. I relate to your experience a lot. I started out thinking I would vote ‘yes’ because of negative ideas about the history of oppression in Scotland, but what galvinised me into coming out as a yes voter was seeing how much positive energy and hope for the future there is in the yes campaign. Instead of it being about somehow trying to right a wrong in the past it feels like a splendid and exciting opportunity to build a future, and that also gives me all the more faith that not only can we do it (which should never have been doubted), but we have such will and motivation to do it brilliantly.
Great thought provoking piece. Im voting yes. For the simple fact that i want whats best for my children and future generation. It will be so fascinating being part of a fledgling nation finding its own wings. And i for one cant wait for the post yes ceilidh! Suas leis! 🙂 x
As an English bird my instinct is to urge you to stay, and also to wonder why we don’t get a say in something that effects us almost as much as it effects Scotland – don’t leave us at the mercy of them Tory bastards please! But equally, if I was living in Scotland I would be voting Yes – who wouldn’t want a fresh start, a chance to do things differently, better, a bigger voice. Can we have a Dorset referendum please?!
The overwhelming impression I am getting from the entire independence debate (and it’s more than a little worrying) is that in Scotland we haven’t got one single politician of any merit whatsoever. From the lame and pathetic attempts of the ‘Better Together’ campaign to scare/bore us into voting ‘No’ to the ‘Yes’ campaign’s misinformation and shout-them-into-submission attitude the whole debate resembles a town council meeting rather than the ‘Big Conversation’ we were all promised.
I had hoped for an intelligent debate where at least the ‘Yes’ campaign would show some kind of vision for a brand new Scotland. Instead the whole thing has been bogged down in pointless mini-arguments, some of which have even been about things which are already devolved to Scotland such as the NHS and Education. It makes me suspect that Alex Salmond has no vision other than that of his own place in the history books.
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Am I allowed to giggle at Pandora’s Sporran? I think it’s time the U.K. moved away from it’s political hold over Scotland and leave it to those live, work and breathe there.It’s a YES from me.
I don’t know about you, but I am a bit frightened to think what might be IN Pandora’s Sporran… 😉
YAY! I hope your referendum passes with flying colors, for the Scots. It is far past time for them to be able to control their own affairs
I lived in Scotland for 5 years and I wish I could be there to vote no. The huge amount of optimism that drives the yes vote reflects the optimistic nature of the Scottish people and it is this sense of community that makes me love Scotland so much. However I think the inherent uncertainly and risk that will inevitably follow independence cannot be ignored. Scotland is a free and prosperous country, already possessing some degree of self-governance with amazing opportunities like free education and healthcare. These opportunities were not constructed on a whim, they were carefully designed, tried and tested and they are successful. These very ideals that Scotland has been built upon will be strained because Scotland and England are not separate, there are integrated in a complex pattern. Economies and societies built in this manner cannot cleanly separate no matter how much precision you think you can use. Both countries will experience huge upheaval during independence and will squabble over the corpse of the previously United Kingdom. And for what? What changes does Scotland need, it is already an amazing country, it does not need a revolution to be a great place to live. It does not need to sever ties with its neighbors to be free (very ties it depends on). It is a thriving economy with a diverse culture and amazing people. It has achieved it all as part of the United Kingdom.
Oh I do love to see you at your best Dorky Mum 🙂 Articulate, passionate, proud and brave. Love you x
I think there’s an additional benefit from the discussion that has come from the referendum. It’s a re-energizing of UK political discourse. I really hope that in the months to come leading p to the general election that people might start to believe that voting is worthwhile and that votes do make a difference. Until yesterday the uk government has no plan B for the situation of a successful yes vote but now the polls have inspired panic. The Westminster sleepers are waking up. They are stunned that the small mans vote might topple a world nation. It’s incredible to see such energy in uk politics.
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I love this post. I will be voting Yes, due to lots of varying factors. The ones who sit on their hands and go ‘aw naw, it’s gonna be too much hard work’ are the ones who bother me the most. We are never going to be Independent without a kerfuffle and some graft, but if anything, that’s what we are intrinsically good at as a nation, and I truly believe, that even if I myself don’t personally see the benefit, that my children will. And ain’t that what we all really want?We have a remarkable opportunity and we should take it with both hands. What’s the alternative? The next 300 years of no change?That’s even more terrifying to me.
My sympathies. I had hoped for a yes too.