Scottish independence, a tough call

On September 18 this year, British, Commonwealth and EU citizens resident in Scotland will vote on a single question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

It is not the first vote on Scotland’s place in the UK — a previous referendum triggered the political devolution that created the Scottish Parliament — but will be the most significant.

Should the “yes” campaign, led by the ruling Scottish Nationalist Party, have its way, the European Union’s 29th member State and the UN’s 194th may come into being by March 2016, undoing the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and England.

After a measured start, when the British Prime Minister made an emotional appeal to the people of Scotland that the UK would be “deeply diminished” without them, the debate has rapidly become more heated.

In an unusual display of unity, the three main political parties in Westminster have teamed up against independence, wielding the most powerful weapon they have to hand: the pound. The ruling Conservatives and Liberal Democrats as well as Labour have all insisted that none would allow an independent Scotland to adopt the pound.

Keeping the currency and the Bank of England was a key part of the blueprint for the independent state outlined by the Scottish National Party late last year, along with the 90 per cent of North Sea oil revenues generated within its borders. Also weighing-in in recent days is the European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso who, in a BBC interview, warned that an independent Scotland desirous of joining the EU would struggle to receive support from member states, especially those worried about separatist movements in their own countries, such as Spain.

“The wheels are falling off the independence wagon,” triumphantly declared Alistair Darling, Britain’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer and now head of the “Better Together” campaign to keep Scotland in the UK.

The SNP has hit back forcefully: its leader Alex Salmond, accusing the Westminster government of “bluff, bluster and bullying”, has insisted that if an independent Scotland cannot use the pound then it will not accept UK liabilities, including its share of public debt.

“If there is no legal basis for Scotland having a share of the public asset of the Bank of England, there is equally no legal basis for Scotland accepting a share of the public liability of the national debt,” he said on Monday.

Taking aim at the increasingly anti-independence rhetoric emerging from British business, the Scottish government has published analyses suggesting that forcing a separate currency for Scotland could cost UK businesses around £500 million (₹5,200 crore) a year through the costs of importing to and exporting from it. (British business groups in turn warned that such costs were far outweighed by the problems arising from an unstable currency union.)

Despite the bravado, the latest developments should have the “yes” campaign worried.

Recent polls indeed suggested increasing support for independence — 28 per cent intend to vote ‘yes’ and 30 per cent are undecided, according to a January poll — but that was before the latest blows over the pound and EU membership. While some have suggested, somewhat in jest, that the aggressive negative campaigning in Westminster is exactly the boost that the “yes” campaign needs, it’s hard to ignore that the nationalists are yet to provide a convincing answer to the single-most important and decisive question of all.

The same poll, conducted by TNS, found that a combined 36 per cent of Scottish residents believed the economy and currency were the most important and determining issues.

While an independent Scotland could have other options such as a currency peg, similar to that of the Hong Kong dollar to the US one, it would still be far from ideal, leaving it without any say over monetary policy.

The tone of the debate has further descended with each side rattling out figures to show how much more it has contributed to the union over the past decades. “We have contributed more in taxes per person than the rest of the UK for every single one of the last 32 years,” declared Alex Salmond recently. The Treasury, by contrast, has shown the region has a higher spend on public services per head than the rest of the union (Cameron had previously highlighted the contribution of Scottish industry, including the £135 a second added to the UK’s balance of payments by Scottish whisky).

In another petty move, the SNP courted controversy by insisting that Scotland, which unlike England does not charge university students tuition fees, would charge UK students, despite the free education mandated for EU citizens (these comments have swiftly backfired, with an EU official declaring any such move illegal).

Getting lost in the debate are the several important issues raised by Scotland in its independence plan: Currently home to just 5 million, it has made no bones about the fact that it needs, and intends to take steps to attract more skilled migrants, including offering incentives to those willing to work in its remoter parts. It would also encourage foreign students, whose numbers are declining in the UK — and Scotland — following strict measures imposed by the UK government, allowing; Scotland intends to allow them to stay and work in the country for a period after.

The Scottish government also signalled that alongside changes to bolster the welfare system, cut back by Westminster, it would introduce pro-business policies such as slashing the corporate tax rate several points below that of the UK. Scotland has already succeeded well at attracting FDI — Ernst & Young’s 2013 UK attractiveness survey found that after London, Scotland attracted the second largest number of FDI projects.

Some in Scotland are clearly fed up with the debate’s recent descent: businessman and entrepreneur Tom Hunter has set up a project “ScotlandSeptember18” to provide a forum for a “grown-up, informed, respectful debate”, pointing out that the nation does not yet have adequate information to decide which way to vote. UK citizens can only hope that this is an approach that will soon be adopted by their politicians too.