EUROSCOPE. Scotland may just decide to break free

With less than two weeks to go to the Scottish referendum, there seems little doubt that the “Yes” campaign stands a fighting chance of victory. Once written off by many, particularly in England, as the voice of a discontented minority, the movement for independence has rapidly been gaining ground. After publishing a poll placing the pro-Union “Better Together” (No) campaign at just six percentage points ahead of its rival, the Times of London warned that the Union was on a “knife edge” (in early February, the polling agency YouGov had put the No campaign 22 percentage points ahead).

A number of recent factors have certainly contributed to the shift in fortunes. To start with, there is general consensus (and several polls to back it up) that the senior Labour Party politician Alistair Darling, who heads the cross-party Better Together campaign, delivered a lacklustre performance during a crucial (second) televised debate with Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond.

Westminster’s often hectoring tone has also backfired. For example, the London government’s repeated insistence that an independent Scotland could lose the pound as its currency and would struggle to join the euro in the face of opposition from countries (such as Spain) confronting secessionist movements of their own, has been weak on evidence; as some pollsters indicated earlier this year, this may even have led to a mild surge in support for the Yes campaign.

Warnings about dwindling North Sea oil reserves have also had limited impact, with independence supporters pointing to the substantial investments made by oil companies in recent years into the region. A number of other missteps, among them a television advert by Better Together about an undecided stay-at-home mother naively mulling over her options (which many viewers found sexist and patronising) have only added to the feeling that the momentum has firmly shifted to the “Yes” camp.

Longer-term factors have also contributed to the ground swell of support for the Yes campaign.

First, there is a stark class divide when it comes to support for independence: opinion polls have shown that residents in more deprived areas and regions are far more likely to support independence, while Scotland’s wealthy overwhelmingly support remaining in the UK.

With voter turnout traditionally low in deprived communities, there have been considerable efforts within the pro-independence campaign to galvanise marginalised voters. For example, the Radical Independence Campaign — a pro-independence movement of left-wing activists, including Greens, Socialists and trade unionists — launched a voter registration drive targeting residents of some of Scotland’s most deprived communities (which are also among the poorest in the UK).

In communities with high levels of unemployment and poverty, where people have long felt marginalised by Westminster and most impacted by its austerity programme, the chance to break free has created hope, despite the uncertainties involved. “Many people feel they have nothing to lose from supporting independence…they think the only way is up from now,” says Nighet Riaz, an academic and businesswoman of Pakistani origin who heads the Scots Asians for Yes to an Independent Scotland campaign.

While nationalist movements have typically alienated minority groups, there is considerable support for the Yes campaign among Scotland’s minorities. For example, in an online poll, Awaz FM — Scotland’s most popular radio station for the Asian community — found that 57 per cent of its sample supported an independent Scotland against 37 per cent for remaining within the Union.

Nasar Meer, a professor of social policy and citizenship at Glasgow’s Strathclyde University, points out this is in part down to the unique nature of Scottish identity, which enables even ethnic minorities to define themselves as Scottish (in England, by contrast, Asians are more likely to see themselves as British rather than English).

“In Scotland national identity isn’t based on ethnic criteria: you don’t have to be a speaker of Gaelic, or white, protestant or Christian,” Meer argues, pointing to the lack of an ethnic dimension in Scottish politics, where far right anti-immigration groups have made little headway and immigration and ethnicity have largely stayed off the agenda of mainstream political parties.

The SNP’s Blueprint for an Independent Scotland, published earlier this year, pledges a far more liberal immigration regime than that of Westminster, with incentives for those willing to work in more remote parts of the country.

Of course, whether this sense of identity translates into support for the Yes campaign remains to be seen (Meer cautions that Asians have also played a prominent role in the No campaign). Ethnic minorities comprise only a small percentage of Scotland’s population: around 4 per cent.

The involvement of Scots Asians does, however, point to the deep roots and broad nature of the campaign for independence, which is widely seen as an opportunity for positive change across the board. Riaz, the academic, is a case in point. Brought up in England but a resident of Scotland for the past 29 years, Riaz was a relative newcomer to politics until a few years ago. Then she joined the SNP because of its anti-war stance and opposition to weapons of mass destruction stance.

While she is no longer a party member, she supports the independence campaign and the opportunities it opens up, in relation to rebuilding the welfare state part-demolished by the government in Westminster. “It’s a question of whether you want to be governed by people who live and work in Scotland,” she says. “And the September 18th referendum is one chance we have to make that decision and see whether we can go forward as a progressive nation which looks after the poor and marginalised.”

While Westminster has attempted to portray some of the independence campaigns’ aspirations — including strengthening the welfare state, education system and NHS — as unrealistic, many disagree. James Meadway, a senior economist at London-based independent think tank the New Economics Foundation, argues that with its substantial income from a number of industries from oil to whiskey and a big potential for renewable energies an independent Scotland would potentially have a huge trade surplus. “The arguments about low oil reserves are not very credible and not consistent with what we know about business investment, which has been shooting up. Even if reserves are on the lower end you still have billions of pounds of oil — and even at a high rate of decline that is still a lot of welfare you can provide,” he says.

In cities and rural communities across Scotland, political debate is raging fiercely as the day of decision approaches. Observers on the ground point to engagement with politics being evident everywhere, from the posters (‘Yes’ or ‘Better Together’) glaring from windows and hoardings to the robust reception given politicians flying in from London. With estimates of voter turnout already exceeding 80 per cent, Scotland seems to be giving the rest of the United Kingdom a lesson in political engagement, grassroots democracy and the possibility of a different road ahead.