Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Scots Should Vote for Independence Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Scots will go to the polls to vote on a very simple and very complicated question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" It is simple because the answer is either Aye or Nay. It is complicated because it changes the political landscape that has existed for 307 with the Act of Union of 1707, unsettling just about everything. The Kensington Review recommends to all those with a ballot to choose Yes. This journal backs the yes-to-independence choice not for reasons of sentiment or emotion but because it is the only option that will truly allow a restructuring of the British constitution that should have happened with the end of the empire.

At the heart of the matter is an undeniable fact -- Britain is overly centralized. Too many decisions that should be decided at the local level by democratically elected leaders are instead the purview of Whitehall mandarins far removed from the places they administer. For that reason, this journal has supported reform of the voting system in the UK, has supported the election of city mayors, supported greater powers for local councils, and now supports independence for Scotland. Since its inception, this journal has maintained that a Federal Republic of Britain was preferable to the United Kingdom. Nothing has changed over the years.

The Union, like any partnership, cannot persist when it has outlived its usefulness to one side or the other. As a small independent kingdom on the edge of Europe, Scotland hardly flourished. As a partner (albeit a junior one) in a worldwide empire, it punched far above its weight. The empire is gone, though, and one cannot look at Scotland over the last 50 years and say it has fulfilled its potential.

Independence is, however, drastic and scary. There are genuine worries about currencies, membership in the EU, NATO, UN, and a million other details. But the Union ought not be preserved simply because one is worried about the ramifications of change. As in any divorce, settling matters once ties are cut is messy.

This is where the No campaign has been so disappointing. It has been a litany of hypothetical questions and silly assertions. Imagine one half of that same married couple saying "If we divorce, what happens to the car?" "If we divorce, who gets the cat?" "If we divorce, it will cost more than staying in one house." None is a good enough reason to stay hitched. No such troubles stood in the way of Czechoslovakia becoming the Czech Republic and Slovakia through the Velvet Divorce. They ought not deter Scots from independence

One would have preferred that David Cameron had permitted an additional option on the ballot paper of "Devo Max," giving all powers save defense and foreign policy to Edinburgh. One expects that that proposal would have carried the day -- legally separated but not divorced. Instead, a binary Aye or Nay to independence is on offer.

Yet, Aye will, in practical terms, look almost exactly like Devo Max. Would Scotland really have different defense and foreign policy interests so extreme that outsiders would notice a distinct policy? And if experience shows some functional unity is more effective, Scotland can always negotiate a mutually acceptable arrangement with the other parts of the current UK.

This journal expects the vote to come out in favor of the Union. The London parties have promised greater powers to Edinburgh if there is a Nay (a pig in a poke to be sure). The only way to insure that happens is to make the victory for the Union so narrow that they have no choice but to follow through.

It is not just Scotland's future that is at stake. England, Wales and Northern Ireland deserve a new constitutional deal as well. Aye is the best way to ensure that all Britons are the protagonists of their biographies rather than supporting characters.

© Copyright 2014 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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