Between Kin and Cosmopolis. Nigel Biggar
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Perhaps their legitimate concerns were neglected and their needs unfairly met. Perhaps their culture was suppressed. But none of this was so. Since the Scottish parliament came into being in 1999, the Scots had enjoyed representation both in Edinburgh and in London. Indeed, Scottish Members of (the Westminster) Parliament could vote on matters concerning other parts of the U.K. (England, Wales, and Northern Ireland), whereas the representatives of those other parts could not vote on matters devolved to Edinburgh. In the U.K. the Scots received more public spending per capita than the English, and whatever it was that struck visitors to Edinburgh and Glasgow it was not a signal lack of cultural vitality.
How, then, did the S.N.P. justify its campaign for independence? Its strongest card was the argument that the Scots prefer a left-of-centre, social democratic polity with a more generous welfare state, whereas, judging by its propensity to elect Conservative governments, the centre of gravity of the English electorate is markedly further to the right and more favourable to the free market. If this had been true, it would have been an argument for greater Scottish autonomy and a further devolution of powers from Westminster to Edinburgh, although not necessarily for outright secession from the United Kingdom. As it happens, however, the claims of nationalist politicians did not match the evidence of the social scientific data. According to analysis of the British Social Attitudes (B.S.A.) survey of 2010:
it seems that Scotland is not so different after all. Scotland is somewhat more social democratic than England. However, for the most part the difference is one of degree rather than of kind—and is no larger now than it was a decade ago. Moreover, Scotland appears to have experienced something of a drift away from a social democratic outlook during the course of the past decade, in tandem with public opinion in England.50
From this the authors conclude that “the task of accommodating the policy preferences of people in both England and in Scotland within the framework of the Union is no more difficult now than it was when devolution was first introduced.”51
Beyond the false assertion of a major difference in political preferences between Scotland and England, the S.N.P’s platform consisted of claims that membership of the U.K. somehow inhibits Scotland’s economic growth and that the standard of living in an independent Scotland would be higher. These claims were contingent on a number of variable and (in the crucial matter of the price of oil) volatile factors. They were also necessarily speculative and fiercely contested. The debate went back and forth and seemed quite finely balanced. The very least that can be said is that it was not at all certain that independence would make the Scots better off economically, and that there was little reason to suppose that it would make them dramatically so.
What is most striking about the S.N.P.’s case was its vagueness and ad hoc nature. The goal of independence did not seem to be the logical conclusion of a rigorous analysis of particular problems afflicting the Scottish people. Rather, it seemed an article of faith in search of a rationale. This is certainly the impression given by reading David Torrance’s recent biography of Alex Salmond, the S.N.P’s charismatic leader, which identifies no moment of intellectual conversion, when Scottish independence was revealed as the solution to any particular problem.52 As an early colleague observed of Salmond, “when you went through all the arguments you were left with the impression that he didn’t know if Scotland would be better or worse off as an independent country. All that mattered was that Scots should rule themselves.”53
So what is it that filled the sails of the separatists? In part, a sense of Scottish victimhood, which can find little foothold in actual history, together with a correlative scapegoating of the Sassenach.54 In part, a modern and adolescent faith in the fetish of independence. And in part—judging by the barely visible connection between analysis and aspiration—a desire to escape the hard graft of daily politics into the uplift of a grander, purer, freer vision of things.55 Vision is good, of course, for, as we are told, the people perish without it. But vision needs to be born of a sober and moral reckoning with reality. Otherwise, it is just wishful thinking kept afloat on a mixture of self-pity, resentment, and recklessness, and destined for disillusion.
Nationalist calls for independence and erecting fresh borders are not self-justifying. And Christians, with their sensitivity to the creaturely interdependence of human individuals and communities, and with their conviction that God, the Origin and Basis of things, comprises a unity-in-diversity rather than the isolated and alienated unity of absolute self-sufficiency, should be sceptical of cries for it. They should interrogate the demand closely, asking whether it will bring real and substantial benefits to the people as a whole—and not just, say, provide the local political class with a bigger stage to strut upon.
VI. Conclusion
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