A LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA

A view from Australia – Kirstie Wallace, Sydney

As a born-and-bred Australian with Scots heritage, I became the Treasurer for the Edinburgh Central Branch of the Young Scottish National Party (SNP) in my final year of university there in 1989-90.

 I wasn't necessarily an outstanding candidate for this role, it’s just that only about four of us would ever show up to the meetings and so we all had to be office bearers of some sort.   I think the most I ever had to manage in the bank account was about £25, so to think now that the SNP has gone from a minority party to running the Scottish Government is impressive and an inspirational tale for minority parties everywhere.

The SNP wasn't always this successful
But there were pioneers

I didn't go to Scotland in 1987 with any sort of appropriated nationalist fervour or political ambition; it just seemed so glaringly undemocratic that despite the majority of the population voting for Labour, Scotland had a Secretary of State, Malcolm Rifkind who was from the Conservative Party.  The introduction of the dreaded Community Charge or Poll Tax, which Margaret Thatcher decided to introduce to Scotland a year earlier than England as a guinea-pig trial, because she could never lose many more votes there, was the final straw for me, and as history has shown, so too was it the nail-in-the-coffin for the Iron Lady.  As I walked in a massive street protest to the chants of ‘Can’t pay, won’t pay’ behind Hagrid (the actor Robbie Coltrane), I remember feeling so angry that Scotland was treated with utter contempt by the Government that ruled them from London.

Like the polls show and Scottish families all over Scotland are experiencing, this vote for independence has been very polarising within my own extended family and also very unsettling for friends who are from England but who adopted Scotland as their home many years ago.   From those that will be voting ‘no’, the reasons I have been given are: they fear a financial meltdown as financial services decamp to England; see increases in taxes and stamp duties to fund an independent state; a loss of Scottish jobs and industry; a mass emigration of disenchanted Scots but an unrestricted increase in foreign migrants; the ‘fairer’ society promised is never achievable; no monetary security without the British pound and poor fiscal control of the country’s finances; a default on the UK debt; no automatic entry to the European Union; a permanent left-wing and perhaps ‘extreme’ government; increased distrust and angst between England and Scotland and a breakup of what is considered a long and successful union between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

They all managed it. Why wouldn't Scotland

For the ‘yes’ voters, it is that they feel they will finally be able to make their own decisions (whether right or wrong); they will have more equitable democratic rights; they will get to draft and have a Constitution (which the UK doesn’t currently have); they can take control of their own resources for the benefit of their own people; they can reinvigorate their economy and industries the way they choose; they can become wealthier per head of capita from more ownership of the North Sea Oil fields; they can try to reverse the poverty trends and make a more equitable society; they can become a nuclear-free country by getting rid of the Trident missiles stationed in Scotland; and last but not least they will have their pride and confidence restored in that they aren't ‘too wee, too poor, and too stupid’ to run their own independent country.

Is this the future ?

It is also clear that what runs deep and raw on both sides is this sense of ‘identity’. Do they consider themselves Scottish or British first?  This referendum is forcing people to answer that fundamental question in themselves and  others.  There is also a real concern as to how the country will regroup as a nation after the referendum, given that almost half the population will have probably voted the opposite way, and both sides grudgingly accept that at least younger Scots have been engaged in talking and debating about the future of their country, and that has to be a good thing for any democracy. 

My own view is that, a bit like the Australian movement towards becoming a republic, that even if the Scots don’t get enough votes for a ‘yes’ this time, that it will probably happen at some point in the future, as you just have to look at the upward trajectory and successes so far in the campaign for independence since I was involved 25 years ago.  It is also echoed in Ghandi’s famous quote which my 77 year old father-in-law has used to motivate him in his campaign work with the SNP for the past 49 years: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they come to fight you, and then you win."