Edinburgh: It is the morning of the day of the referendum that decided Scotland’s fate. Craigmillar, a run-down and income-deprived Edinburgh neighbourhood, has been up early. It is a working day except for schools, which are closed. Shops are open. Little children zip by on scooties to the anxious calls of their parents, older children play on the street.
There is a sense of urgency, perhaps even purposefulness, in the stride of people going to and coming from the nearby voting centre. The very frail and the disabled navigate the route to the polling centre on mobile scooties. Most of the morning pedestrian traffic appears to be pro-Independence Yes voters, advertising their allegiance by the blue-and-white Yes badges, scarves or T-shirts they sport. Like bees to honey, they are drawn towards the stalls festooned with buntings and flags that distribute ‘Yes’ campaign paraphernalia.
On the same day in central Edinburgh, in the square outside the imposing St. Giles Cathedral, there is a shifting crowd of people — upbeat Yes campaigners delivering last-minute harangues, tourists and curious onlookers, television crews from all over the world, a gaggle of Catalan separatists draped in their bright flags, and even the occasional dog on a leash adorned with the trappings of his owner’s politics. Through the crowd, a waitress from a nearby coffee shop weaves her way, balancing a tray with cups of hot chocolate that she offers free of cost.
Given the Yes-dominated atmospherics of the run-up to the referendum, the next day’s results — 55 per cent voting ‘No’ to Independence and 45 per cent ‘Yes’ — came as a huge surprise. A victory for the No side was predicted by opinion polls, but the margin of victory was unexpected. The Yes campaign is clearly not deterred.
“We lost by only 400,000 votes, which, if you think about it, is not very much,” said Joanna Cherry, a senior lawyer and member of the Scottish National Party (SNP). “It was a great political exercise for Scotland and, although we have lost, we have ended in a very strong place. It is amazing that since the referendum, 8,000 people have joined the SNP and 2,000 have joined the Green Party.”
All sections of Scottish society entered into the great political conversation created by the referendum process in the last two years. Sixteen-year-olds discussed currency options and the effect of withdrawing from the European Union. The disenfranchised, the depoliticised and the cynical were forced to rethink politics. The publishing industry saw a sudden spurt in titles linked to the Independence debate. Traditional platforms of popular representation like unions, political parties, and activist groups were energised, and several new ones emerged. The campaign to get 97 per cent of the electorate to register as voters surely is one of the historic achievements of independence campaign.
The campaign had its high and low moments. Scottish celebrities took sides. J.K. Rowling’s endorsement of the Better Together campaign this June came as a shot in the arm for a side that was still bestirring itself. The two televised debates between Alistair Campbell of the No side and Alex Salmond were watched by mass audiences and discussed threadbare. A patronising advertisement by the No campaign had feminists up in arms, and is believed to have drawn angry women from the No to the Yes side. A flood of comments and parodies of the patronising advertisement — which shows a smug home-maker discussing why she will vote No over a cup of tea — enriched social media sites.
Therefore, despite the results, the referendum process has changed both Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom irrevocably, and for the better. For the rest of the world, the referendum campaign has offered valuable insights and lessons on movements for self-determination in the current global order.
The Scottish referendum process is unusual for two reasons. First, it distanced itself from inward-looking nationalist ideologies based on notions of Scottish supremacy and, instead, defined itself as an inclusive and progressive movement.
Second, it set a radical and pro-poor agenda for a new Scotland; that of bridging the economic and social divide between the small layer of the affluent and the vast majority who had been pushed into poverty, deprivation and unemployment because of the austerity measures implemented by Westminster. The Yes leaders promised to reverse unpopular policies like the ‘bedroom tax’, and pledged not to privatise the National Health Service. The campaign tapped into the strong skein of popular anti-war sentiment in Scotland by committing not to lead the country to war, and to rid an Independent Scotland of weapons of mass destruction.
Yet it lost, and substantially. The Scottish case illustrates the intolerance of corporate and military institutions of dominance towards even the most modest efforts to craft an alternative political system based on redistributive justice. The promise that an independent Scotland would provide something as basic as safety nets for vulnerable groups of people living at the margins was seen as a threat and caused the opposition to rally quickly and throw the weight of the establishment against the campaign.
For a majority in Scotland, however, the loss of the battle is the beginning of a fight-back to regain lost ground. The world will be watching the next phase.
