Yes supporters are hoping Scotland will
become a Scandinavian paradise. But with its history of bitter internal
divisions, it is likely to go the opposite way
By Niall Ferguson
No good deed goes unpunished. In granting residents of Scotland a referendum
on their country’s political future, David Cameron surely thought he was
doing a good deed. The Scottish
National Party would have to put up or shut up. A Yes vote would be
a victory for them. A No vote would be a victory for the Scottish Labour
Party bigwigs to whom Mr Cameron entrusted the campaign against
independence, in the belief that he – despite being the son of a Scotsman –
was less qualified than they to make the case for the Union.
If Mr Cameron gave a thought to his own self-interest, it can only have been a
fleeting one. Before he became prime minister, I once suggested to him that
a referendum on Scottish
independence might be a Machiavellian masterstroke. If it went the
wrong way, I suggested, playing devil’s advocate, might not the Tories rule
for ever more in the remaining UK?
I hope I betray no confidences when I say that a cloud crossed his face at
this suggestion. Mr Cameron was, and remains, a staunch Unionist. Like me,
he abhors the thought of the break-up of Britain. His family tree, like that
of my three half-English children, is the Union in microcosm.
Perhaps, on reflection, he was therefore not Machiavellian enough. For he must
surely now regret his good deed. Whatever the result on Thursday – unless by
some poll-defying miracle it is a decisive “No” – Mr Cameron seems certain
to be weakened by it.
Returning to my birthplace, Glasgow, last week (to deliver a long-planned,
non-panic-induced lecture), I struggled to work out why it has come to this.
The obvious, proximate causes do not quite suffice. True, “Better Together”
has made the Union sound like a case study in a worthy but deadly dull
economics textbook. By contrast, the Yes campaign has been a scaled-up
version of Alex Salmond’s persona: disarming, genial, reassuring, upbeat and
unscrupulous.
But what I encountered in Scotland
last week was not just a tale of two campaigns. It was a tale of two
countries. My Scotland – as proudly British as it is Scottish, imbued with a
sense of our unique historical contribution – is still there, but it has
fallen silent. Another Scotland has sprung up alongside it that is quite
different. It pretends to be multicultural but is in truth subtly (and
sometimes not so subtly) anti-English. It could not care less about
Scotland’s past, except as something to be distorted for political ends. And
this other Scotland is very, very noisy.
I wish I had a fiver – yes, a Bank of England one please – for every rude name
I have been called since I re-entered this fray. (Most are unprintable, but
“weegie bampot” gives you a flavour. A "weegie" is a
Glaswegian. I have never been sure what a "bampot" is, but it’s a
great insult.)
In the lengthy discussion that followed my lecture, virtually every question
was from a Yes supporter. (The worst came from that insufferable type of
person who is always claiming to feel “offended” by something. Most, I
should say, were civil.) The common objection was that my argument for the
Union was rooted in the past. But what did history have to do with
Scotland’s future as a new Scandinavian-style haven for egalitarianism,
inclusiveness, clean energy, world peace and all the other things implicitly
repudiated by the gimlet-eyed Tory bampots?
Well, perhaps there is no point in reasoning with those who have resolved not
to learn from history. Nevertheless, let me try to explain why Scotland is
not – and is highly unlikely to become – a Scandinavian country.
Scottish history offers proof that even the most failed state can be fixed –
by uniting with a richer and more tranquil neighbour. For most of the early
modern period, the Scots kingdom was Europe’s Afghanistan. In the Highlands
and the Hebrides, feudal warlords ruled over an utterly impoverished
populace in conditions of lawlessness and internecine clan conflict. In the
Lowlands, religious zealots who fantasised about a Calvinist theocracy –
government by the godly Elect – prohibited dancing, drinking and drama. John
Knox and his ilk were the Taliban of the Reformation. Witches were burnt in
large numbers in Scotland, not in England.
Being the Scottish monarch was one of Europe’s most dangerous jobs. James I
was murdered. James II died besieging Roxburgh Castle. James III also died
in battle. So did James IV, at Flodden in 1513. James V died after yet
another defeat at the hands of the English at Solway Moss. Mary I – Mary
Queen of Scots – was actually imprisoned and executed by the English. James
VI’s reaction on hearing that he had succeeded the woman who had condemned
his mother to death was not one of repugnance but relief. As King James I of
England, he could not wait to relocate south.
A key difference between Scotland and Sweden in this era was that Scotland was
both small enough and weak enough to be the object of constant interference
by its bigger neighbours, England and France. The Reformation made the
problem especially severe because it divided Scotland between the Calvinist
Lowlands and the mainly Catholic Highlands. This meant that, after Henry
VIII’s Reformation, the Catholic powers of the continent could always look
to the north of Scotland for support. Yet, as Charles I discovered, the
Lowlands Scots were so zealous in their Protestantism that they were just as
likely to revolt against an Anglican King if he showed signs of “Popery”.
The net result was that from the 1630s until the 1740s Scotland was a far
bigger source of political instability than Ireland.
The Union of the Parliaments in 1707 turned “Scotlanistan” into the Silicon
Valley of 18th-century Europe, with Glasgow University as Stanford. The
Union was a success partly because it sublimated these bitter Scottish
divisions in a larger United Kingdom, while at the same time launching the
country on an extraordinary economic boom that only really ran out of steam
in the Sixties.
As in every heavy industrial economy, Scotland’s coalmines, steelworks and
shipyards were bound to be shuttered or shrunk in our time. Pittsburgh,
Essen and Turin did not fare much better than Glasgow. Yet somehow the story
took root that Scotland’s economic restructuring was all the fault of the
arch-bampot Margaret Thatcher. And then came Alex Salmond with his fairy
tale that an independent Scotland could become a Scandinavian paradise.
Hardly any Yes voter appears aware that Sweden turned away from egalitarianism
long ago. None of them seems to ever have bought an eye-poppingly expensive
drink in Norway, much less seen a Danish tax bill.
The reality is that, as an independent country, Scotland would be far more
likely to revert to its pre-1707 bad habits than to morph magically into
“Scandland”. For this debate on independence has opened some old rifts and
created some new ones, too.
Niall
Ferguson was born in Glasgow and educated at the Glasgow Academy and Oxford University.
He is the Laurence A Tisch professor of history at Harvard Scottish
Independence.
SoRo:
Scottish tax receipts for 2012/13 were £48.1bn.
Scottish spending for 2012/13 was £65.2bn.
For a deficit of £17.1bn, which was paid for by English taxpayers.
And, keep in mind that Salmond & Co have promised to INCREASE, exponentially, the welfare state and pay for it with (declining) oil revenues.
He’s right. RBS, Lloyds Banking Group, Clydesdale Bank, TSB Bank, Tesco Bank, Aegon UK, Standard Life, and others said that they will relocate to England if Scotland votes for independence.
One of the biggest scare tactics that Salmond & Co has used is the lie that, remaining in the Union, will result in the privatisation of the NHS. This is absolute balderdash! Scotland controls its own NHS. Bearing that in mind, I’ve always loved this little factoid from Mark Steyn…
So, Scotties, don't let your 'FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!' hit you in the arse on the way out.
Many No voters I met
complained of an atmosphere of intimidation. I tried to organise a group of
pro-Union historians based in Scotland to write a letter backing the No
campaign. I was told that, at most, two would be willing to sign. Most
disturbing of all were the stories of SNP bigwigs issuing thinly veiled
warnings to institutions perceived to be insufficiently Yes-istic. Jim
Sillars’s warning to BP and the big banks of a “day of reckoning” is part of a
sinister pattern.
This, then, gives us a
hint of what Alex Salmond’s brave new Scotland would really be like: a divided
and rancorous society with a vindictive style of politics. If that sounds
familiar, that’s because it nicely sums up Scotland as it was before the Union.
So pity Mr Cameron if he
is punished for his good deed. But console yourself with the thought of Mr
Salmond’s far worse fate. He may be about to get what he wished for.
SoRo:
Scottish tax receipts for 2012/13 were £48.1bn.
Scottish spending for 2012/13 was £65.2bn.
For a deficit of £17.1bn, which was paid for by English taxpayers.
And, keep in mind that Salmond & Co have promised to INCREASE, exponentially, the welfare state and pay for it with (declining) oil revenues.
He’s right. RBS, Lloyds Banking Group, Clydesdale Bank, TSB Bank, Tesco Bank, Aegon UK, Standard Life, and others said that they will relocate to England if Scotland votes for independence.
One of Britain’s top industrialists gave warning on Thursday that a Scottish Yes vote next week could cast a uncertainty over the UK economy for a decade, as Scotland’s banks led a sustained onslaught against independence.
Five banks said they would move their headquarters south of the border in the event of a Yes vote, and are lobbying the Treasury to pass new laws to speed up the transfer of their corporate bases to England.
Sir Mike Rake, chairman of BT Group, deputy chairman of Barclays and president of the CBI employers’ organisation, said independence would destabilise investment in Scotland and the rest of the UK. “The uncertainty will last for easily 10 years,” he told the Financial Times.
“Inevitably this uncertainty will lead to a slowdown in investment in the UK as a whole as well as Scotland.”
…
Royal Bank of Scotland led a host of banks, employing more than 35,000 people in Scotland, warning they would relocate their headquarters south of the border in the event of a Yes vote on September 18.
…
Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, wrote to his 12,000 staff in Scotland saying they would not be relocated if there was a Yes vote.
One of the biggest scare tactics that Salmond & Co has used is the lie that, remaining in the Union, will result in the privatisation of the NHS. This is absolute balderdash! Scotland controls its own NHS. Bearing that in mind, I’ve always loved this little factoid from Mark Steyn…
According to the World Health Organisation, a boy born in one deprived part of Glasgow is likely to die 28 years earlier than one born in a village just a few miles away, and will have a life expectancy shorter than that of people living in India or the Philippines.
So, Scotties, don't let your 'FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!' hit you in the arse on the way out.
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