Scotland’s day of Destiny

After more than 2 years – some might say more than 20 years – of campaigning and counter-campaigning, today finally the people of Scotland have their chance to vote on the future of their country.

But the 4 million voters of Scotland have more than the future of Scotland in their hands, as the vote will also, if the verdict is for Independence, end the 307-year union with the rest of the United Kingdom.

Much has been said about the injustice of only 10% of the UK having a vote on its future. But there are two important reasons why this may not be all bad.

First, it cements the narrative that Scotland is voting to leave the Union not end it. This is important because should the vote be to leave, it enables the rest of the UK (rUK) – a smaller union of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but still a union nonetheless – to claim to be the continuing state not a new state. As a result rUK will automatically have all the rights, obligations, international status and treaties of the current UK. London would not have to reapply to the European Union or the United Nations (if it did, neither would be an easy or seamless process and the country would almost certainly lose its permanent seat at the UN), the pound would continue unchanged and unchallenged, and so on.

This is more important than one might think. Russia fairly easily established itself as the continuing state after the Soviet Union broke up, and maintained all the USSR’s international positions and possessions. Serbia did so eventually and with much more difficulty when Yugoslavia broke up.  But neither the Czech Republic nor Slovakia were able to assume the mantle when Czechoslovakia broke up, and it caused the Czechs in particular more international effort to establish themselves than they expected.

Second, let us suppose for a moment that the whole of the UK had a vote today. It would not be possible to keep the breakdown of the vote a secret and everyone would therefore know how each of the four home countries had voted. Leaving aside the absolutely horrendous thought of a plebiscite in Northern Ireland on this matter – it would risk reigniting the worst of the sectarian conflict – let us simplify to Scotland and rUK. There are then 4 possible outcomes.

First, both could vote to keep the Union. This would lead to a huge sigh of relief, both in the UK and among its many allies and friends, and the UK survives.

Second, both could vote to end the Union.  This would be a huge shock but at least the resulting dissolution would be a mutually agreed outcome.

Those are the straightforward outcomes.  But there are two other possibilities, and here the picture becomes much murkier.  The third possibility is that Scotland votes for independence but rUK votes to keep the Union; rUK votes outnumber Scots votes and the Union survives.  But it would be a terrible marriage, with Scotland denied and resentful, and in the worst scenarios a recipe for armed struggle, civil war and a replay of the Irish Troubles.

And fourth, Scotland votes No but rUK votes to end the Union; rUK votes again outnumber Scots votes and the Union is dissolved. This is almost worse as London is seen to banish the Scots against their will; the resentment would be massive and the task of establishing Scotland as a going concern very challenging indeed. It would quite possibly result in rUK becoming a pariah state in the EU, and the subsequent split between London and Brussels would be both almost inevitable and almost certainly very hostile – no-one in the EU would have any sympathy for the rUK regime at all.

Neither of these latter two options is remotely attractive and what the United Kingdom has ended up with may be a fortunate escape from something far worse. It would have been all too easy for Westminster to agree in 2012 to a UK-wide vote as an “exercise in democracy” and have ended up now in 2014 with a position where some of the outcomes are simply unthinkably disastrous.

It is an interesting thought for democrats that the “undemocratic” way in which the future of the Union is being tested today might in the end prove a blessing in disguise.

A version of this article also appeared as an OMFIF daily commentary