Reflections on Saint Andrew's Day

[shewhomust]

I had an unexpected conversation with my friend J last night. She had asked our friend F for her thoughts about the referendum on Scottish independence, and F - a Scot by birth and upbringing, but who has lived in England for all the 40 years I've known her, and whose children and grandchildren live in England - replied rather vaguely that she didn't suppose it would make much difference. J was outraged: how could the break-up of Great Britain not make much difference? We should all have a vote in this decision that affects us all...

This was a new way of looking at it: I'd been regarding the vote on independence as very much Scotland's decision to make. That's not because I don't think it will affect us: if Scotland is no longer represented in the Westminster parliament, then the north of England is in deep trouble, because we'll have permanent Conservative government. But there's an obvious problem with letting the majority decide whether the minority should be independent.

I have no idea how much difference the presence of an independent Scotland would make. "There'll be Scots on booze cruises to Berwick-upon-Tweed," says durham_rambler; but minimum unit pricing for alcohol is something the Scottish government has already used its power to implement. Could Scotland keep the pound sterling? I don't see why not: the Channel Islands do, and the Isle of Man, and Ireland ran on something very closely related to sterling until it joined the euro. Looking at this the other way, Scottish banknotes are widely accepted in the north of England, but I wouldn't try spending a Clydesdale Bank fiver in London. In so many ways, Scotland is already another country.

Should the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland become the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Or perhaps the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? It's cumbersome, admittedly. But I don't feel any emotional attachment to the idea of British nationality. I regard myself as English, whether I like it or not. I was born in England, so were my parents, so were my grandparents. Further back than that it gets more complicated, but then that's part of how I understand Englishness. And I regard myself as European, but British nationality is just a legal convention. But J says no, she thinks of herself as British, she corrects her Italian friends when they describe her as English, Britishness means something to her, and she is hurt that Scotland wants to diminish that.

It's not a view that I share, but it makes its own kind of sense, and it's not dismissing it to say that it also made me think of this:

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Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Huh. This post was very thought-provoking. Thank you for putting it into words.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Hello - good to know you're there!

I was thinking of you when I read this in Saturday's paper (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/30/interwoven-globe-global-trade-textile-new-york-art)...

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Awww. Thanks for thinking of me. I did know about that exhibit. And I've been sighing over it. Sadly, I don't expect to be in NYC before the exhibit closes in early January. :-(

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

A little tangentially, that song makes it three times this week I've heard people joking about Wales as "the children" in the rocky relationship between England and Scotland.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It's a cheap jibe about the size of Wales, I suppose (I believe it's - oh - about as big as Wales...)

In fact, the line about 'you can keep Northumberland' seems more to the point: I'd have fewer worries about how the split would affect the north-east if we could say, like the child of divorcing parents, 'take me with you!'

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

But there's an obvious problem with letting the majority decide whether the minority should be independent.

I wonder how universal this principle is? If, for example, the City of London (an entity of longstanding, after all) declared its independence from the UK, would you feel to an equal degree that it should be allowed to go its own way? There are instances individual households or towns setting themselves up as independent states, and such declarations tend not to be respected.

I was talking to a Catalan nationalist last year, and he was slightly offended when I asked him whether his movement was anything like the Lega Nord in Italy. They're only doing it for financial reasons, was the gist of his reply - whereas we're a proud and independent nation.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, to be honest, beyond suggesting that it must be a bit more complicated than the principle of allowing minorities self-determination.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

That's fair: obvious problems whichever way you cut it.

Though the problem with your example is that as far as I can see, the City of London *is* effectively independent...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

True enough!

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Not sure this is your musical taste but the message is clear (no bad infusions intended toward anyone but just to propose not exactly marriage in the Czech-Slovak sense where poor Havel had to consent to quick divorce to avoid blood-shed as in the Basque country I just visited but taking these things with a spiff of er...british humour even if scottish by nature):



maybe even over a nice (imported):

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

These are lovely - but you know, they are very *English*.