This concise debate pits George Kerevan, the former Marxist turned maverick commentator and SNP member, arguing in favor of Scottish independence versus the Scottish editor of The Telegraph arguing against.
The contrast in the approach of each writer is telling. Kerevan offers a blueprint for a successful economy, refuting carefully the scare stories about the economic ills which will follow if the feckless Scots vote Yes. His central thrust is that Britain is an outdated state, lacking in democracy, run by an oligarchy and in thrall to the City of London. His promise is that independence can restore the values of Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment, ending a culture of dependency on the state. It’s not a vision I share but it is thought provoking. For instance, he pinpoints something which has been on my mind: that industrial regeneration would involve concentrating on three or four specific areas – there’s no way we could recreate the steel industry or heavy engineering.
Kerevan’s aim is true in targeting the British state and its economic model as being the real problem. But it is nevertheless a free market model, albeit with a greater emphasis on social conscience. Kerevan does effectively demolish Gordon Brown and some common arguments against independence. One was put to me by a good friend who feared an independent Scotland might be parochial. Leaving aside the cultural vitality of Scotland in recent years, staying in Britain means remaining tied to a truly parochial state where the main parties trail after UKIP in promising to get tough on migrants and affect a “Little England” attitude to the rest of the world.
His is a pro-capitalist argument for independence, useful though it is in critiquing the template accepted by the Westminster parties, but pro-capitalist all the same and a reminder there are competing visions for an independent Scotland.
If this has you wondering if it’s worth voting Yes then Alan Cochrane produced a convincing case why it’s time for Britain to break. Writing of the Royal Family he argues that the Queen knows best about Scotland because she’s so well advised: by her senior Lady in Waiting, Ginny Countess of Airlie, her neighbour at Balmoral, the Earl of Dalhousie, a doyen of the Royal Company of Archers, and two Knights of the Thistle, Lord Robertson of Port Ellon and Lord Steel of Aikwood (better known as ex-Labour minister and NATO general secretary George Robertson) and former Lib Dem leader David Steel. Anything they are for I’m against! Cochrane also reminds us the Queen intervened in the 1979 referendum on devolution when she expressed support for maintaining the 100 percent unity of the UK!
His argument is based on a defence of a British identity which, as Kerevan notes, is on the wane on both sides of the border, which Cochrane hopes to illustrate by quoting such key figures as Olympic champion rower Sir Chris Hoy. It repeats the sort of scare stories The Telegraph runs virtually daily but offers no positive vision for how Britain can reverse its remorseless decline.
Scotland is on the slide out of the Union and that will only be postponed if it’s a No vote in September. This wee book illustrates why in the way each author approaches his argument.