Scotland: The World's First Referendum on Inequality?By Katie Engelhart
Queen Elizabeth II may be considered
<
http://www.newstatesman.com/global-issues/2011/03/land-queen-world-australia>
the
world’s largest landowner—but close to home, in Scotland, her 60,000 acres
<
http://www.tatler.com/news/articles/september-2014/the-future-of-scotland> of
rolling hillside don’t amount to much. Her Majesty—who reportedly
<
http://www.tatler.com/news/articles/september-2014/the-future-of-scotland>
ranks
17th among Scotland’s private landowners—has got nothing on the Duke of
Buccleuch, who holds the top spot with 240,000 acres across Britain (on
which sits, among other properties, Drumlanrig
<
http://www.drumlanrigcastle.co.uk/>: a pink-colored castle with 120 rooms,
17 turrets, 4 towers, and an original Leonardo da Vinci).
That so much space is owned by so few will be of no surprise to ordinary
Scots. This state of affairs stretches back to the 16th century, when
Scottish nobles used
<
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006WB2E9Q/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb> the
Reformation as an occasion to grab great swaths of moor and mountainside.
Today, more than half of non-public land in Scotland is owned
<
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/imagine-a-feudal-country-where-432-families-own-half-the-land-welcome-to-scotland-8742545.html>
by <
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27996654> fewer
than 450 people: a fair number of them kilt-clad and castle-bound
aristocrats (alternatively “toffs” or “lairds”) who live in expansive (if
somewhat drafty) country citadels. According to the historian and
land-reform campaigner Jim Hunter, Scotland boasts
<
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/10/scotland-land-rights> “the
most concentrated pattern of land ownership in the developed world.”
Such is the United Kingdom. On the metric of income equality, the U.K.
ranks 28th out of 34 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), which
<
http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2013/09/inequality-reaches-record-high-us-which-countries-are-worst>
has <
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/15/cuts-inequality-oecd>
warned
<
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/dec/05/income-inequality-growing-faster-uk>
in
recent years that income inequality is growing faster in Britain than in
any other wealthy nation.
Now, many Scots want out. On Thursday, voters in Scotland will answer
<
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/scottish-independence-what/380196/>
a
straightforward Yes/No question: “Should Scotland be an independent
country?” If the answer is ‘yes,’ then Scotland will declare independence
and a 307-year-old union will be torn asunder. The U.K. will lose a third
of its landmass and almost 10 percent of its population. We, like Macduff (
*Macbeth*, Act 4, Scene 3), will be left to ask: “Stands Scotland where it
did?”
------------------------------
Related Story
<
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/scottish-independence-what/380196/>
Scottish Independence: What?
<
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/scottish-independence-what/380196/>
------------------------------
In some quarters, the vote is already being hailed
<
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/scottish-referendum-the-worlds-first-vote-on-economic-inequality/article20489038/>
as
the world’s first-ever referendum on economic inequality—an event that has
less in common with other nationalist votes like Quebec's in 1995
<
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29077213> than it does with recent
developments such as Occupy Wall Street, the adoption of “the 1 percent” as
a global catchphrase, and the runaway success of Thomas Piketty’s 700-page
tome
<
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X>
on
the collateral damage of capitalism. It’s yet another manifestation, in
other words, of the increasingly hot debate
<
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/thomas-piketty-and-the-end-of-our-peaceful-coexistence-with-inequality/371154/>
about
<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/12/04/inequality-is-the-defining-issue-of-our-time/>
rising global inequality
<
http://www.businessinsider.com/wage-inequality-will-slow-the-economy-2014-7>
and
what we should do about it.
Scotland’s pro-independence movement differs from similar movements in
places like Catalonia, Kurdistan, and eastern Ukraine in that it does not
revolve around hard identifiers like language, religion, and ethnicity (or
Russian military backing). What divides Scotland and England is a vocal
lilt and a legacy of 14th-century clan warfare—seemingly surmountable
obstacles to keeping a country together. As a result, Scottish nationalists
have taken to claiming that London is to blame for all of Scotland’s
economic ills. They contend that, with independence, Scotland can strike a
different kind of compromise with its citizens. They argue that a vote for
independence is a vote against inequality.
Throughout the two long years of campaigning for the referendum, there has
been remarkably little anti-Englishness or blood-and-soil nationalism on
display. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, champion of the Yes Scotland
<
http://www.yesscotland.net/> campaign, has come a long way since the
1990s, when he would quote
<
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/scotlands-referendum-is-a-bold-braveheart-campaign/>the
Scottish warrior William Wallace (played by Mel Gibson in the 1995 Scotland
vs. England epic*Braveheart*) in campaign addresses. If today’s
nationalists pit themselves against an ‘Other,’ it is not the average
Englishman, but rather the London financier, as a stand-in for capitalism
run amok.
In fact, leaders on both sides of the campaign have argued that,
economically, Scots get the short end of a short stick. Economic growth in
Scotland lags <
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/02/3017/7> behind
the U.K. average, as does GDP per capita and the unemployment rate. Scots
tend to be older and sicker than English people—and babies born in Glasgow
have the lowest life expectancy
<
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/apr/16/commonwealth-games-2014-glasgow-lowest-life-expectancy-uk>
in
the United Kingdom. More than 800,000 (out of 5.3 million) Scottish
residents live in poverty
<
https://www.scotreferendum.com/2014/07/poverty-and-income-statistics/>,
and income inequality is widening.
Depending on one’s view of things, Scottish nationalists are either the
architects of a kinder and more egalitarian society, ready to cast off the
yoke of English rule—or (as the pro-union Better Together
<
http://www.bettertogether.net/>campaign might argue) pushers of a
seductive utopianism who would see inequality and impoverishment reign
until “doomsday
<
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-gordon-brown-doomsday-warning-1-3523133>
.”
* * *
Scottish nobles have held their land for centuries, but the issue of land
reform has only recently galvanized Scottish voters. In 2012, the Scottish
Parliament set up a working group
<
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/Review/land-reform> to study the problem
of land concentration—and in May, advisors recommended
<
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-29203646> that
Scotland place a cap on the amount of land that a single private owner can
possess. Salmond has promised
<
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10852929/Land-owned-by-Scotlands-lairds-must-be-capped.html>
to
double the amount of land under community ownership—but Conservative Party
officials warn
<
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10852929/Land-owned-by-Scotlands-lairds-must-be-capped.html>
that
forcing big landowners to sell their property might violate the law.
Meanwhile, several reports have raised
<
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/9887574/Landowners-1-billion-wind-farm-boom.html>
the
profile of the issue. In 2012, *The New Statesman* reported
<
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/09/how-we-pay-our-richest-landowners>
that
the likes of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia
receive hundreds of thousands of pounds each year in taxpayer-funded
agricultural subsidies. (The magazine dubbed the scheme “aid for
aristocrats.”)
In many areas, like income inequality, Scotland and England suffer about
equally
<
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3a274ea0-39b8-11e4-93da-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3DNKHcuMn>.
And in fact, Scotlandenjoys
<
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100286555/the-english-want-scotland-to-remain-part-of-the-union-but-not-at-any-price/>
more
public spending per head than the rest of the kingdom. But the popular
narrative in Scotland holds that Scots have always fared worse than the
English. For this, we might blame
<
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/20/will-scotland-go-independent/>
Margaret
Thatcher. In 1955, the Conservatives, or Tories, nabbed more votes in
Scotland than any other political party. But this Conservative support was
decimated in the 1980s under Thatcher—with her privatizations and “poll
tax” and no-holds-barred battle with trade unions. Between 1979 and 1981,
Scotland lost 20 percent of its workforce. And many Scots came to believe
that the British government in Westminster had it out for them. Today, the
Tory party is moribund in Scotland and holds just one
<
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/interview-david-mundell-scotlands-only-tory-mp.1394001586>of
its 59 seats in the U.K. parliament. In July, *The Economist* described
<
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21606865-confluence-historical-forces-north-sea-oil-and-absent-minded-politicians-has-put-britains>
a
lasting “Marxist caricature of the British state” in Scotland based on a
“myth of vituperative, job-destroying, Scots-hating Tories.”
In the 1990s, Tony Blair’s “New Labour” turn—which included sidelining
unions and embracing private enterprise (and invading Iraq)—alienated
left-leaning Scots. Today, the Yes Scotland side attracts many a fallen
Labourite (though the Labour Party officially backs the ‘no’ vote). A recent
*Guardian*/ICM poll shows
<
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/14/scottish-independence-labour-decline-electoral-force>
that
42 percent of Scots who voted Labour in the last general election will vote
‘yes’ on Thursday.
This figure reflects a conversation I had over and over again in Glasgow
this summer, while reporting
<
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/scotlands-separatists-cling-to-hope/>on
the independence campaign. “I voted Labour most of my life, but I don’t
believe the Labour Party is a socialist party anymore,” a retiree named
Andy Callahan told me. Saffron Dickson
<
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRwIkiC__9U>, a 16-year-old ‘Yes’
campaigner, said, simply: “Labour broke my dad’s heart.”
However fanciful the ‘Yes’ side’s economic vision might be (and the ‘No’
team has spent two years arguing that what ‘Yes’ says ain’t so), the cause
of independence has undeniably appealed to the working class. This
referendum is not a proxy class war—but class is an important indicator of
Yes/No allegiance. In general, the poorer the Scot, the more likely she is
to vote ‘yes.’ The Economic and Social Research Council found
<
http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/08/22/scottish-independence-the-class-issue>
that
46 percent of low-income Scots support independence, compared with 27
percent of high-earners. It’s no secret that the Highlands high rollers are
largely voting ‘No.’ “The buggers are out to get us!” one “pre-eminent”
duke told the *Tatler*
<
http://www.tatler.com/news/articles/september-2014/the-future-of-scotland>,
referring to ‘Yes’ campaigners. Mark Diffley, director of Ipsos MORI
Scotland, has described
<
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/pollster-boss-class-is-the-big-issue-which-will-determine-referendum.23269084>
the
relative wealth of a voting district as “the variable that really explains
what’s going on.”
The Yes Scotland campaign argues that the Scots and English are inherently
the same, but have alas gone their separate ways. Scots maintain free
university tuition <
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23279868>, free
personal and nursing care for the elderly
<
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/Support-Social-Care/Support/Older-People/Free-Personal-Nursing-Care>,
and a wholly public healthcare
<
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-scotland-scottish-government-protected-nhs/18887>
system. The English
<
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/09/letter-edinburgh-what-it-really-means-be-scottish>
“cosset
bankers or project [their] might around the world with nuclear missiles and
foreign wars.” ‘Yes’s underlying conceit
<
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/scots-arent-better-than-the-english-or-worse-were-the-same-but-our-political-cult.23269106>
is
that it’s England that has changed—and Scotland that has stayed true to
Britain and Britishness.
Any historical truth to this claim is overwhelmed by myth. Indeed, a 2013
paper
<
http://www.poverty.ac.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/WP%20Analysis%20No.5%20-%20Attitudes%20to%20the%20%27necessities%20of%20life%27%20in%20Scotland%20%28Gannon%20Bailey%20Nov13%29.pdf>
by
the University of Glasgow’s Maria Gannon and Nick Bailey shows that Scots
and English are about equally supportive of redistribution, and have
roughly the same levels of concern about inequality.
This has not stopped Alex Salmond and his Scottish National Party (SNP)
from seizing the narrative. Founded in 1934, the SNP spent decades on what
some called the “tartan fringe” of Scottish politics. Even through the
1990s, says Michael Keating, director of the Scottish Centre on
Constitutional Change
<
http://www.futureukandscotland.ac.uk/projects/research-centre>, “the SNP
was actually quite close with the bankers.” Only after the financial
downturn in 2008, Keating argues, did Salmond rebrand the SNP as a social
democratic party, of and for the working class.
When I was touring Scotland, I always asked ‘Yes’ supporters what their
ideal standalone Scotland might resemble. For many, utopia looked a lot
“like Norway!”
Since the referendum campaign began in 2012, more radical factions have, at
least rhetorically, pushed ‘Yes’ leftwards. The National Collective
<
http://nationalcollective.com/>, a movement of artistic types, has rallied
<
http://nationalcollective.com/2012/08/08/scotlands-referendum-equality/>
supporters
against “Westminster governments who prioritize ‘wealth creation’ and
corporate lobby groups above the things that really matter.” The Radical
Independence Campaign <
http://radicalindependence.org/> (slogan: “Britain
is for the rich: Scotland can be Ours”) has mobilized the country’s most
deprived regions. Early this week, I spoke to Myshele Haywood, an American
sociologist who has lived in Scotland for a decade and is an RIC
campaigner. She had just come back from an evening of canvassing. “People
are scared, people are confused,” Haywood told me. And “people in
working-class areas understand [the referendum] as a class battle more than
people in better-off neighborhoods.”
* * *
In June, a folksy President Barack Obama advised
<
http://www.cato.org/blog/why-barack-obama-lecturing-scotland-about-its-independence-vote>
Scottish
voters: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
But Britain is struggling. Poverty has doubled
<
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/19/poverty-hits-twice-as-many-british-households>
since
the 1980s. And income disparity is rising
<
http://www.oecd.org/unitedkingdom/49170234.pdf>. The U.K.boasts
<
http://metro.co.uk/2014/08/27/uk-is-the-most-financially-unequal-country-in-northern-europe-new-research-reveals-4847533/>
the
richest region in Northern Europe (London), but also nine of the 10
poorest. The lowest-earning British households are among
<
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/837a7b40-f534-11e3-91a8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3DNKHcuMn>
Western
Europe’s most economically deprived. The bad news keeps coming—and Brits
are noticing. “UK poverty on par with former Eastern bloc,” ran a
recent*Financial
Times
<
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/837a7b40-f534-11e3-91a8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3DNKHcuMn>*
headline.
“Parts of Britain are now poorer than POLAND,” decried the
<
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2617938/Revealed-How-parts-Britain-poorer-POLAND-families-Wales-Cornwall-Europes-worst-off.html>
*The Daily Mail. *The SNP promises that a Scotland free of England could
fix things with a big-state approach.
Meanwhile, team ‘No’ has spent the last two years fighting a rather unsexy
fight: to keep things as they are, troubled though they may be. ‘No’
campaigners dispute the causes of Scottish inequality, blaming Scotland’s
heavy-industry foundations and the tides of globalization rather than
Westminster policy. And they argue that a wee, all-alone Scotland would be
in a poor position to revive its economy—particularly if Edinburgh found
itself outside the European Union
<
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/17/spain-independent-scotland-years-eu-membership>
, off the British pound
<
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/14/george-osborne-not-bluffing-currency-union-independent-scotland>
, saddled with debt
<
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11073506/David-Cameron-Salmonds-debt-threat-crippling-for-Scottish-families.html>,
and held afloat by a rapidly diminishing oil reserve
<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/scotland-bets-on-north-sea-oil-even-as-the-wells-start-to-run-dry/2014/09/13/e61edfd9-d0ec-4bb2-826b-38c76bb113aa_story.html>.
‘No’ contends that Salmond, who backs
<
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29065076> a
corporation tax cut, wouldn’t have the cash
<
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3a274ea0-39b8-11e4-93da-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3DNKHcuMn>
to
build himself a new Norway if he wanted to. (Britain’s three main political
parties have pledged
<
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/09/scottish-referendum-tax-welfare-powers>
to
devolve more tax and welfare powers to Scotland in the event of a ‘no’
vote.)
Each side in the campaign brandishes its own statistics. But through it
all, one figure has stuck with me. Scottish Social Attitudes surveys have
found that Scots are likely to vote
<
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-16024399> for
<
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-25846914> whichever
side would, at the end of the day, leave them £500 ($817) a year better
off. At today’s going rate, that wouldn’t quite cover the cost of a new
iPhone 6.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/scotland-the-worlds-first-referendum-on-inequality/380405/
Received on Fri Sep 19 2014 - 01:48:49 EDT