Scotland has had a long and complicated relationship with its southern neighbour.
But will it ever break free? In this episode, we explore the key arguments for and against Scottish independence and look at whether it will ever become an independent nation.
[00:00:04] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is part three of our four-part mini-series on the theme of Scotland.
[00:00:28] In case you missed them, part one was on “weird Scotland”, where we talked about unusual Scottish facts and traditions.
[00:00:35] Part two was the amazing story of when Donald Trump tried to build a golf course in the north east of the country, only to come up against stiffer opposition than he had bargained for.
[00:00:45] Part there, today's episode is going to be on Scottish independence and part four, the last part, will be on the gruesome Glencoe Massacre.
[00:00:55] OK then, let’s ask ourselves a big question: “will Scotland ever be independent?”
[00:01:04] As you may remember from part one, I am not just partly Scottish, but I spent part of my childhood living there.
[00:01:13] From the age of 7 to 13, I lived just outside Edinburgh, the capital.
[00:01:20] One of my great friends at school was a boy called Josef, and he had a dream.
[00:01:27] Most of the other boys at our school wanted to be footballers or firemen or police officers, but he wanted to be the first ever Scottish Prime Minister.
[00:01:40] Unfortunately, he wouldn’t achieve this goal, mainly because in 1999, when he and I were 12 years old a 61-year-old Scottish politician called Donald Dewar got there before him, becoming the so-called “First Minister” of Scotland.
[00:01:58] Importantly, this was not of an independent Scotland, but of a devolved one.
[00:02:05] In other words, Scotland had the ability to make some decisions about how it was governed, but it did not become an independent state.
[00:02:16] The independent state is the United Kingdom, which consists of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
[00:02:25] But, as you may well know, there is a growing movement in Scotland not just for further autonomy, but for complete independence, to become a state of its own.
[00:02:39] Now, in just a single episode we don’t have time to go into all of the history between Scotland and its neighbours, but to cut a very long story short, Scotland and its nearest rival, England, fought for centuries before uniting as a single country in 1707, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain, the precursor to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
[00:03:07] So the “Scottish” have been “British” for over 300 years, but if you go to a pub almost anywhere in Scotland and you ask 10 people their nationality, I would be very surprised if even one said “British”.
[00:03:25] They would say “Scottish”.
[00:03:27] People in Scotland have a fierce sense of their heritage, they are proud to be Scottish, and a sizable proportion of the country feels that the nation should take the next step and become fully independent.
[00:03:43] To be precise, “sizable” here means almost half.
[00:03:49] In September of 2014, the people of Scotland were given the opportunity to have their say on the matter; there was a referendum on Scottish independence.
[00:04:01] It was tense, but 55% of the population voted against it, saying that life would be better as part of the United Kingdom than as an independent country.
[00:04:13] Now, that was 10 years ago, and a lot has changed since then.
[00:04:19] Although there hasn’t been a second referendum on the matter, there is still a strong push both from the grassroots and from mainstream politicians.
[00:04:30] In fact, the current First Minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, is a supporter of another referendum, and of Scottish independence.
[00:04:39] So, let’s start with the why, why do supporters of independence feel that the country would be better off without its southern neighbours?
[00:04:50] As you might imagine, the reasons are many, they are both emotional and practical, and they vary in importance by individual, but I’ll try to give you a broad overview of the key reasons.
[00:05:04] The first category of reasons has to do with cultural identity. Scotland is a different country, with different traditions and heritage. It is not the same country as England, it’s not the same as Wales or Northern Ireland, it has its own distinct culture therefore it should be its own distinct country.
[00:05:26] The second is to do with the Scottish economy.
[00:05:30] Although, like the rest of the UK, there are parts of Scotland that are very economically deprived, there is a lot of optimism about Scotland’s economy. It has oil reserves in the North Sea, a strong financial services centre in Edinburgh, strong exports in the form of whisky and food products, and a thriving tourism industry, with 14 million people visiting the country every year.
[00:05:58] But, Scotland isn’t an independent country, so the majority of the taxes collected in Scotland first go to Westminster, to the UK government, before being given back to the Scottish people according to certain calculations.
[00:06:15] This makes no sense, say the proponents of independence.
[00:06:20] Imagine a family where there is one child who is very talented and works hard, does paper runs, works on Saturday and also tutors other children at their school. They make a lot of money every week, but they need to give it to their mother, who then distributes it between all of her four children.
[00:06:40] If Scotland were an independent country then it could have full control over its tax revenues, meaning that they were spent more efficiently, and delivered better value for Scottish people.
[00:06:54] And on the subject of politics, this brings us onto our third category of reasons, that as part of the UK, Scottish people have to live under laws and with decisions made by people outside Scotland, often ones that they do not agree with.
[00:07:14] At the moment, as part of the UK, Scottish voters elect members of parliament who represent their interests in Westminster, in the British parliament.
[00:07:25] But given that Scotland is a small country compared to the rest of the UK, just 5.5 million out of 67 million, these MPs are always in the minority.
[00:07:39] Now, Scotland actually has more MPs per person than England does, with Scotland having just under 9% of the total seats in the British parliament but only 8% of the population.
[00:07:52] Yet there is still the feeling that decisions are made in London, not for the benefit of Scottish people, and often decisions that Scottish people do not agree with and do not want.
[00:08:05] There are a few clear cases of this.
[00:08:09] For example, the UK’s nuclear submarine programme, Trident, is operated from Scotland.
[00:08:16] But nuclear weapons, and nuclear power, are generally unpopular in Scotland. The ruling Scottish party, the Scottish National Party, have said in no uncertain terms that if Scotland becomes independent, these nuclear submarines and all nuclear plants will be removed from the country.
[00:08:37] Or, about a very different subject, the Scottish parliament recently proposed a new law that would make it easier for people to legally change their gender. And this was blocked by the UK parliament in London, meaning it was stopped in its tracks.
[00:08:54] And of course, the biggest one in recent years was the Brexit referendum.
[00:09:01] The UK overall voted to leave the European Union, but the split between the four countries within the UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, was stark, it was large.
[00:09:16] In the largest country, England, 53.4% of people voted to leave, but in Scotland, that number was only 38%, with 62% of the population voting to remain in the EU.
[00:09:33] But England is much larger than Scotland, so the end result was 52% of the UK population voting to leave, and leave we did.
[00:09:45] Now, this episode isn’t going to be about the rights and wrongs of leaving the EU, but the point is that it was an irreversible decision, and one that Scottish voters did not support.
[00:09:58] Independence is the only solution, its supporters say, of taking back democratic control.
[00:10:06] And for those with particular EU sympathies, independence would be the only way to rejoin the EU.
[00:10:15] Now, these are some of the key arguments for Scottish independence. As you’ll see, they are both emotional and practical.
[00:10:25] On the “better together” side, the people who support Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, the reasons tend to be more practical than emotional.
[00:10:36] Sure, there are some people who put forward this idea of British identity and the fact that England and Scotland belong together, but these arguments are much more infrequent than on the “independence” side.
[00:10:51] Those in favour of staying part of the UK tend to point to practical reasons, and put these into two broad categories.
[00:11:01] The first is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the economy.
[00:11:06] One of the main reasons that the Scottish economy is so strong, so the anti-independence argument goes, is that it is seamlessly integrated into the UK.
[00:11:17] If Scotland became an independent country, it would be tiny, and in a much weaker position without the negotiating power and size of its southern sibling, the United Kingdom.
[00:11:30] Or realistically, its biggest and richest component, England.
[00:11:35] There are also question marks over whether Scotland would be able to continue to use the British pound, its currency, if it gained independence, and what might happen if it were forced to either create its own currency, or wait until it was accepted into the European Union, which could take many years to happen and was not guaranteed to happen.
[00:11:57] Ultimately, breaking up with the UK would be a huge economic risk, and a completely unnecessary one, given the great economic value that Scotland gets from being part of a larger union.
[00:12:11] At least, that’s the economic argument.
[00:12:15] And similar but not exactly the same is about what this would do to Scotland’s place in the world.
[00:12:23] As I mentioned before, the population of Scotland is 5.5 million. The UK is not huge, just under 70 million people, but if Scotland became independent it would go from being part of the 22nd biggest country in the world to the 117th, comparable to Norway or Lebanon in population.
[00:12:47] Scotland had a place on the world stage as part of Britain, but as a small independent country it would be in a far weaker position when it came to negotiating with other countries, attracting foreign investment, and so on.
[00:13:03] Now, I imagine that you will recognise many of these arguments, on both sides, as being similar to those used in other areas where there are pushes for independence.
[00:13:14] We have lots of listeners from Spain, and you might be sitting there in Catalonia or the Basque country nodding your head, thinking that Scotland is not all so different, and these are arguments repeated by people on both sides in your country.
[00:13:30] But where some differences may lie is on what comes next.
[00:13:37] As you heard, the Scottish people have already been given their opportunity to vote on the matter; there was a referendum in 2014, and 55% of the population voted against it.
[00:13:51] It was billed as a “once in a generation” opportunity by the Scottish National Party, a chance to shape Scotland’s destiny.
[00:14:01] The language here was clearly used to encourage people to take a chance and vote for independence but it backfired.
[00:14:11] When there were pushes for another referendum just a few years later, the British government pushed back and said “hey, you can’t have a once in a generation opportunity every five years”.
[00:14:23] The reason to push for it so soon after the first one was because of Brexit, because there had been a material change in the situation of Scotland, but nevertheless, it was rejected.
[00:14:36] So, what comes next?
[00:14:39] The two parties in the Scottish parliament that hold a majority both support holding a referendum on Scottish independence, and they would push for independence in the event of a referendum, but they need the UK parliament to agree.
[00:14:54] And it doesn’t.
[00:14:57] In Scotland itself, overall the attitude towards independence has not changed dramatically since the referendum in 2014. In the aftermath of the Brexit vote there was an increased appetite for independence, but since then things have reverted back to where they were before, with most polls still showing that a slim majority of Scottish voters would prefer to remain part of the United Kingdom.
[00:15:26] But there is an important demographic shift happening. Younger voters tend to be more nationalistic, more likely to vote for independence. I can tell you firsthand that my Scottish cousins, especially the younger ones, are vehemently pro independence.
[00:15:46] And these will be the next generation of voters.
[00:15:50] So, what’s going to happen? At the moment it is not of huge concern for Westminster, for the British government, but if the tide turns, and polls start to show that the prevailing attitude is pro independence, no doubt action will be taken.
[00:16:09] Commentators tend to suggest that first would come concessions for Scotland to have more power to govern its own affairs, more freedom to manage taxes and make its own laws, rather than giving it another referendum on independence.
[00:16:24] Whether this will be enough to placate the younger, more nationalistic and idealistic generation that has never had the chance to have its say on the matter, well that is anyone’s guess.
[00:16:40] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Scottish independence, the third in our mini-series on this wonderful country that is still, as of the time of recording this episode, not an independent nation state.
[00:16:53] As a reminder, in case you missed them, part one of this mini-series was on weird Scotland, where we looked at unusual Scottish traditions and facts.
[00:17:01] Part two was on Donald Trump’s battle to build a golf course, and how realised that the locals were going to put up more of a fight than he expected.
[00:17:09] And part four will be on one of the bloodiest events in Scottish history, the Glencoe massacre.
[00:17:16] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:17:21] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:04] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is part three of our four-part mini-series on the theme of Scotland.
[00:00:28] In case you missed them, part one was on “weird Scotland”, where we talked about unusual Scottish facts and traditions.
[00:00:35] Part two was the amazing story of when Donald Trump tried to build a golf course in the north east of the country, only to come up against stiffer opposition than he had bargained for.
[00:00:45] Part there, today's episode is going to be on Scottish independence and part four, the last part, will be on the gruesome Glencoe Massacre.
[00:00:55] OK then, let’s ask ourselves a big question: “will Scotland ever be independent?”
[00:01:04] As you may remember from part one, I am not just partly Scottish, but I spent part of my childhood living there.
[00:01:13] From the age of 7 to 13, I lived just outside Edinburgh, the capital.
[00:01:20] One of my great friends at school was a boy called Josef, and he had a dream.
[00:01:27] Most of the other boys at our school wanted to be footballers or firemen or police officers, but he wanted to be the first ever Scottish Prime Minister.
[00:01:40] Unfortunately, he wouldn’t achieve this goal, mainly because in 1999, when he and I were 12 years old a 61-year-old Scottish politician called Donald Dewar got there before him, becoming the so-called “First Minister” of Scotland.
[00:01:58] Importantly, this was not of an independent Scotland, but of a devolved one.
[00:02:05] In other words, Scotland had the ability to make some decisions about how it was governed, but it did not become an independent state.
[00:02:16] The independent state is the United Kingdom, which consists of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
[00:02:25] But, as you may well know, there is a growing movement in Scotland not just for further autonomy, but for complete independence, to become a state of its own.
[00:02:39] Now, in just a single episode we don’t have time to go into all of the history between Scotland and its neighbours, but to cut a very long story short, Scotland and its nearest rival, England, fought for centuries before uniting as a single country in 1707, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain, the precursor to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
[00:03:07] So the “Scottish” have been “British” for over 300 years, but if you go to a pub almost anywhere in Scotland and you ask 10 people their nationality, I would be very surprised if even one said “British”.
[00:03:25] They would say “Scottish”.
[00:03:27] People in Scotland have a fierce sense of their heritage, they are proud to be Scottish, and a sizable proportion of the country feels that the nation should take the next step and become fully independent.
[00:03:43] To be precise, “sizable” here means almost half.
[00:03:49] In September of 2014, the people of Scotland were given the opportunity to have their say on the matter; there was a referendum on Scottish independence.
[00:04:01] It was tense, but 55% of the population voted against it, saying that life would be better as part of the United Kingdom than as an independent country.
[00:04:13] Now, that was 10 years ago, and a lot has changed since then.
[00:04:19] Although there hasn’t been a second referendum on the matter, there is still a strong push both from the grassroots and from mainstream politicians.
[00:04:30] In fact, the current First Minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, is a supporter of another referendum, and of Scottish independence.
[00:04:39] So, let’s start with the why, why do supporters of independence feel that the country would be better off without its southern neighbours?
[00:04:50] As you might imagine, the reasons are many, they are both emotional and practical, and they vary in importance by individual, but I’ll try to give you a broad overview of the key reasons.
[00:05:04] The first category of reasons has to do with cultural identity. Scotland is a different country, with different traditions and heritage. It is not the same country as England, it’s not the same as Wales or Northern Ireland, it has its own distinct culture therefore it should be its own distinct country.
[00:05:26] The second is to do with the Scottish economy.
[00:05:30] Although, like the rest of the UK, there are parts of Scotland that are very economically deprived, there is a lot of optimism about Scotland’s economy. It has oil reserves in the North Sea, a strong financial services centre in Edinburgh, strong exports in the form of whisky and food products, and a thriving tourism industry, with 14 million people visiting the country every year.
[00:05:58] But, Scotland isn’t an independent country, so the majority of the taxes collected in Scotland first go to Westminster, to the UK government, before being given back to the Scottish people according to certain calculations.
[00:06:15] This makes no sense, say the proponents of independence.
[00:06:20] Imagine a family where there is one child who is very talented and works hard, does paper runs, works on Saturday and also tutors other children at their school. They make a lot of money every week, but they need to give it to their mother, who then distributes it between all of her four children.
[00:06:40] If Scotland were an independent country then it could have full control over its tax revenues, meaning that they were spent more efficiently, and delivered better value for Scottish people.
[00:06:54] And on the subject of politics, this brings us onto our third category of reasons, that as part of the UK, Scottish people have to live under laws and with decisions made by people outside Scotland, often ones that they do not agree with.
[00:07:14] At the moment, as part of the UK, Scottish voters elect members of parliament who represent their interests in Westminster, in the British parliament.
[00:07:25] But given that Scotland is a small country compared to the rest of the UK, just 5.5 million out of 67 million, these MPs are always in the minority.
[00:07:39] Now, Scotland actually has more MPs per person than England does, with Scotland having just under 9% of the total seats in the British parliament but only 8% of the population.
[00:07:52] Yet there is still the feeling that decisions are made in London, not for the benefit of Scottish people, and often decisions that Scottish people do not agree with and do not want.
[00:08:05] There are a few clear cases of this.
[00:08:09] For example, the UK’s nuclear submarine programme, Trident, is operated from Scotland.
[00:08:16] But nuclear weapons, and nuclear power, are generally unpopular in Scotland. The ruling Scottish party, the Scottish National Party, have said in no uncertain terms that if Scotland becomes independent, these nuclear submarines and all nuclear plants will be removed from the country.
[00:08:37] Or, about a very different subject, the Scottish parliament recently proposed a new law that would make it easier for people to legally change their gender. And this was blocked by the UK parliament in London, meaning it was stopped in its tracks.
[00:08:54] And of course, the biggest one in recent years was the Brexit referendum.
[00:09:01] The UK overall voted to leave the European Union, but the split between the four countries within the UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, was stark, it was large.
[00:09:16] In the largest country, England, 53.4% of people voted to leave, but in Scotland, that number was only 38%, with 62% of the population voting to remain in the EU.
[00:09:33] But England is much larger than Scotland, so the end result was 52% of the UK population voting to leave, and leave we did.
[00:09:45] Now, this episode isn’t going to be about the rights and wrongs of leaving the EU, but the point is that it was an irreversible decision, and one that Scottish voters did not support.
[00:09:58] Independence is the only solution, its supporters say, of taking back democratic control.
[00:10:06] And for those with particular EU sympathies, independence would be the only way to rejoin the EU.
[00:10:15] Now, these are some of the key arguments for Scottish independence. As you’ll see, they are both emotional and practical.
[00:10:25] On the “better together” side, the people who support Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, the reasons tend to be more practical than emotional.
[00:10:36] Sure, there are some people who put forward this idea of British identity and the fact that England and Scotland belong together, but these arguments are much more infrequent than on the “independence” side.
[00:10:51] Those in favour of staying part of the UK tend to point to practical reasons, and put these into two broad categories.
[00:11:01] The first is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the economy.
[00:11:06] One of the main reasons that the Scottish economy is so strong, so the anti-independence argument goes, is that it is seamlessly integrated into the UK.
[00:11:17] If Scotland became an independent country, it would be tiny, and in a much weaker position without the negotiating power and size of its southern sibling, the United Kingdom.
[00:11:30] Or realistically, its biggest and richest component, England.
[00:11:35] There are also question marks over whether Scotland would be able to continue to use the British pound, its currency, if it gained independence, and what might happen if it were forced to either create its own currency, or wait until it was accepted into the European Union, which could take many years to happen and was not guaranteed to happen.
[00:11:57] Ultimately, breaking up with the UK would be a huge economic risk, and a completely unnecessary one, given the great economic value that Scotland gets from being part of a larger union.
[00:12:11] At least, that’s the economic argument.
[00:12:15] And similar but not exactly the same is about what this would do to Scotland’s place in the world.
[00:12:23] As I mentioned before, the population of Scotland is 5.5 million. The UK is not huge, just under 70 million people, but if Scotland became independent it would go from being part of the 22nd biggest country in the world to the 117th, comparable to Norway or Lebanon in population.
[00:12:47] Scotland had a place on the world stage as part of Britain, but as a small independent country it would be in a far weaker position when it came to negotiating with other countries, attracting foreign investment, and so on.
[00:13:03] Now, I imagine that you will recognise many of these arguments, on both sides, as being similar to those used in other areas where there are pushes for independence.
[00:13:14] We have lots of listeners from Spain, and you might be sitting there in Catalonia or the Basque country nodding your head, thinking that Scotland is not all so different, and these are arguments repeated by people on both sides in your country.
[00:13:30] But where some differences may lie is on what comes next.
[00:13:37] As you heard, the Scottish people have already been given their opportunity to vote on the matter; there was a referendum in 2014, and 55% of the population voted against it.
[00:13:51] It was billed as a “once in a generation” opportunity by the Scottish National Party, a chance to shape Scotland’s destiny.
[00:14:01] The language here was clearly used to encourage people to take a chance and vote for independence but it backfired.
[00:14:11] When there were pushes for another referendum just a few years later, the British government pushed back and said “hey, you can’t have a once in a generation opportunity every five years”.
[00:14:23] The reason to push for it so soon after the first one was because of Brexit, because there had been a material change in the situation of Scotland, but nevertheless, it was rejected.
[00:14:36] So, what comes next?
[00:14:39] The two parties in the Scottish parliament that hold a majority both support holding a referendum on Scottish independence, and they would push for independence in the event of a referendum, but they need the UK parliament to agree.
[00:14:54] And it doesn’t.
[00:14:57] In Scotland itself, overall the attitude towards independence has not changed dramatically since the referendum in 2014. In the aftermath of the Brexit vote there was an increased appetite for independence, but since then things have reverted back to where they were before, with most polls still showing that a slim majority of Scottish voters would prefer to remain part of the United Kingdom.
[00:15:26] But there is an important demographic shift happening. Younger voters tend to be more nationalistic, more likely to vote for independence. I can tell you firsthand that my Scottish cousins, especially the younger ones, are vehemently pro independence.
[00:15:46] And these will be the next generation of voters.
[00:15:50] So, what’s going to happen? At the moment it is not of huge concern for Westminster, for the British government, but if the tide turns, and polls start to show that the prevailing attitude is pro independence, no doubt action will be taken.
[00:16:09] Commentators tend to suggest that first would come concessions for Scotland to have more power to govern its own affairs, more freedom to manage taxes and make its own laws, rather than giving it another referendum on independence.
[00:16:24] Whether this will be enough to placate the younger, more nationalistic and idealistic generation that has never had the chance to have its say on the matter, well that is anyone’s guess.
[00:16:40] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Scottish independence, the third in our mini-series on this wonderful country that is still, as of the time of recording this episode, not an independent nation state.
[00:16:53] As a reminder, in case you missed them, part one of this mini-series was on weird Scotland, where we looked at unusual Scottish traditions and facts.
[00:17:01] Part two was on Donald Trump’s battle to build a golf course, and how realised that the locals were going to put up more of a fight than he expected.
[00:17:09] And part four will be on one of the bloodiest events in Scottish history, the Glencoe massacre.
[00:17:16] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:17:21] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:04] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is part three of our four-part mini-series on the theme of Scotland.
[00:00:28] In case you missed them, part one was on “weird Scotland”, where we talked about unusual Scottish facts and traditions.
[00:00:35] Part two was the amazing story of when Donald Trump tried to build a golf course in the north east of the country, only to come up against stiffer opposition than he had bargained for.
[00:00:45] Part there, today's episode is going to be on Scottish independence and part four, the last part, will be on the gruesome Glencoe Massacre.
[00:00:55] OK then, let’s ask ourselves a big question: “will Scotland ever be independent?”
[00:01:04] As you may remember from part one, I am not just partly Scottish, but I spent part of my childhood living there.
[00:01:13] From the age of 7 to 13, I lived just outside Edinburgh, the capital.
[00:01:20] One of my great friends at school was a boy called Josef, and he had a dream.
[00:01:27] Most of the other boys at our school wanted to be footballers or firemen or police officers, but he wanted to be the first ever Scottish Prime Minister.
[00:01:40] Unfortunately, he wouldn’t achieve this goal, mainly because in 1999, when he and I were 12 years old a 61-year-old Scottish politician called Donald Dewar got there before him, becoming the so-called “First Minister” of Scotland.
[00:01:58] Importantly, this was not of an independent Scotland, but of a devolved one.
[00:02:05] In other words, Scotland had the ability to make some decisions about how it was governed, but it did not become an independent state.
[00:02:16] The independent state is the United Kingdom, which consists of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
[00:02:25] But, as you may well know, there is a growing movement in Scotland not just for further autonomy, but for complete independence, to become a state of its own.
[00:02:39] Now, in just a single episode we don’t have time to go into all of the history between Scotland and its neighbours, but to cut a very long story short, Scotland and its nearest rival, England, fought for centuries before uniting as a single country in 1707, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain, the precursor to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
[00:03:07] So the “Scottish” have been “British” for over 300 years, but if you go to a pub almost anywhere in Scotland and you ask 10 people their nationality, I would be very surprised if even one said “British”.
[00:03:25] They would say “Scottish”.
[00:03:27] People in Scotland have a fierce sense of their heritage, they are proud to be Scottish, and a sizable proportion of the country feels that the nation should take the next step and become fully independent.
[00:03:43] To be precise, “sizable” here means almost half.
[00:03:49] In September of 2014, the people of Scotland were given the opportunity to have their say on the matter; there was a referendum on Scottish independence.
[00:04:01] It was tense, but 55% of the population voted against it, saying that life would be better as part of the United Kingdom than as an independent country.
[00:04:13] Now, that was 10 years ago, and a lot has changed since then.
[00:04:19] Although there hasn’t been a second referendum on the matter, there is still a strong push both from the grassroots and from mainstream politicians.
[00:04:30] In fact, the current First Minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, is a supporter of another referendum, and of Scottish independence.
[00:04:39] So, let’s start with the why, why do supporters of independence feel that the country would be better off without its southern neighbours?
[00:04:50] As you might imagine, the reasons are many, they are both emotional and practical, and they vary in importance by individual, but I’ll try to give you a broad overview of the key reasons.
[00:05:04] The first category of reasons has to do with cultural identity. Scotland is a different country, with different traditions and heritage. It is not the same country as England, it’s not the same as Wales or Northern Ireland, it has its own distinct culture therefore it should be its own distinct country.
[00:05:26] The second is to do with the Scottish economy.
[00:05:30] Although, like the rest of the UK, there are parts of Scotland that are very economically deprived, there is a lot of optimism about Scotland’s economy. It has oil reserves in the North Sea, a strong financial services centre in Edinburgh, strong exports in the form of whisky and food products, and a thriving tourism industry, with 14 million people visiting the country every year.
[00:05:58] But, Scotland isn’t an independent country, so the majority of the taxes collected in Scotland first go to Westminster, to the UK government, before being given back to the Scottish people according to certain calculations.
[00:06:15] This makes no sense, say the proponents of independence.
[00:06:20] Imagine a family where there is one child who is very talented and works hard, does paper runs, works on Saturday and also tutors other children at their school. They make a lot of money every week, but they need to give it to their mother, who then distributes it between all of her four children.
[00:06:40] If Scotland were an independent country then it could have full control over its tax revenues, meaning that they were spent more efficiently, and delivered better value for Scottish people.
[00:06:54] And on the subject of politics, this brings us onto our third category of reasons, that as part of the UK, Scottish people have to live under laws and with decisions made by people outside Scotland, often ones that they do not agree with.
[00:07:14] At the moment, as part of the UK, Scottish voters elect members of parliament who represent their interests in Westminster, in the British parliament.
[00:07:25] But given that Scotland is a small country compared to the rest of the UK, just 5.5 million out of 67 million, these MPs are always in the minority.
[00:07:39] Now, Scotland actually has more MPs per person than England does, with Scotland having just under 9% of the total seats in the British parliament but only 8% of the population.
[00:07:52] Yet there is still the feeling that decisions are made in London, not for the benefit of Scottish people, and often decisions that Scottish people do not agree with and do not want.
[00:08:05] There are a few clear cases of this.
[00:08:09] For example, the UK’s nuclear submarine programme, Trident, is operated from Scotland.
[00:08:16] But nuclear weapons, and nuclear power, are generally unpopular in Scotland. The ruling Scottish party, the Scottish National Party, have said in no uncertain terms that if Scotland becomes independent, these nuclear submarines and all nuclear plants will be removed from the country.
[00:08:37] Or, about a very different subject, the Scottish parliament recently proposed a new law that would make it easier for people to legally change their gender. And this was blocked by the UK parliament in London, meaning it was stopped in its tracks.
[00:08:54] And of course, the biggest one in recent years was the Brexit referendum.
[00:09:01] The UK overall voted to leave the European Union, but the split between the four countries within the UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, was stark, it was large.
[00:09:16] In the largest country, England, 53.4% of people voted to leave, but in Scotland, that number was only 38%, with 62% of the population voting to remain in the EU.
[00:09:33] But England is much larger than Scotland, so the end result was 52% of the UK population voting to leave, and leave we did.
[00:09:45] Now, this episode isn’t going to be about the rights and wrongs of leaving the EU, but the point is that it was an irreversible decision, and one that Scottish voters did not support.
[00:09:58] Independence is the only solution, its supporters say, of taking back democratic control.
[00:10:06] And for those with particular EU sympathies, independence would be the only way to rejoin the EU.
[00:10:15] Now, these are some of the key arguments for Scottish independence. As you’ll see, they are both emotional and practical.
[00:10:25] On the “better together” side, the people who support Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, the reasons tend to be more practical than emotional.
[00:10:36] Sure, there are some people who put forward this idea of British identity and the fact that England and Scotland belong together, but these arguments are much more infrequent than on the “independence” side.
[00:10:51] Those in favour of staying part of the UK tend to point to practical reasons, and put these into two broad categories.
[00:11:01] The first is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the economy.
[00:11:06] One of the main reasons that the Scottish economy is so strong, so the anti-independence argument goes, is that it is seamlessly integrated into the UK.
[00:11:17] If Scotland became an independent country, it would be tiny, and in a much weaker position without the negotiating power and size of its southern sibling, the United Kingdom.
[00:11:30] Or realistically, its biggest and richest component, England.
[00:11:35] There are also question marks over whether Scotland would be able to continue to use the British pound, its currency, if it gained independence, and what might happen if it were forced to either create its own currency, or wait until it was accepted into the European Union, which could take many years to happen and was not guaranteed to happen.
[00:11:57] Ultimately, breaking up with the UK would be a huge economic risk, and a completely unnecessary one, given the great economic value that Scotland gets from being part of a larger union.
[00:12:11] At least, that’s the economic argument.
[00:12:15] And similar but not exactly the same is about what this would do to Scotland’s place in the world.
[00:12:23] As I mentioned before, the population of Scotland is 5.5 million. The UK is not huge, just under 70 million people, but if Scotland became independent it would go from being part of the 22nd biggest country in the world to the 117th, comparable to Norway or Lebanon in population.
[00:12:47] Scotland had a place on the world stage as part of Britain, but as a small independent country it would be in a far weaker position when it came to negotiating with other countries, attracting foreign investment, and so on.
[00:13:03] Now, I imagine that you will recognise many of these arguments, on both sides, as being similar to those used in other areas where there are pushes for independence.
[00:13:14] We have lots of listeners from Spain, and you might be sitting there in Catalonia or the Basque country nodding your head, thinking that Scotland is not all so different, and these are arguments repeated by people on both sides in your country.
[00:13:30] But where some differences may lie is on what comes next.
[00:13:37] As you heard, the Scottish people have already been given their opportunity to vote on the matter; there was a referendum in 2014, and 55% of the population voted against it.
[00:13:51] It was billed as a “once in a generation” opportunity by the Scottish National Party, a chance to shape Scotland’s destiny.
[00:14:01] The language here was clearly used to encourage people to take a chance and vote for independence but it backfired.
[00:14:11] When there were pushes for another referendum just a few years later, the British government pushed back and said “hey, you can’t have a once in a generation opportunity every five years”.
[00:14:23] The reason to push for it so soon after the first one was because of Brexit, because there had been a material change in the situation of Scotland, but nevertheless, it was rejected.
[00:14:36] So, what comes next?
[00:14:39] The two parties in the Scottish parliament that hold a majority both support holding a referendum on Scottish independence, and they would push for independence in the event of a referendum, but they need the UK parliament to agree.
[00:14:54] And it doesn’t.
[00:14:57] In Scotland itself, overall the attitude towards independence has not changed dramatically since the referendum in 2014. In the aftermath of the Brexit vote there was an increased appetite for independence, but since then things have reverted back to where they were before, with most polls still showing that a slim majority of Scottish voters would prefer to remain part of the United Kingdom.
[00:15:26] But there is an important demographic shift happening. Younger voters tend to be more nationalistic, more likely to vote for independence. I can tell you firsthand that my Scottish cousins, especially the younger ones, are vehemently pro independence.
[00:15:46] And these will be the next generation of voters.
[00:15:50] So, what’s going to happen? At the moment it is not of huge concern for Westminster, for the British government, but if the tide turns, and polls start to show that the prevailing attitude is pro independence, no doubt action will be taken.
[00:16:09] Commentators tend to suggest that first would come concessions for Scotland to have more power to govern its own affairs, more freedom to manage taxes and make its own laws, rather than giving it another referendum on independence.
[00:16:24] Whether this will be enough to placate the younger, more nationalistic and idealistic generation that has never had the chance to have its say on the matter, well that is anyone’s guess.
[00:16:40] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Scottish independence, the third in our mini-series on this wonderful country that is still, as of the time of recording this episode, not an independent nation state.
[00:16:53] As a reminder, in case you missed them, part one of this mini-series was on weird Scotland, where we looked at unusual Scottish traditions and facts.
[00:17:01] Part two was on Donald Trump’s battle to build a golf course, and how realised that the locals were going to put up more of a fight than he expected.
[00:17:09] And part four will be on one of the bloodiest events in Scottish history, the Glencoe massacre.
[00:17:16] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:17:21] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
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