What It's Really About (for me)

What It’s Really About

Well, it’s all about Salmond, isn’t it? The question on the ballot paper is: Do you want Alex Salmond to be the king of Scotland. Forever.

Except it’s not. It absolutely is not. The question is simple: Should Scotland be an independent country?

In the event of a YES vote, would that make Alex Salmond happy? Yes, of course – it’s what he’s campaigned for all his life. Would it make him the leader of Scotland, in any capacity, after 2016? Only if enough people voted for him. In other words, it would be up to you, the Scottish voters.

Is your hatred of one man, and the fact that something you do could result in him getting something he wants, worth giving up the chance of taking control of our own finances, making our decisions for our own people, having a vote that actually matters rather than one that only gets us the government we vote for if it just so happens that enough people in England want the same as us?

That’s for your conscience. If personality is more important to you than policy, then you’ll stick to your guns and be very pleased at having thwarted one man, ignoring the fact that you have also thwarted a nation’s chance at self-determination and self-rule. But so long as that wee fat Alex isn’t smiling, eh?

Lots of people talk of the uncertainty, not knowing what Scotland would be like if they vote YES, exactly which currency, exactly who’d end up as the leader. And so, they reason, it’s safer to stay with what they know, with certainties.

But there are no certainties. No one can tell you who will be in charge of the main UK political parties in 2015, which of those parties will win the election, which of the policies in their manifestos they will actually keep. We’ve been promised more powers if we vote NO (by parties who vetoed devo-max on the ballot paper), but we’re not to be told what those powers are, just as we’re not allowed to negotiate any details of an independent Scotland before the referendum. We are expected to just wait and see. Uncertainty is rife no matter which way you vote.

And please remember that voting NO isn’t just voting against something – it’s also voting for something. It’s voting for Westminster to continue its control over these aspects of our lives:

benefits and social security

immigration

defence

foreign policy

employment

broadcasting

trade and industry

nuclear energy, oil, coal, gas and electricity

consumer rights

data protection

the Constitution (the UK doesn’t actually have one of these, so I’ve never quite understood that, but it’s what’s on the government’s website, so I included it here)

I see those as quite important. All the more so since the recent attacks on the poor and disabled through ‘restructuring’ of benefits. All the more so since the slide to the right that’s taking place in the UK at the moment. All the more so since more and more information comes to light about how much we’ve been lied to, and are still being lied to, about oil and gas.

No one can force people to look at issues rather than people. I could just be petty and say, ‘Oh, well, if a YES vote is a vote for Alex Salmond, then a NO vote is a vote for David Cameron.’ But that would be silly. This is not about either of them – it’s not about Lamont or Darling or Davidson or Miliband or Clegg either

A YES vote is to give Scotland complete control over its own finances and its own affairs. A NO vote is to leave some of that control in the hands of whichever Westminster party the majority of English people vote for.

For me, it’s that simple.