Why I really hope we vote no on Thursday

Maybe I’m odd this way, but I love Britain. I love Britain because it has a kind of contrapuntal brilliance—the way the craggy summits of the Munroes perfectly compliment the gentle pastures of Cambridgeshire, and Edinburgh stands like a poised and dignified sister to exuberant, thrumming London. And I love Britain because the rest of the UK isn’t Westminster—it’s J.R.R. Tolkein, and The Wind in the Willows, and Radiohead, and Wallace and Gromit, and Stewart Lee, and Viz, and Bertrand Russell, and Ant and Dec, and my cherubic little nephew.

I believe in many of the things that have made breaking away from the UK seem attractive to a lot of people: essentially the benefits of political localism—a political class that is close to, and so responsive to, the needs and concerns of the constituents they serve. The thing is, that all these things could be achieved, without the damage involved in breaking up the union, through devo max. Not only that, devo max is the democratically mandated option; it’s what most Scottish people actually want. Far better that than the division we’ll have within Scotland if we permanently break away from the UK on the basis of a tiny majority of separatists. Moreover, it’s an option that’s on the table if and only if we vote no in the upcoming election.

This isn’t primarily why I’m voting no, because I would vote no even if devo max wasn’t on the table. It’s not primarily for economic reasons either, although I would by no means dismiss these as somehow crass or “not what’s really important”. Questions about the economy just are questions about how the most vulnerable in our society will fare. They’re also questions about how my family will fare. If the dire warnings about recession, the flight of business, the disaster of shared currency without political union and mortgage rates skyrocketing are even close to true, breaking up the union might mean losing our home.

But the fundamental reason I’m voting no isn’t economic, because I would vote no even if the economic consequences of separation weren’t so grim. It’s not economic because even if, by some miracle, we were sitting on an oil bonanza, I wouldn’t, for one moment, resent it paying for someone’s medical treatment in Yorkshire, or Liverpool, or wherever. The reason I'm voting no has to do with the value of unity itself. People within a nation state have differing political, religious and ethical convictions. A nation state is held together by bonds of mutual trust, solidarity and coöperation that somehow transcend these things. Just look to Iraq, Syria or any other truly dysfunctional states to see that these coöperative bonds are not natural necessities but deeply contingent, and deeply valuable. A united kingdom is a precious and hard-won achievement, and it would be a terrible waste to throw that away by choice. Salmond’s convinced many of us that the SNP are somehow progressive visionaries. That’s what his well-greased rhetoric is designed to suggest anyway, though the facts don’t match the bluster. Unionists are voting for unity, separatists are, in practice, voting for the opposite.  Scots have always been cosmopolitan and internationalist in outlook, and have always used Britain to make our mark in the world.  But if we break up the UK and sever the unique bonds of coöperation that link compatriots, we will, in a very real, very concrete way, be making Scotland a less inclusive, less open and more parochial place. That’s the politics of division, and that’s why I really hope we say no to it on Thursday.