Scotland Independent by 1950

What would Scotland be like today if the Home Rule Bill had been passed on its second reading in 1913? It was a very close thing, only prevented by the outbreak of the carnage of the Great War.(1) If Home Rule had happened then - rather than 85 years later in 1998 - it is safe to assume that independence would have followed within forty years, say by 1948, fifty years before devolution was grudgingly granted.


Comparing the history of Scotland to that of independent European states over the past sixty years, what follows is an attempt to construct what an independent Scotland's history would have been, had this happened.

1. Scotland declares independence in 1948, a year after India. The general feeling in both England and Scotland is that with the Empire winding down, the Union has served its purpose. It joins the UN the same year, the Scottish member sitting between the representatives for the 3.9 million people of Saudi Arabia and 13.3 million of South Africa.

2. The Stone of Destiny is returned to Scotland after the independence celebrations. Scottish Police hold back the jubilant crowds as the stone is welcomed at the border. A piper welcomes it home to Arbroath Abbey.

3. Queen Elizabeth's second coronation takes place over the Stone of Destiny in a refurbished Palace of Holyrood in 1953. The Scottish Government celebrates the event with new blue 'E1R' letter boxes. The English press label it a stunt.

4. Scotland re-establishes its east coast burghs’ European trade contacts from the time of the Hanseatic League. On March 30th, 1956, mayors from Flemish towns take part in an emotional ceremony in Berwick to remember the Flemish merchants killed when Edward I of England ordered his men to slaughter all 17,000 men, women and children there 660 years before.

5. Scotland a signatory to the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

6. Edinburgh rapidly expands as the population and services around Scotland’s government grows there.

7. The Scottish government invests in Glasgow to give it a facelift. It loses its grim post-imperial waterfront to be reborn in the architectural style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (See above). The Highlands complain that too much investment is happening in the south.

8. Reverse emigration begins and children and grandchildren of Scots who emigrated in the last decades of Empire return from around the world. Gaelic speaking grandchildren of Nova Scotian émigrés, speaking English with strange Canadian accents, begin to resettle the Highlands.

9. In a 1960 referendum, Berwick-Upon-Tweed votes to return to Scotland, motivated by the better social services, healthcare and free transport for the elderly to the north. Other English Border towns also threaten to secede for the same reason, much to the annoyance of the British parliament at Westminster.

10. Oil is discovered under Scottish waters in the 1960s. Scotland leaves the oil industry in private hands and the oil begins to flow as the American oil companies apply their open water extraction skills learned in the Gulf of Mexico.

11. Glasgow’s social deprivation from the last years of Union is largely cured by 1970.

12. A cod war with Iceland is averted in the 1970s when Scotland and Iceland come to a peaceful agreement on their sea borders.

13. British PM Ted Heath follows Scotland with what is left of Britain into full membership of the Common Market in 1973.

14. The rump British state is refused an IMF loan in 1975, due to its lack of collateral. It goes cap in hand to Europe for funds.

15. In 1978, Scottish football is made a laughing stock as the team is bundled out of the World Cup in the first round, after boasting they would win it.

16. Scotland has a referendum in 1979 and votes to leave the EEC, even though 51.6% of the electorate choose to remain. Under Scotland’s 1949 Constitution, 40% of the electorate need to vote ‘Yes’ for Scotland remain within external organisations. The 'Yes' vote cries foul.

17. Margaret Thatcher is elected PM of Britain in 1979 and presides over EEC investment – mainly French and German subsidies - to reinvigorate English and Welsh industry, concentrating on mining.

18. In 1981, Scots band Rusty Nail win the Eurovision Song Contest, narrowly beating English band Bucks Fizz. Their gimmick is for the two girls to pull off the two men’s kilts, revealing women’s underwear.

19. Using her new-found oil wealth, Scotland begins building a breathtaking program of infrastructure in the 1980s. Scotland is soon covered in an integrated modern network of roads, rail and ferry links, addressing Highland concerns about excessive centralisation. The A9 becomes the backbone of the road system, a three-lane superhighway from Edinburgh to Inverness, one of the safest roads in Europe.

20. Aberdeen and Inverness hit one million people by the year 2000. Oban, a thriving West Highland student city of 500,000, becomes the twin city of Bergen in Norway.

21. In the 1980s, Scotland becomes famous for its effortless transition from heavy engineering to high tech, fuelled by low corporate taxes and government relocation subsidies. Silicon Glen becomes an R&D and export phenomenon, unlike the cheap PC manufacturing facilities in England, which take advantage of its cheap labour.

22. In 1985, the Glasgow’s Mile’s Better campaign celebrates the city as one of the most beautiful in the world.

23. By 1990, oil revenues have given Scotland one of the hardest currencies in the world, and the Scottish pound becomes a safe haven currency, alongside Switzerland and Norway’s. (2)

24. A sovereign oil fund is created in 1990 to prevent successive Scottish Labour governments spending oil revenues on infrastructure Scotland no longer needs, and to keep inflation down. Despite this, Scotland is soon regarded as one of the most expensive places in the world, but not for the locals, who are paid in local currency and find everywhere else in the world ridiculously cheap. Scottish students become known throughout Europe for their annoying leather backpacks and free higher education.

25. Scottish unemployment drops to among the lowest in the western world, while the Scottish welfare state is the envy of Europe, with poverty almost non-existent.

26. By 2000, Scotland’s population reaches 7 million, having grown at the same pace as other similar size European countries since 1950, supplemented by extensive reverse emigration. (3)

27. In late 2008, a consortium of Scottish and Norwegian banks bails out Iceland, after the Welsh Prime Minister of Britain – known popularly as 'Flash' Morgan for his role in the credit crisis there – invokes anti-terrorism laws to seize Icelandic assets to protect British investors.

28. In 2009, Scotland shrugs off the credit crunch and the subsequent depression by dipping into its $326 billion sovereign oil fund, recently hit by the world economic downturn. (4)

I hope this gives at least some Scots an idea of how much their birthright has been stolen from them, and how much is at stake in the coming referendum.

Any resemblance to actual events or to persons living or dead is purely intentional.






References

(1) Murray G.H. Pittock, Scottish Nationality, Palgrave, New York, 2001, pages 100-102

(2) See http://www.oilofscotland.org/

(3) Norway – from 3.2 million to 4.6 million; Denmark – from 4.3 to 5.3 million; Sweden – from 7 million to 9 million; Portugal – from 8.4 million to 10.7 million.

(4) This is the current balance of the Norwegian Sovereign oil fund, which is spread across a mixed portfolio of ethical investments. Twenty nine corporations are barred from receiving any of the funds.
http://www.swfinstitute.org/fund/norway.php

Open Letter to MI5 and Special Branch re: Scotland

A. To the English Bosses of MI5 & Special Branch's Scottish Operations:

How are you today? Busy week at the office? Looking forward to a relaxing Sunday browsing the papers? Off to church later on?

I have couple of questions for you.

How often have you wondered why certain Scots proclaim their Britishness far more than the English?

Seriously, how much of a prat do you think the PM is? How much is he driven by the desire to strut the world's stage, to cement his legacy for posterity, and by the fight for his political survival at the next election?

Does he even care about England?

Truly, how much loyalty do you feel you owe him and his party after they tried to fit you up for the dodgy dossier on Iraqi WMD?

On the other hand, do you honestly believe that Scottish nationalists are bad people? Are you aware that some members of the SNP are English born, while others have served in the armed forces?

Aren’t English and Scottish independence simply ideas about fairness, democracy and identity?

So why do you feel the need to have your field resources monitor, undermine and discredit Scottish nationalists? Is it really worth your while running interference on Scottish independence, when it’s something more and more English want every day?

Won't what you're doing to derail Scottish independence only sour future relations between our two nations?  England and Scotland can look forward to having more in common than most other nations - a shared language, the same royal family, and stirring fireside stories about how we ran an Empire together.

Will England not need all the friends she can get?

Being a Scottish nationalist does not mean that I hate England. Only that I love Scotland, just as you love England, and that we now wish to manage our own affairs.

Without self-serving prats like Gordon Brown lording it over us both.

B. To the Scots involved in MI5 & Special Branch's Scottish Operations:

There is probably not much I can say to convince you to let Scottish independence run its course.

You are probably consumed with a visceral hatred of Alex Salmond and the SNP.

You sincerely believe your job to be threatened by Scottish independence, and sometimes feel as if you are fighting for your career, your reputation, your pension, your very professional existence.

And you feel under constant pressure to prove your loyalty to your controller and/or station chief.

Sound about right?

Now, I’m probably not too far off the truth in saying there aren’t too many MI5 resources allocated to monitoring the English independence movement just yet. In fact, many English men and women in MI5 probably share a secret sympathy for it. They probably feel in their hearts – without even realising it – that English independence would probably be the only legitimate way to break up Britain, when England is good and ready.

So ask yourself this: how many English men or women have you met who harbour the same visceral hatred of the English independence movement as you do for the Scottish version? Not many?

Why is that?

Scottish independence will almost certainly happen, sooner or later, regardless of how you are ordered to slow it down. And then Scotland will have its own intelligence service, cooperating on a daily basis with our English colleagues on international terrorism and security.

So remember this, next time you are asked to gather information on Scottish nationalists, provide dummy explosives to radical activists, or help rig a by-election:

1. Scotland will need experienced intelligence officers with good contacts in Thames House who know how to set up a state security apparatus.

2. You could play a valuable role in establishing it.

3. Scotland and England will have the same enemies.

4. Your career is not dependent on the structural integrity of Britain.

5. The Scottish security services will still swear loyalty to the Queen.

Over to you.