Scottish independence: Scotland is not "divided"

As the Independence Referendum day comes closer and the debate hots up, some political and media commentary describes the state of affairs north of the border as representing a "divided Scotland."

It is an old story and one with deep historical roots: Highland and Lowland, Protestant and Catholic, Labour and SNP. Yet, it is one which Scotland has increasingly grown out of and which presents a set of out of date caricatures that provide an easy, irresistible set of terms to hang the complex referendum debate around.

This debate needs to be put in historical context. There have been some unpleasantries. Some people were nasty to JK Rowling when she donated £1m to Better Together. There is some name calling on Twitter and a few posters have been torn down. That’s about it.

"Divided Scotland" today is lazy journalist shorthand, whether for the over-stretched Scottish journalist, London commentator, or international press. For the latter two groups, it is a tough ask cramming history, politics and culture about a nation which until last week many didn’t think was a "real" nation. Many of these people did not take the independence debate too seriously. It wasn’t proper politics like Westminster and the on-off European debate. And anyway, the Scots were going to, as they so often do, "bottle" it.

Yet, it is more than that. It also represents a deep and profound unease in parts of Scotland and the UK with this debate and the state of Scottish public opinion. The independence debate is challenging conventional wisdom and what constitutes public debate in Scotland, with lots of new voices and groups emerging. They are shifting the learned silences and helplessness which have allowed elites from the Church of Scotland to the Labour Party to dominate public life. All of this is cracking and splintering.

It is not an accident that Better Together has continually used this language. Its Campaign Director Blair McDougall has commented that a Yes vote would leave a "deeply divided Scotland."

Scottish and British elements have both helped make this a peaceful debate. For a start, the SNP are in many respects a very British kind of party, believing in gradualism, incremental change, and having a Fabian attachment to the good of collective action and the state. There is, for all the failings of British government, something very impressive in the fact that the two governments agreed the rules of the campaign in the form of the Edinburgh Agreement. That’s not always a given even in democracies; just look at Catalonia.

The bigger Scottish picture in the words of The Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole—speaking at "Imagination: Scotland’s Festival of Ideas" in Glasgow last weekend—is that Scots "should realise how lucky they are." Just as important, the referendum debate has wider lessons for the atrophied state of politics across Britain. As O’Toole observed: "If you ask people an important question, they feel they have some power and dignity."

This is a peaceful debate, and even more importantly, it reveals a public and political culture. The old institutional carve-ups and assumptions are being challenged, and a country is maturing, growing up, and collectively deciding to stop blaming others (the Tories, Westminster) and start to take responsibility. Whatever some of the campaign rhetoric, that is an impressive and fundamental shift which will last long after the vote.

The power of the "divided Scotland" mantra belongs to an earlier age, when Scots colluded in holding themselves back, while blaming others for their predicament. Beyond the relative balances of the Yes and No votes on 18th September, this feels like a seismic cultural change and one from which there is no going back.