What Kind of Union is Being Offered?

As the new year dawns we are now only one calendar year away from the big one - 2014. It’s easy to lose perspective with all that has happened since but it is little over eighteen months since the SNP romped to victory in 2011, elevating the referendum from wishlist material to reality. A long period of phony war finally broke towards the end of last year with the European issue – or the strange unionist contention that Scotland is not worthy of continued EU membership but the other successor state unquestionably is.

There is something oddly ironic about being told we will be unceremoniously kicked out of Europe by the very people who prop up a fading union led by those who are hell-bent on ensuring that all of us – all of Britain – leave the EU at the earliest possible inconvenience. It is peculiar at best to attack independence over European uncertainty when the leaders of the very union cherished by the unionist mind are about to autocratically and irrevocably change our relationship with Europe.

If there is a sincere case to be made for continued political union with southern Britain the No camp need to recognise there is an appetite for massive change in Scotland. Those who fail to embrace this fact risk finding themselves irrelevant (and in political terms, unelectable) once this change takes place. In light of this you would almost expect unionist politicians to make good on their threat of a ‘positive case for the union’ instead of the spurious, bitter assertions of negativity they churn out with monotonous regularity.

Any unionist party worth its salt would demand that the very best union possible is up for grabs. It could accept nothing less for the people it represents when a vast majority of the population want a significant bolstering of the powers devolved to Holyrood. The status quo is no longer on the table so the onus is on the No camp to define and defend the kind of union that we can choose to join in 2014. Their politicians need to recognise that they represent Scotland within an equal union with the RUK nations. They should not seek to represent the union against their own nation.

The ordinary people of Scotland never did ratify the 1707 political union with England. Had a referendum been held then it is likely Scotland would have remained an independent nation. This lends credence to the strand of thought that the union is an undemocratic mess foisted on an unwilling Scotland. Fortunately this historical caveat will no longer apply after 2014, regardless of the outcome. Democratically speaking a No vote would remove this ancient lack of Scottish consent. It would be taken as a thumbs up to London rule, a belated popular endorsement of the Act of Union. This is certainly how it would be viewed in Whitehall with Scotland slipping back to the very foot of the Tory’s priority list. There will be no jam delivered tomorrow, or the next day – all the more reason why no stone should be left unturned in securing a resounding YES in 2014.