When I read that Nicola Sturgeon wants to chop off the
bottom of all the classroom doors in Scotland to increase ventilation my first
thought was why don’t they open the windows instead? Decades from now as people
wander through Scottish schools with doors like no others in the world, they
might be curious about the phenomenon of the Scottish door. It locks, but small
people or at least children can crawl through the bottom. Perhaps this was a
Scottish way of trying to redistribute wealth. Each word a teacher spoke could be
heard from the corridor outside. Perhaps this was a way to make sure nothing
subversive was being taught, such as that the miracles needed for the beatification
of the blessed Nicola were not genuine. But while Scottish doors let in fire
through the bottom, the SNP continued to tell visitors to Scotland about the
benefits of Scottish fire doors, which although failing to stop the spread of
fire did let those trapped to escape. They were clearly superior to English
doors.
But it is not so much the bottom of the doors that
Sturgeon is chopping off as the branch on which Scotland is sitting.
The SNP continues to insist that everything would go
on exactly the same after independence as now.
We would still watch the BBC and English licence fee
payers would still pay for TV channels in Gaelic even though the vocabulary of
99% of Scottish independence supporters extends no further than Saor Alba.
The British armed forces would still protect us even though
there would no longer be any such thing as being British.
We would still be able to live and work anywhere in the
Former UK and we would still be able to claim benefits. Our pensions would be
paid by Former UK taxpayers, but Scottish taxpayers would have no liability to
pay the pensions of anyone in England.
We would be able to access NHS treatment anywhere we wanted,
even though the word National in NHS would no longer refer to the state that
created it, but rather to two states which now had an international relationship
to each other.
We would still be able to spend pounds Sterling and we
would not even notice that there was no longer a currency union between England
and Scotland. Indeed, we would not notice the fact that we had ceased to live
in the same state as people in London, Cardiff and Belfast.
We would continue to be British citizens for as long
as we wanted even if we also had Scottish passports, but British citizens would
not be able to become Scottish citizens unless they were born in Scotland, had
Scottish relatives or had lived here.
The SNP is arguing in essence that Scotland could be
independent, while remaining a part of the UK. It is for this reason that it is
cutting off the branch upon which it is sitting, because it is unaware that the
UK is the branch connected to the trunk and with deep roots going back centuries.
When you try to make your branch independent from the tree it has an
unfortunate consequence for those sitting on it. It also has an unfortunate
consequence for the tree.
I keep coming across English nationalists who claim
that they would look forward to Scotland’s departure. But what would you call
your country after Scottish independence? It couldn’t be called England unless
you kick out Wales and Northern Ireland, nor could it be called the United
Kingdom. It would be anything but united. It could not be called Great Britain,
because Great Britain includes Scotland. It would have to be called The
Disunited Kingdom of South Britain and Northern Ireland.
At the moment the UK is a bit of a laughing stock
internationally because we are more bothered about birthday parties in Downing
Street than fighting a war on two fronts with China threatening Taiwan and Russia
threatening Ukraine. Mr Putin and Mr Xi therefore don’t take us very seriously.
But they would take us still less seriously if we became the Former UK and so
would everybody else. Oh, but it would be worth it, you say, just to say good
riddance to the annoying Scots and that bossy little woman. Really,
partitioning our small island would be worth it just for that.
But if other parts of the UK would lose out from the
breakup of our country, Scotland would lose out more, because the whole SNP argument
is really that cutting off the bottom of a door won’t change its nature as a
door, nor will cutting off a branch on which we are sitting lead to us falling
to the ground.
Most Scots like those aspects of being a part of the
UK such as spending pounds and getting pensions guaranteed by the Treasury. If
we thought we were going to lose the right to live and work in England and
receive benefits there we wouldn’t vote for independence. This is why the SNP
keeps telling us that everything we like about the UK would continue after
independence.
But the UK would be no more after independence. Once
you unstitch Scotland who knows where you end up. The threads that held us
together would have unravelled. So, everything that all of us have now that is
due to our being part of the UK, would become contingent on what the Former UK
decided and what Scotland decided in its divorce settlement.
It may well be that the governments of these two
states might allow some reciprocal arrangements, but they could equally decide not
to do so. There would be shared assets and liabilities, but how these were
shared would not be as the SNP thinks that Scotland would get all of the assets
and none of the liabilities. If for instance Scotland refused a population
share of UK national debt, it could not reasonably expect that the Former UK
Government would be generous enough to continue to pay the pensions of those
Scots who had paid taxes while living in the UK. What would Scotland do if a future
Former UK government simply refused? Invade with claymores only to turn back at
Derby.
The breakup of the UK might be amicable in which case
some of the SNP wishlist might be granted, but it could equally be as hostile
as Brexit. We now have very few of the rights that we previously had as
citizens of the EU. We cannot live and work in the EU without permission, we
cannot access most of the services that people from EU member states can. The EU
was as difficult as it could be in the divorce negotiations. It used its
greater population and power to demand as hard a bargain as it could, including
treating a part of our territory (Northern Ireland) as if it still remained
part of the EU. If the EU can do that to the UK, then the Former UK could do
likewise to Scotland. After all, it would still have ten times our population.
The more fanatical Scottish separatist would revel in
descending through the air on his free branch crying Saor Alba, but it might be
more than his elbow that got hurt when he hit the ground. He might delight in
eating skirlie with root vegetables in a draughty croft, but the vast majority
of Scots tempted by the idea of independence are only tempted insofar as the
SNP can persuade them that what they like about living in UK would continue
after cutting off the branch.
But we would be not only cutting off the branch but
cutting down the tree digging up its roots and pouring weed killer in the hole.
It might seem mad to cut off the bottom of all the doors in schools when you
can just open the windows, but it looks positively sane compared to destroying
the tree on whose branches every British citizen sits. That is mere vandalism.
