10 Reasons to Vote Yes



The Guardian published an interesting mix of readers' letter with ten good reasons for voting Yes in the referendum on whether "Scotland should become an independent country?"  

So here they are and while I don't agree with very word of what people have to say, i think the letters are an interesting contribution to the debate. 

Ten reasons Scotland should vote yes

The Guardian

Scotland's first minister Alex Salmond on the yes campaign trail. 'Too many people in Scotland do not seem to know the difference between the reality of freedom and the illusion of freedom,' writes William Burns. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
The arguments of the no campaign are no weightier (Michael White, 5 September) – they boil down to the currency question and uncertainty about future EU membership, both essentially political issues which are bound to be resolved by agreement – like all political questions – when the electioneering is over.

There is far more to the movement for independence than “desperate , insouciant optimism” – more than anything it’s a desire to be in charge of their own affairs as much as a small country which belongs to the EU can expect to be and this has an appeal that goes far beyond the SNP or Alex Salmond pace the patronising impressions of London-based commentator.


Conor Magill
London



• Although it is clear that the complexity of events following a yes vote in Scotland has been significantly underestimated, I sympathise with the many in Scotland who must yearn for the day when they can no longer be under the cosh of any conservative government. Scotland has a natural tendency towards a society built on fairness, justice and decent public services and must deeply resent the marginalisation of its priorities and values.

In terms of what is archaically referred to as the United Kingdom, a yes vote would offer an exciting opportunity to reform our sclerotic, creaking, hugely expensive and sometimes corrupt houses of parliament. The four assemblies of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should be proportionally represented in an elected upper house, sweeping away the House of Lords with all its velvet and ermine. Might it even be possible to be citizens rather than subjects in a secular state where religion is a private matter, divisive faith schools a thing of the past and all religions are required to respect the laws of the land.

A refreshing wind of change would be very welcome.


Irene Short
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire



• “No other issue now matters in British politics, “writes Martin Kettle (8 September). I’d say nothing better illustrates the chasm between the perception the Westminster political and media village has of Scottish independence and that of people in England, if our corner of England is any guide to it. In our street, indeed if listening as well to conversations in pubs, shops and the market tells me anything, there isn’t any interest in the issue at all. I’ve heard no one talking about it, no one is in the slightest bother over it, and I would bet my house that if I stood in the high street of this Cheshire town with a questionnaire tomorrow, nine of 10 people would, if asked, not know what is happening up in Scotland a week on Thursday.

Because the fact is, for all the hype, Scotland going independent won’t make a blind bit of difference to anyone in England. The whisky will still flow south, people will still take holidays in that most beautiful of countries, the Scots will still carry on coming down here to find work, English blokes and Scottish girls will still meet up and marry. During the Glasgow late summer fortnight holiday, the Glaswegians will still come in their thouands to the Lakes, to Blackpool, to the Yorkshire Dales, to England’s south coast for the sunshine and of course to Manchester to see civilisation at its best. Nothing real as far as English people are concerned is about to change.

But it will of course for the Scots. They will rule themselves. As indeed they should. Why should they be ruled by English MPs who make up some 550 of the 650 MPs in the Commons, by some 90% of the 800 or so lords who decorate the so-called upper house and by the public school toffs and the Oxbridge elite who dominate the judiciary, parliament, the civil service and the newspaers? Yes, why should they? They’d be mad to vote no. They’ve got one of the loveliest magnets in all of Europe for mass income from tourism in the shape of the Highlands and the isles, any amount of hydro-electric power, oil and gas in the North Sea, a great education service, a health service that is there to serve the sick and not the pockets of investors, and one of the most enterprising manufacturing and scientific traditions in the world. They’ve got it all before them. And they’d go independent without the slightest resentment from English people. We do not mind. Only the Westminster politicos do, and who gives a fig for that lot?


Michael Knowles
Congleton, Cheshire



• Do the quasi-Scots who are still espousing the Better Together campaign not realise they are strangling our political freedom? In the event of a no vote, and even if the British electorate delivered a Labour government at the next general election, in the larger scheme of things it would only be a fleeting visit to power.

However, unlike Labour supporters in England, Scottish Labour is customarily more leftwing but, when sitting 400 miles away at Westminster, through no fault of their own, have as much bite as a toothless tiger, incapable of giving Scotland satisfactory representation.

In any event, it will only be a matter of time, and perhaps a lot sooner that we think, until the Tory-Labour swings-and-roundabouts scenario takes a back seat to accommodate a Tory/Ukip coalition.

It would be a tragedy if we gave up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to choose a Scotland where governments, of any political hue, would be more concerned about social and political justice for Scottish people than any London government would.

We should not be listening to careerist, synthetic Scottish politicians with whom Rabbie Burns might have recognised certain similarities with the earlier treacherous nobles, hastening him to coin the phrase: “We’re bought and sold for English gold, such a parcel of rogues in a nation.”

It is unfortunate, but too many people in Scotland do not seem to know the difference between the reality of freedom and the illusion of freedom. We should listen to our heads, hearts and souls and not end up spending a lifetime lamenting the great opportunity we missed.


William Burns
Edinburgh



• I am not a nationalist. With a liberal Scottish Presbyterian father and a conservative English Catholic mother, I grew up in an atmosphere of tolerance and good humour. Working in both Scotland and England I always defended a tolerant marriage of differences rather than a petulant split because of them. The occasional victim mentality I met north of the border (“It’s all the fault of the English”) irked me as much as the casual ignorance which provoked it south of the border (“Why do these Scots whinge on so about the poll tax?). As a hybrid, I longed for each country to understand and accommodate the other better. Devolution in 1998 cheered me, and I looked for more both in Scotland and all parts of the UK. I did not initially welcome the independence debate, wary of the divisiveness it could cause. I despaired at David Cameron, early on, striking the middle of the road “devo max” possibility from the ballot paper.

Faced with a polarised yes or no vote, I naturally leant more towards Better Together, but was dismayed to find nothing positive I could vote for in their campaign. All I found were dire threats of all the future uncertainties involved in a yes vote, with no honest admission of the equally uncertain future a no vote implied. Better Together parties, amazingly late in the day, have promised to devolve more powers to Scotland but this promise has no reliable substance since they themselves are not together, and will be fighting each other tooth and nail in next year’s general election. If the Ukip vote continues to rise, no one knows or can predict what strange compromises may be born in Westminster 2015, regarding both EU membership and Scottish devolution.

The firm and unexamined assumption in the no campaign is that we are all very much better together. Well, by the evidence to date, are we? I had to admit that after decades of voting either Liberal or Labour I now live in a country where hundreds of thousands of British children are being shifted into poverty, where food banks have become a new necessity, and where social inequality is ever increasing. This is not an inevitable result of the financial crisis. It is the inevitable result of government austerity measures, backed by all three main parties, in response to that crisis. These economic policies favour the wealthy, and it is the poor and vulnerable who are paying for the financial crisis. Continuing welfare cuts are backed by Labour, and after the dreary disillusionment of the Blair years I can no longer trust a Labour government, if elected, to deliver the fair society that was John Smith’s vision.

Turning to the yes campaign, I looked not at Alex Salmond and the rhetoric, but at the actual results in Scotland of SNP policy decisions. I see that the NHS in Scotland, though struggling, has been firmly protected from the ravaging changes that are transforming the service forever in England and Wales. I see that the priorities are care of the elderly, supporting the less well-off, and above all a firm commitment not to put our young people into impossible debt if they wish to go to university. England has stopped investing in its single most important asset – its young people. Scotland (though far from perfect) has not. All the data shows that nothing fast forwards social inequality more rapidly than the introduction of hefty university tuition fees.

The central question is surely: which option offers the best chance of developing a more caring, creative and equitable society for all our children to live in, and contribute to? I have to admit the greater possibility, and the only vision, lies with the yes campaign. So much so that should Scotland become independent, my concern is more for England and Wales. Hopefully, an independent Scotland establishing a fairer more caring society (one that is natural to so many people in England and Wales) will help stimulate the English and Welsh peoples’ own long-overdue debate with a centralised Westminster government whose targets have become so predominantly monetary.

I will be voting yes, though more in grief than grievance. But I will also have a swing in my ballot box step for the first time in many years, at the thought of more imaginative possibilities ahead. I hope that both my parents, whose commitment to fairness and social justice was far deeper than any allegiance to political party or country, would understand.


Mary Gillies
Selkirk



• And so the gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands for the beloved union begins. So beloved by those who profess to cherish it and seek to defend it at all costs, that it’s taken until just 10 days to go to the poll for them to seriously contemplate the reform needed to transform it into a workable solution for everyone in these isles.

We’ve had patronising hauteur and dismissive brow-beating, intermingled with vacuous (if well-intentioned) pleas from sportsmen, celebrities and actors. But no meaningful attempt to consider this an opportunity to reappraise and refresh democracy so that it serves the interests of all and not some.

Whatever the result, hopefully this whole event may wake people from their slumber and engage with what it means, or should mean, be a participating citizen in a 21st-century capitalist democracy. As opposed to a docile consumer-cum-subject in a delusional post-imperial parody.
Colin Montgomery
Edinburgh

• As the scots (Alex Salmond included, I expect) like to quote Robert Burns, maybe the yes voters should remember this from Does Haughty Gaul Invasion Threat: Be Britain still to Britain true, Amang ourselves united; For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted!


Dennis Falloon
Tunbridge Wells, Kent



• Excuse me for being a bit naive here, but if the Scots decide to leave the union, surely everyone benefits, particularly (from a fiscal point of view) the English. And the one person who has everything to gain from Scottish independence is David Cameron, since his party will walk into power again at the next election.

So would someone please explain the problem to me.


John Davison
London



• Alastair Deighton asks “How can so-called progressives have become so bewitched by a nationalist movement?” (Letters, 9 September). It is because the assumed progressives, the Labour party, have entered illegal wars, engorged the bankers and deserted the needy. They sent us Gordon Brown. How busted can a flush get?


Denis Jackson
Glasgow



• Were I a Scot I’d be voting yes for all the reasons set out in the independence arguments. But there is another reason: surely the end of the UK would mean the end of Ukip. Is Nigel Farage currently working on a new name for his party? English, Welsh and Northern Irish Independence Party doesn’t quite do it.


Barbara Richardson
London

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