{"id":831,"date":"2014-07-07T09:37:32","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T09:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/?p=831"},"modified":"2018-07-06T14:37:22","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T14:37:22","slug":"should-scotland-vote-for-what-is-best-for-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/should-scotland-vote-for-what-is-best-for-scotland\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Scotland vote for what is best for Scotland?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kieran<\/a>

Kieran Oberman, University of Edinburgh<\/p><\/div>\n

Kieran Oberman urges us to think ‘what is best for everyone affected by the referendum, wherever they live?’<\/em><\/p>\n

The Yes and No camps are busy telling us that Scotland will be made better or worse off as a result of independence.\u00a0 What they both seem to assume is that \u201cwhat is best for Scotland?\u201d is the relevant question to ask.\u00a0 But why?\u00a0 The referendum will have an impact on people beyond Scotland\u2019s borders.\u00a0 So isn\u2019t the relevant question to ask, \u201cwhat is best for everyone affected by the referendum, wherever they live?\u201d Clearly, the outsiders who will be most affected are those living in the rest of the UK.\u00a0 In the event of a Yes victory, politics within the rest of the UK is set for a shake up.\u00a0 Currently, Scotland sends 59 MPs to Westminster.\u00a0 \u00a0Most are Labour; only one is Conservative.\u00a0 So Scottish independence is likely to shift UK politics rightwards.\u00a0 This rightward shift is unlikely to take the form sometimes imagined: endless Tory majorities.\u00a0 Rather Labour and the Liberal Democrats will themselves shift rightwards in search of the new median voter.<\/p>\n

This should be good news if you are on the right.\u00a0 Scottish right-wing internationalists (if there are such people) have good reason to vote yes.\u00a0 But for those on the left, it should be deeply concerning.\u00a0 If the left is correct in thinking that right-wing policies worsen social injustice, then Scottish independence is likely to worsen social injustice in the rest of the UK.\u00a0 Scottish left-wing internationalists may have reason to vote no even if, as the Yes camp claim, Scotland itself would better off on its own.<\/p>\n

There is a global dimension to all this as well.\u00a0 Scotland, post-independence, will not be a major international actor, but the rest of the UK will retain much of its influence.\u00a0 A rightward shift in UK politics will mean a rightward shift in the UKs approach to foreigners: expect more hostility towards the EU, more loyalty to the US, even tighter immigration restrictions etc.<\/p>\n

Left-wing Yes supporters will argue that an independent Scotland will offer a left-leaning role model for others to follow.\u00a0 Whether Scotland will really be all that left-leaning is questionable.\u00a0Surveys of political values reveal that Scotland is not actually that different to the rest of UK<\/a>. \u00a0The problem the Conservatives have in Scotland might be due less to their right-wing policies as their perceived Englishness.\u00a0 But even if Scotland did offer some kind of Scandinavian-style social democracy, the role-model argument seems far-fetched.\u00a0 If the rest of the world wanted a Scandinavian role model to inspire it, it already has one: Scandinavia.\u00a0 Moreover, large countries tend to ignore the affairs of smaller neighbours.\u00a0 The UK\u2019s ignorance of the politics in the Republic of Ireland is rivalled only by the US\u2019s ignorance of Canada.<\/p>\n

Some contend that the referendum will actually have little affect on UK politics.\u00a0 They point out that\u00a0Scotland has only been decisive in three British elections<\/a>\u00a0in the last fifty years: 1964, 1974 and 2010.\u00a0 \u00a0Two points on this.\u00a0 First, three out of thirteen elections seems significant to me.\u00a0 That is almost one in four.\u00a0 Second, one only knows whether Scotland is decisive or not after an election.\u00a0 Going into an election, party strategists must plan for all possibilities.\u00a0 Given the possibility that missing Scottish votes will prove decisive in a post-independence election, Labour and Liberal Democrats are likely to play it safe and shift right-wards.\u00a0 The idea that party strategists will simply ignore the loss of dozens of safe seats and plough on as before is hard to believe.<\/p>\n

Now to some, all of these considerations are beside the point because they will reject the internationalist approach from the outset.\u00a0 For them, the question \u201cwhat is best for Scotland?\u201d is the pervasive question in the public debate for a good reason: it\u00a0is\u00a0the relevant question. The idea that Scottish residents should countenance voting for the sake outsiders, while anticipating harm to Scottish livelihoods, will seem preposterous, even treacherous.\u00a0 Scotland, like any other country, can legitimately put itself first when deciding its own affairs.<\/p>\n

I certainly accept that the internationalist approach goes against current orthodoxy, but I want to question whether that orthodoxy is defensible.\u00a0 For the question remains: what can justify the view that Scots should show greater concern for other Scots than for outsiders?\u00a0 Every one is human.\u00a0 Why worry about some human beings more than others, simply on the grounds of their geographical location?<\/p>\n

That question is rarely raised in everyday politics, but it as a question that nationalist political theorists have sought to answer.\u00a0 One of their most powerful arguments rests on\u00a0an analogy between nations and families<\/a>.\u00a0 People are often entitled to do things for their family members that they need not do for strangers.\u00a0 If your mother is in hospital, it is okay to visit\u00a0her; you do not have to visit other patients as well. If you want to read a bedtime story to your child, you can do so without incurring the obligation to read to every child.\u00a0 Families are often entitled to put their members first.<\/p>\n

Perhaps nations are like families. \u00a0If the analogy holds, then it would seem permissible for nationals to prioritise fellow nationals.\u00a0 But does the analogy hold?\u00a0 One thing that seems important about families is that they are (usually) a site of love and intimacy.\u00a0 It is arguably part of love and intimacy that it involves prioritisation.\u00a0 By visiting your mother in hospital, you express your love for your mother.\u00a0 In reading to your child, you experience intimacy with your child.\u00a0 No such argument from love and intimacy can be made in the case of nationals.\u00a0 The vast majority of our fellow nationals are strangers we will never meet.\u00a0 A person who refuses to award her fellow nationals priority status does not thereby miss out on a loving, intimate relationship.<\/p>\n

Anti-nationalists, moreover,\u00a0have their own analogies<\/a>.\u00a0 Clearly there are cases in which it is unjust to award one group of people priority status on the basis of a morally arbitrary characteristic.\u00a0 Racism, sexism and sectarianism are wrong.\u00a0 What makes nationalism any different?<\/p>\n

The left, which often prides itself on its opposition to arbitrary discrimination, has had an uneasy relationship with nationalism.\u00a0 This is true as much in Scotland as elsewhere.\u00a0 Johann Lamont, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party,\u00a0has described nationalism as a \u201cvirus that has affected so many nations and done so much harm\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0 Strong words.\u00a0 But if nationalism is to be rejected and internationalism embraced, then the Scottish Labour Party, along with everyone else, should be prepared to accept losses for Scotland for the sake of outsiders.<\/p>\n

This article has so far suggested that right-wing internationalists have reason to vote yes and left-wing internationalists reason to vote no.\u00a0 But let me end here by saying a little to redress the balance.\u00a0 The SNP are promising the removal of British nuclear weapons from the Faslane naval base.\u00a0 If they deliver it would add pressure on the UK to scrap its weapons altogether.\u00a0 Whether that possibility lends one reason to vote Yes depends on how one feels about nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Moreover, once one adopts the internationalist approach, some of the No camp arguments lose their force.\u00a0 Consider the argument that an independent Scotland would lose out on being part of a country whose influence is disproportionate to its population size.\u00a0 From an internationalist, and democratic, perspective, that does not seem such a bad thing.\u00a0 The UK\u2019s disproportionate influence is unfair \u2013 a product of colonialism and power politics.\u00a0 The UK does not deserve its permanent seat on the UN Security Council, for instance, and were the\u00a0UK to lose it upon a Scottish exit<\/a>, as some warn, that should be welcomed, especially if it meant a shake up in which poor countries achieved a greater say.<\/p>\n

Finally, and most importantly, while the internationalist approach takes seriously the impact of the referendum on the rest of the world, it does not ignore the impact on Scotland.\u00a0 Since it is in Scotland that the strongest impact will be felt, an internationalist would be willing to vote against the interests of outsiders, as long as the benefits for Scotland are sufficiently great. This article has proposed an internationalist approach to deciding how to vote, but it has not claimed that that internationalist approach yields any easy conclusions.\u00a0 On the contrary, the internationalist approach complicates matters further by bringing a range of new considerations to light \u2013 considerations that are all too often ignored in the public debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kieran Oberman urges us to think ‘what is best for everyone affected by the referendum, wherever they live?’ The Yes and No camps are busy telling us that Scotland will be made better or worse off as a result of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sps.ed.ac.uk\/referendum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}