Only Scottish

Today’s class was about the Scottish media, and I found it very interesting because I’m kind of obsessed with that country. Our guest, Ken Garner from Glasgow Caledonian University, is from England, but he’s been living in Scotland for several years. This fact brought a very particular point of view, maybe more objective, about Scotland’s situation and characteristics.

I feel that the most important fact about the conference were the differences between England and Scotland, which are more evident when we talk about people's most genuine things, such as a nation's own media.

A while ago, a teacher asked us to write an international analysis. I chose as a topic the independence process in Scotland, and this was the result (it’s my own translation, so don’t expect a wonderful article):

On the way to William Wallace’s legacy

Scotland’s Government is already planning the before and the after the referendum for the independence, while Cameron’s tories are on the lookout

England had been ambitioning Caledonia ­–how the Romans called it– from XIII century, when Sir William Wallace and his men avoided the conquest during the Scottish Independence Wars. But those from the South of the island didn’t give up until the Glorious Revolution. The Scottish yield as the English threatened about blocking the commerce, and in 1707 the United Kingdom of Great Britain was officially born.

Nowadays, the Scottish Government has set the date for the referendum that will decide if the territory becomes independent or not from the United Kingdom. The chosen period is in fall 2014, and the voters will be over sixteen years old. The Scottish National Party (SNP) is optimistic, even though the latest polls shown that only the 24% of the population gives support to the independence, nine points less than the year before.

The percentage of Scots that want more autonomy is increasing, though, up to the 61% of the respondents. The truth is that Scotland’s political competences are very limited, as most of the executive and legislative power relapses on the English Parliament. This is what Alex Salmond, Scotland’s Prime Minister, claimed to James Cameron, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister. But the tory refused, and that was when Salmond put the independence on the table.

The celebration of this plebiscite got formalized in an agreement between both parliaments, in which they testified that the process was legally binding. Then, the volition of the Scottish population, whichever it’ll be, it will be accomplished once they pronounce it.

The attitude of Cameron’s government can seem curious, knowing their unionists condition. But the tories have always shown themselves as open-minded people about this dialogue, because they had the conviction that the pro-independence party would never reach the power in Scotland.

But they didn’t count on the SNP’s ability to challenge the polls. In 2007, the party won the election against all predictions, and in 2011 they gain an unexpected absolute majority. With this background, Alex Salmond doesn’t discard the independence victory, but he admits it is complicated. However, the percentage of “yes” at the referendum will give political strength to the demand of autonomy for Scotland.

Cameron, on the other hand, appeals to the feeling of a three-century alliance, and the uses the success of the last Olympic Games as an example of union’s benefits. Why should you change something that works?, is what Cameron may be asking to himself. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom itself is thinking over its links with the European Union, and is also thinking about making a consultation on this issue.

The Yugoslavian precedent, bloody and uncontrolled, threatens the sovereigntist attempts, because it represents the example to avoid. The English-Scottish case has an advantage versus Catalonia or Québec: the United Kingdom doesn’t have a Constitution. This democratic peculiarity would simplify the separation, which would be consolidated with a “simple” legal modification.

Salmond has established that, if the independentist vote wins, a Scottish Constitution will be written between 2014 and 2016. When it’s done, there will be an election on the new independent Parliament. The essential points in that document would be a free educational system, the right to have a home and that the country gets rid of any nuclear implication. What is still uncertain is whether the new state would remain in the European Union or not.