Scotland and the Call of Freedom

First published in the Western People on Monday.

A Scotchman, yesterday.

It’s all fun and games until somebody loses a country. The sage parental advice sounded ne’er so true as when the British political establishment suddenly woke to the prospect that, for all their blather, the perfidious Scots might just go and vote for independence after all.

It’s not just the rest of the United Kingdom who are suddenly transfixed by events north of Hadrian’s Wall. An independent Scotland would be something of a floating joker in the European context. Its proponents say everything will be fine and an independent Scotland will be welcomed with open arms in Brussels, while opponents grimly remark that one does not simply walk into the European Union and leave it at that.

For Ireland too, an independent Scotland would be more hassle than we need right now. Ireland’s great selling point for direct foreign investment, apart from our corporation tax, is that we are an English-speaking gateway to Europe. But they speak English in Scotland too – what happens if Scotland becomes a more attractive place to locate than Ireland? Nothing good.

Ireland certainly can’t come around and plead with the Scots to stay in the UK, given our own history, but the last thing we want is having our eye wiped by a free Scotland that’s also claiming to be the best small country in the world to do business. Therefore, the Irish keep schtum, and hope for the best.

But an independent Scotland might be too busy fighting for its very survival to even think about raining on the Irish parade. An independent Scotland will face two big questions. The biggest question of all is: what will they use for money?

The proponents of independence say that the money will be fine. They can use the pound sterling, just like always. But we in Ireland don’t have our own currency, and look how we got rolled around in a barrel because of it over the past few years.

Money, in itself, isn’t valuable. Money is a measure of value. That value is set by governments. If Scotland uses the pound sterling as its currency, it doesn’t get to set the value of that currency.

Scotland currently has a say in the value of the pound sterling, as part of the United Kingdom. But a vote for independence means the Scots get no say at all. So if Scottish interest rates are rising while English interest rates are falling – well, it won’t be pretty.

And then there is the EU conundrum. There are plenty of European countries that have regions that dream of independence. A smooth Scottish ascension to the EU would have the same effect on such Catalans, Basques, Silesians and others who hear the call of freedom as spinach had on Popeye the Sailor Man. If the Scots want in to the EU, they will have to sing for their supper. The door won’t just swing open for them.

There is also the peculiar thing about the EU being a union of like-minded peoples, sharing values and cultures. People like those in the United Kingdom, whose values are now at such odds with Scottish values that the Scots have no option but to strike out on their own. So the Scots are like everyone else in the EU, from Westport to Warsaw, except the British, from whom the Scots are so different that they need to be independent. Whatever way you slice it, that never adds up.

And so we return to the crux of the question: why on Earth do the Scots want to be independent in the first place? What Scottish values exist that aren’t also British values? What freedom will the Scots gain through independence that they haven’t got now? What currently existing Scottish oppression will end through independence?

There is a romantic inclination to connect the notion of Scottish independence with Irish independence. That Scotland, like Ireland, is entitled to independence in the name of the dead generations from whom she derives her long tradition of nationhood.

But that’s not the case with the Scots at all. Whatever strain of that long tradition existed heretofore was well and truly wiped out at Culloden’s Moor on April 16th, 1745, by His Grace Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. Scotland has been, to echo a phrase from our own past, as British as Finchley ever since.

So how have they now got it into their heads they’re not as British as Finchley? How is Scottish independence so close that the British Establishment has been love-bombing Scotland for all its worth for the past week, and promising the devil and all if only the Scots won’t walk out the door?

It is simply the appeal of the patriot game that’s caused the Scots to short-circuit the notoriously severe common sense of the man in the street in Auchtermuchty, and go chasing a hopeless dream? If it is, they won’t be the first people to be so short-circuited, for whom some woman’s yellow hair has maddened every mother’s son.

Of course, Ireland and the Irish experience isn’t a factor in the Scottish referendum at all, which is a little hurtful. However hurtful it may be, it’s not at all difficult to understand. A lot of people in Scotland despise the Irish. Ibrox is filled to the rafters every week, with the Billy Boys gustily sung every time.

But one thing the Scots can learn from the Irish is that there is a big difference between being able to revolt and being able to govern. It’s hard not to look back on the early years of the Irish Free State and see men slightly lost in the corridors of power, wondering what in God’s name are we meant to do now?

We all throw back the shoulders when we look up and see the flag fluttering in the breeze. But what does the notion of a nation state really mean in the globalised world of the early 21st Century? We were talking about being able to set your own currency earlier but even that is limited by the size and resources of your own country. Things like sovereignty and independence are ephemeral things in the modern world, especially when compared to the solid reality of economic prosperity and political stability. It would be a pity if the Scots, that most practical of people, were to lose all that now in chasing a will-o-the-wisp.

Can Scotland Succeed Where Ireland Has Failed?

For the first time since the Duke of Cumberland routed the Jacobites in less than an hour on Culloden’s moor over 300 years ago, Scotland has a chance to take her place among the nations of the Earth once more. The SNP won an against-the-odds majority in the British elections last week and are determined to hold a referendum to see if the Scots want independence. If independence is granted, can the Scots make a better job of it than the Irish have? There are four reasons why she can.

Home Rule
The Scots have a number of advantages going for them. The first is that they are nominally independent as it is. Ireland was directly ruled by Westminster until 1921. We never got a chance to practice governance, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons why we’re so terrible at it. The Scottish Parliament is supersized local council, but still. It’s a start.

National Resources
One of the reasons behind the calls for Scottish independence is that the Scottish economy is fundamentally different from the British. This is not an argument that was made here. There were no economic arguments made here for independence, other than not-very-grounded notion that raising families on nineteen acres of bog and rushes was viable.

The reasons behind Irish independence were cultural and religious, not economic. For an independent Ireland to survive in the 1920s, it was necessary that the people compensate for relative economic penury with their love of their language and the Catholic religion. After ninety years, I think we can mark Plan A down as a bust.

No Civil War
The single worst way to conclude a fight for national independence is by having a civil war immediately afterwards. It clouds the goals that were aimed for in the beginning, and the achievements after independence has been granted. Nobody wins, everybody loses.

Also, it’s possible that the civil war is the direct reason why cronyism is so endemic to Irish public life. Garret Fitzgerald, a statesman whom this blog wishes all the best in his current ill-health, places great store on the statesmanship of the initial governments of the state, unlike what he sees as the corrupt, Mohair-suited governments that followed. An Spailpín suspects this analysis may a little simplistic.

The first aim of first governments was to stabalise the state, which is why they executed those who remained in the IRA in the numbers that they did. Bad things happen in wars. But is the more worrying long-term legacy of that policy of stablisation at all costs the inability of the institutions of state to self-regulate, and to purge themselves of waste, inefficiency and corruption?

The effort to establish the institutions of state has left an incorrect weighing in the balance in our public life. The state and her institutions – such as her banks, for instance – are not questioned when they should be, and when irregularities are discovered, all the machinery of state rolls into action to defend the institution rather than the citizen. There was no need for legal representation at the tribunals if nothing said at a tribunal can be used in a court of law. It was a mistake, born out of this tradition of protecting the state from subversion. That the good name of a public institution or deed is more important than justice being done to a citizen.

It is extremely unlikely that any result in a Scottish referendum will lead to a civil war. For that they should be grateful. Ireland is still reaping a bitter harvest from hers.

A More Subtle and Nuanced Understanding of Sovereignty
A Scottish MP made the point to the great Kirsty Wark on the BBC's Newsnight on Friday night that sovereignty is not a Boolean concept – it not a question of fully on or fully off. If that is the widespread view, it shows a great level of maturity and understanding of the state in the modern, multi-cultural 21st century world.

We are not so lucky. The blather and bleatings we’ve heard here about sovereignty shows that we really don’t understand what is it is to be a sovereign people, ninety years after that sovereignty was granted.

Our current disaster is not an accident. It’s been inevitable and we can only hope and pray that the national debate which currently features interest groups saying cut anything but my cake can rise to a level where we discuss what it is to be sovereign and what we’re willing to do as a people to ensure that sovereignty continues. In the meantime, best of luck to the Scots in the months and years ahead.

Declan Kidney is Playing for the Pot

If Ireland do not win their first Championship in twenty-four years this year, or their first Grand Slam in sixty-one, the fault will not lie with Declan Kidney. The Irish coach has been outstanding in his first year in charge and yesterday, with his stunning selection against the Scots, Kidney has proved that he’s playing for the pot and has the belly for big stakes. More luck to him.

Grey old heads nodded into their pints when Warren Gatland made a typically daring selection for Wales game against Italy last. Gatland dropped the guts of the established team, and gave the fringe players a chance to shine and to play for the title in what will almost certainly be the title decider in Cardiff against the Irish.

It proved to the established players that there is no divine right to a jersey and to the fringe players that they will get their chance, and it’s up to them to grab it. By contrast the Irish support, like Pavlov’s dog, expected the expected from their coach yesterday.

And instead, Kidney matched Gatland stroke for stroke. Out go Paddy Wallace, Tomás O’Leary, Jerry Flannery and Jamie Heaslip; in come Gordon D’Arcy, Peter Stringer, Rory Best and Denis Leamy. Compared to what we have seen, this is as revolutionary as Galileo and Keppler announcing the rotundity of the of the Earth.

Would you have made the same changes? Perhaps not. An Spailpín would quibble with one or two himself, but then bow to Kidney’s awesome judgement. We have not seen this before in Irish team selections. This is revolution. There are no sacred cows. Imagine how it will feel this week for D’Arcy, for Stringer, for Best and for Leamy when they hear the skirl of the pipes in Edinburgh on Saturday evening? They know that they have not waited in vain and if they put the Scots to the sword they can make the starting XV in Wales.

Does it show disrespect to the Scots? Yes, it does. About as much as Gatland showed the Italians, because the Scots and Italians are about equal. Is Kidney daring fate and history, the light of other Irish disappointment in Scotland? Yes, and rightly so. History can’t pull on a jersey, and the Scots’ proud history can’t help them now as they struggle to cope with the new world of professional rugby.

There was a time when Scottish rugby was epitomised by the likes of Finlay Calder, captain of the Lions in 1989 in Australia and a man best understood as a set of brass knuckles made flesh and bone. Chiefly bone, actually, as Ireland's former fullback Jim Staples could tell you.

But the days of Scotland having nine Lions, as they had twenty years ago in Australia, are of the past, and the talent gulf between the sides is now considerably in Ireland’s favour. Besides, if Ireland are running scared of the Scots, they have no business in going to Cardiff looking for glory. Glory does not cower before a faded power; it polishes it off, and looks forward to fresh fields of battle.

The rejuvenation of Brian O’Driscoll is perhaps Kidney’s greatest contribution to the Irish campaign so far. What O’Driscoll has you can’t coach. But the open competition for places fostered by Kidney, the absolute meritocracy that he has instilled and the unity of purpose shown by a team previously scared by internecine divisions are the great hallmarks of this rejuvenated Irish team.

Kidney has postponed the axe for the golden generation, and now the Slam is closer than it’s been in quite some time. They will have noticed in the valleys, and will not sleep easy in the coming ten days. And meanwhile, a nation on its knees is deeply grateful for whatever rugger mojo it is on which Declan Kidney seems to have the freehold. Roll on Saturday.





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