'Yes' or 'No'? A Divided Scotland Confronts Independence Vote

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/scotland-divided-ahead-of-approaching-independence-referendum-a-988064.html



Traveling through Scotland, you might think the result of September's independence referendum is a foregone conclusion. "Yes" signs are everywhere. But surveys tell a different story and many who are wary of the hype.

'Yes' or 'No'? A Divided Scotland Confronts Independence Vote
By Christoph Scheuermann
August 27, 2014 – 10:21 AM

Liam Stevenson was never the type to become particularly passionate about politics. A tank truck driver in Scotland, he spent most of his free time with his wife Helen and daughter Melissa in their small house in Cumbernauld, northeast of Glasgow. Every now and then, he would join his friends for a few pints.

But a couple of months ago, he experienced a transformation not unlike that of Franz Kafka's character Gregor Samsa, who became a new creature overnight. Stevenson became a political activist.

He guides his Volkswagen Golf past working class housing cowering in the shadows of gigantic residential towers. Cumbernauld was created after the war and has since become a Scottish dystopia. It is a place that remains stuck somewhere between the 1950s and 1980s. In the cold jargon of the welfare bureaucracy, the housing projects are known as "schemes" and look just as soulless as the word sounds. Stevenson spent his childhood here. He waves at a man on the way by. "That's Paul. He stabbed his son in the face. No idea why."

Stevenson wants people to see the city through his eyes so they can understand his confidence. After all, the day that could change everything is rapidly approaching. On Sept. 18, more than 4 million Scots are to vote on whether they want to become independent from the United Kingdom.

[pampango]

1. "Of the 59 Scottish members of the House of Commons, only one is a Tory. A favorite joke ..."

The process currently underway on the British archipelago is a unique one. Free of violence, amid an atmosphere of amicability, a referendum is to be held that could result in the end of a 307-year-old union with the United Kingdom. The Scottish move toward independence is also reflective of the ongoing erosion of the European nation-state. After years of crisis, many people no longer identify with their countries, preferring instead to be part of smaller, more manageable regions. Separatists across Europe are pushing for independence, including the Catalonians in Spain, the Flemish in Belgium and the South Tyroleans in Italy. But only in Scotland is a nationally recognized referendum in the works.

Of the 59 Scottish members of the House of Commons, only one is a Tory. A favorite joke has it that there are more pandas north of the English-Scottish border than there are Conservative parliamentarians. There are two pandas and they live in the Edinburgh zoo.

With just weeks to go before the referendum, Scotland seems like a land waking up from a winter slumber to celebrate the Caledonian version of the Arab Spring. Blue "Yes" stickers are plastered on lampposts while "Yes" signs are displayed in windows. If it weren't for the opinion polls, one would think that the result of the referendum was a foregone conclusion.

Indeed, a "unique" independence movement. While it certainly sounds like an independent Scotland would be very liberal, the parliament in the remaining UK would become much more conservative.