Dear Britain.....

Dear Britain – I’ve not been in touch for a while and this felt like a good time to check in and let you know whats been happening at my end. Standing here at the change of the year I can honestly say that I have never looked forward to a new year more than I do this one.

I am optimistic because I am living in a place and time where the big questions about how and why have become the normal run of things. Specifically, I mean the debate around greater autonomy for Scotland…..and that is why I’m writing – I wanted to explain that I see this conversation not just about us in Scotland but about us in Britain.

What is emerging in Scotland is a vision for a society that puts human needs above the needs of the ‘market’ – it is a vision for a place where the playing field is levelled out and everyone gets a fair shot at being the best they can be.* I feel proud and privileged to be part of a movement of people that are nurturing and supporting this vision – for the first time in my life I can see the point of politics.

(* see the Common Weal proposal as a good general statement of the way the debate is heading)

3 years ago I shrugged my shoulders and just couldn’t see the point of even voting in elections. What I saw was a numbing adherence to a worldview that stated that what was good for large-scale business was essential to keep the world turning….that it might have a few uncomfortable consequences for a few folk here and there….but that really we have no choice because without big business all the lights would go out and we would all end up in the gutter in rags.

Everything that I saw about UK politics was effectively tinkering around the edges of this worldview. In elections, the worldview was never up for debate – it was assumed that things would stay on that course – all that we were being asked to decide was the colour of the uniform of the captain.

It is the logic of this status quo casts the current debate in Scotland as ‘nationalist’ or ‘separatist’ – in my experience this is just plain wrong – the conversation in Scotland is an earnest and inclusive discussion about the way we all live together and how we can make the world a better place for our children - how we can be a positive force in the world instead of part of the problem.

The relative value and number of jobs geographically in UK - Office of National Statistics

What I’d like to explore is the idea that a more autonomous Scotland is not just about Scotland but is about Britain as whole. We all live with the day to day 'reality' that London is the centre of gravity of Britain and, somehow, we have all come to see ourselves in relation to London. We are told that London is the place that generates the lionshare of the income that supports the rest of the of the UK – but is that realistic? and what does it say about the rest if us? If we all allow this to continue then, quite literally , the life will be sucked from every other part of the British Isles. And that is the point….. 50 Scottish Labour MPs in Westminster are not going to stem that tide (in some measure precisely because they are in Westminster).

Imagine for a moment that there was a part of Britain that was doing things differently – a place (very close to home) that could be held up as an example of what happens when you balance a society differently. Imagine a British politics that talked (initially) about two centres of power instead of one. Imagine the way that your region in England, Wales or Ireland could trade and build cultural links with ‘Scotland’. Imagine how pretty soon this idea would catch on and other parts of the UK would start to do things differently and work with each other independently rather than having to run everything through Westminster. Sounds pretty healthy….pretty normal…pretty grown up?

You can imagine what Westminster would say…….’it couldn’t work’…..’we couldn’t afford it’…..’you’d never manage without us’…..’everything would fall apart’. Then imagine you lived in Scotland - this is what we have been hearing every day for the last 2 years. The reason that people are standing strong against this barrage is because there is a feeling  that, for us, centralised power in Westminster has already fallen apart – our society is broken and we need to do something different.

I’m not open to the idea of independence because I want to leave Britain – I want to play my part in Britain. I believe in the richness and diversity of the whole of Britain and I think what is happening in Scotland could help unlock that potential.

Happy New Year and all the very best!

Matt


PS I class myself as a ‘maybe’ voter in the referendum. If the vote was tomorrow I would vote Yes – but I am still hoping that the Better Together campaign come forward with proposals for a vision of Scotland fully within the UK – I would like to be choosing between two positive visions rather than simply offered the status-quo as one of the choices