Thinking forward: a chance to build something new
- Paul Sceeny
- 11 hours ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 29 minutes ago
I’m going to depart from my usual musings about adult education for this post (although I still think there's some relevance).
Over the last couple of months I’ve been taking part in a programme called Forward Thinking that’s examining the constitutional debate on the island of Ireland. The programme takes no position on the future status of the six counties (although I definitely have my own views!😃), and is principally about fostering informed and respectful dialogue.
A major part of Forward Thinking is exploring other places where constitutional debates are live/recent, so last week we spent a couple of days in Edinburgh and Glasgow meeting with some key protagonists from the 2014 independence referendum and taking stock of where the campaign for Indy has got to these days.
Whilst I’ve always been a supporter of Irish unity (partition never made sense to me, even before I moved to Derry and its effects became a daily reality), I was only won over to the cause of Scottish independence around 2013 - about a year after the Edinburgh Agreement (PDF) and as I began to contrast the positivity and optimism of the Yes Scotland campaign with the ‘stay in your lane’ condescension of Better Together. I’d previously been an enthusiastic supporter of devolution in the mould of Donald Dewar and John Smith, tending to see independence as a pipe dream (basically what Colin Kidd would describe as ‘banal unionism’).
Moving to the north of Ireland from England, and becoming more directly exposed to the asymmetry and coerciveness of this so-called ‘voluntary union’, is what ultimately shifted my thinking. I have both Scottish and Welsh heritage; both have a distinct character that is barely understood, let alone respected, by many in England. And that combination of ignorance and indifference can be multiplied tenfold when it comes to the island of Ireland.
These days it grates whenever I hear English people refer to "the UK" when describing institutions or places that are specific to England, or for them to co-opt "British" as a ‘polite’ euphemism for "English". Another pet hate is “the devolved nations” (without even getting into a discussion about the six counties…😦); it’s always about othering or presumptive ownership. And that’s without even mentioning Brexit as the moment any pretence about this being a union of equals was extinguished.
Anyway, back to our Scotland trip. We were fortunate to hear from both Stuart Nicolson (former Scottish Government Head of Communications under Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf) and Eddie Barnes (who’d previously worked for Ruth Davidson and now heads up the John Smith Centre), as well as from a range of academics, journalists and civic leaders. The overwhelming feeling was one of stalemate: support for independence remains consistently around 50%, yet IndyRef2 can't happen without a Section 30 Order from a British government that appears determined to cling to its perpetual mantra of "Now is not the time". Next May's Holyrood election might help shift the dial a little: the SNP is unlikely to repeat the outright majority it won in 2011, yet recent polls appear to suggest the Scottish Greens are on course to become the second largest party (ahead of Labour, the Tories, Lib Dems and Reform), resulting in a substantial majority of pro-independence MSPs. A future Westminster government committed to dragging Scotland out of the ECHR might similarly put further momentum behind the case for taking a different path.
And much as the British government will almost certainly continue to dig its heels in, that position of just telling Scots to "get back in your box" will eventually run out of road.
The need for more preparatory work ahead of another referendum was also acknowledged by all we met with (Eddie Barnes also lamented the lack of a coherent/positive case for the union): despite the Scottish government producing a detailed prospectus for independence ahead of the 2014 referendum, the No side was ultimately able to exploit uncertainties about currency and pensions, and both would clearly need more compelling answers next time.
More than that, there's a need for a wider debate about the sort of country post-indy Scotland might aspire to be. Some would look to the prosperity of Ireland's 26-county state; others might aspire to emulate a Scandinavian social democracy (although those are in short supply these days); most would tend towards EU accession, although a few more years of post-Brexit divergence wouldn't make that any easier to achieve and of course there's the minor matter of a land border with England.
The need for a compelling case for change that's grounded in people's daily realities is probably the strongest takeaway from these conversations; certainly it's relevant to our debate about Irish unity and if/how/when a new 32-county state might emerge. Constitutional change doesn't necessarily feel like a priority when patients are having to lie on the floor of the ED at Altnagelvin Hospital, yet many of the challenges we face in this part of the island ultimately stem from partition and a century of systemic discrimination.
Robin McAlpine from Common Weal talked about needing to build a bottom-up movement, rather than giving politicians free reign over shaping the future. That sense of civic society engagement and buy-in was one of the things that struck me when I was in the west of Scotland during the summer of 2014; it also reminds me a little of the progressive consensus and sense of momentum that swung Ireland's Marriage Equality and Repeal referendums a few years later.
Much as I resent being told by Hilary Benn there's "no appetite" for a border poll (or by Micheál Martin that it can't happen until Jamie Bryson has been 'reconciled'), there is more work to be done - not just on boring details, but on capturing people's imaginations that things can be better.
PS: you can read the Holywell Trust's 'official' writeup on the trip here:
