Scotland

There's been a bit in the news over here recently saying that within a couple of years there's likely to be a referendum in Scotland about whether it should remain part of the UK. My immediate reaction to this news was that the rest of the UK also needs to hold a referendum on whether we want to remain unified with Scotland!

I myself have roots all over the UK, and have always been interested in the history of how the UK came into existence as a combination of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But although one of my grandfathers has Scottish ancestry, and one of my grandmothers has Welsh ancestry with the other two grandparents having English ancestry, I've always labelled myself as English because I was brought up in England.

Co-operation is fundamental to modern society. If any of us city dwellers had to make from scratch any of the items found in our homes, whether food items, furniture or anything else, then it's likely to take us literally hundreds of times longer that it takes us to earn the money for it and buy it in a shop. How did we manage to evolve into such an advanced state of existence, given that most people are fundamentally selfish? This question can in fact be answered mathematically via a variation of the prisoner's dilemma, which shows that even if there are some short term advantages in not co-operating, provided the long term advantages of co-operation are greater then always co-operating is the best strategy .

The 1707 Act of Union which united Scotland with the rest of Britain is a perfect example of the advantages of co-operation. Around 1707 Scotland was quite a poor country, but after the Act of Union Scottish merchants were able to start exploiting opportunities which became available because England was a colonial power. A lot of wealth was generated in Scotland, and if the Act of Union hadn't happened then it seems likely that The Scottish Enlightenment wouldn't have happened either.

But how do Scots feel about all this today. In spite of everything that England and Scotland have been through together since 1707, I have a strong impression that a lot of Scots people don't like the English. The Scottish reaction to England playing in international sports matches is particularly revealing. Whatever the event, and whoever the opponent is, it seems to me that a Scottish person would usually prefer to see England lose. Another example is the reaction that an Indian colleague had while holidaying in some of the remoter parts of Scotland, where he was told that he was particularly welcome because he wasn't English! Although I'm a strong believer in co-operation, when the other party doesn't want to co-operate it doesn't work.

Does the rest of the UK need Scotland? Not really :-). It's true that the UK's oil in the North Sea would be Scottish if Scotland was an independent country, but in today's global economy GDP figures are more relevant. Less than 10% of the UK's population lives in Scotland, and their GDP per head is a bit less than the rest of the UK. Without Scotland, the GDP of the rest of the UK may still be greater than France's GDP, and if behind France then not by much.

The idea of becoming independent countries seems madness to me for many reasons. None the less, with their history of unfriendliness with the rest of the inhabitants of the UK, I think it's time for the rest of us to vote on whether to break the union with the Scots. The Scots have been quite clever at always discussing this issue in terms of what Scottish people get out of the union. A discussion about whether the rest of us get anything out of the union with the Scots is long overdue!