Scottish Independence and Remembering Quebec Independence

September 15

Hey everyone.  With my cousin Katie being here this past weekend (she's from Glasgow but lives in Oxford now), it kind of brought to light that there are big things brewing in Scotland. A national referendum is scheduled to be held this Thursday, September 18, where voters will be asked to answer Yes or No to the question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?"

Why do I care?  Well, my son's name is Graeme MacLellan Cuthill so that should be a clue that Scotland is important to me.  My Dad was born in Glasgow and moved to England in his early twenties, and I have a number of relatives that still live there.

September 16

Scotland became part of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) 307 years ago, and are now part of the larger United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as part of the European Community and the share the UK Pound with the rest of the country (although strangely, three of their banks print their own banknotes, so there are Scottish pounds floating around but they are pretty much the same as the Bank of England pound notes).  Don't try to use them in England as they are not looked upon too favorably down there.



Note that I will use Britain and UK interchangeably throughout out this blog.

The vote is scheduled on September 18 (Thursday) and only those actually living in Scotland on that date can vote.  So my cousin Katie, because she lives in Oxford, cannot vote, nor can my Dad as he lives in Canada. But a 16-year old living in Scotland is eligible - go figure.

Why do the Scots want to separate?  Well the Scottish National Party, which had pledged to hold a referendum on independence now holds a majority in the Scottish parliament and have taken the opportunity to move the issue forward.  Additionally, and for those of you closer to the "action", so to speak, please excuse any errors in my understanding, the issues that are driving separation are some of the following:

• All nuclear weapons would be removed from Scotland (including a very large submarine base)
• Scotland would be able to pursue a more left wing political agenda, as they have had significant issues with David Cameron's right wing UK government
• Scotland feels it is better able to take control of revenues from North Sea oil and gas found in Scottish waters
• The devolved Scottish parliament that the UK created back in 1997 to sate some of the Scottish needs like education, social services and home affairs instead stoked the fires of nationalists and created what some have called the "Braveheart" generation

September 17

So if they do separate, what happens next:

• For the most part it is unclear.  The actual separation won't happen until March of 2016, a date set by the British government to finalize separation.  Britain doesn't actually have a constitution so it is not written anywhere how a separation should take place so it will take time.
• The Cameron government has stated that there is no turning back.  If the vote is to separate, the process will take place and Scotland won't be able to rejoin Britain if things don't work out.
• Scotland will no longer be part of the EC and will have to re-apply.  It sounds academic but Spain will definitely not be in their corner as this will give lift to Catalonia's desire to separate from Spain (a region that includes Barcelona).  It might drive Quebec independence in Canada too, something upon which I give some thoughts further below.  One thing to note is that the UK government is seriously considering leaving the EU itself.  That's another story.
• The Scotland currency being tied to the UK pound and therefore the UK Central bank.  There is no guarantee Britain will allow that to occur. 
• Many other things will need to be discussed but these are key.

September 18

It's voting day.  Not sure if we will now the results until tomorrow.

I indicated above that I also wanted to compare this to Quebec independence, and their last vote back on October 30, 1995. I won't go into as much details as to the why's or why not's as above but will try and quickly summarize:

• The Parti Quebecois (a separatist party) gained power in Quebec and promised a vote
• A previous vote had failed in 1992
• Quebec had always been part of Canada since it's the country's creation in 1867 (when it no longer was just a British colony)
• It did actually get violent at an earlier point around the early 70's when a terrorist part called the Quebec Liberation Front (the FLQ) commited some terrorist acts around the province including the kidnapping of the UK Trade Commisioner and the murder of Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte.
• From a personal standpoint, we emigrated from Britain to Canada at this point (yeah...great timing - my parent's are of the adventurous type).  I don't remember much personally (I was only 4 at the time) but my parents remember the Army being on site at the airport when we landed.

In any case, I had just moved to the United States in September of 1995 to work on a project in Topeka, Kansas with my company at the time, AMS. A number of Canadians moved down with me (I seem to remember 9 in total, most of with whom I close friends right up until this day).  The reason for so many Canadians going to Kansas was that the project was going to be run by the head of AMS Canada at the time, Colin Shaw, who was a dual Canadian-Brit like me.  The project in Kansas was as big as if not bigger than all of AMS Canada operations.

So once down there, Colin decides to hold a get-together at his house for Referendum night.  It was supposed to be a night of fun (he had a huge house in Lawrence, the town where most of us lived about 30 miles from Topeka, where we worked) with eating, drinking, many rounds of snooker on his giant snooker table, as well as a big screen showing the results as they came in (he could access some Canadian stations through his disk).  The way the question was worded, a "Yes" vote meant the Quebce citizen wanted to remain in Canada.  "No"  not so much.  Because the polls were showing solid support for the "NO" vote, it was supposed to be a night of celebration as our home country remained a unified whole. 

A "YES"vote would have brought trouble.  The many non French speakers in Quebec, mainly English and Native Americans tended to live in solid pockets of the province where English was the main language, including several large pockets of downtown and West Montreal, and who would demand their right to separate from Quebec. It might have gotten nasty.

So I definitely took part in the festivities for a while, but as the evening wore on, I felt myself being drawn closer to the TV as margin shrunk gradually from a "solid" 55%-45% yes-no to barely 51%-49%.  Many of the other Canadians, and some of the Americans when they saw how serious it was getting, became glued to the big screen, it was just plain scary.  The party continued to be a a celbration of sorts - C'mon free drinks!!  However, we went home to our separate apartments that night wondering if the country we were born, or like me, raised would cease to exist, at least as we knew it.  I wonder how Casey, Raghu, Trevor and Ronnie Max remember that night - I should ask them.

When the votes were finally tabulated, it turned out to be 50.58% NO and 49.42% YES.  It was that close, but in the end, 2,362,348 voted NO and 2,308,360 voted YES.  What a sense of relief.  Support for separatism has come and gone since then and there is always the chance of another referendum if English Canada does something to offend or take away the rights, either real or perceived, by the Quebecois (how the French Canadians of Quebec are known, rather than Francophones which include French Speakers across the country, but mainly focused in Ontario and New Brunswick).

So my little story around separation. I await the results from Scotland.  I don't want to see them separate myself, but I have no say in the matter...