Public Comment

Next Thursday, Scottish voters will be voting on whether or not to remain a part of the United Kingdom. That very fact saddens me. As I see it, it marks a dramatic failure of politics, for which my present inclination is to blame the Westminster government.  

As part of the land-mass with England and Wales, Scotland has both made and received contributions to the common culture that has united the citizenry for hundreds of years. Yet the situation has become reduced to a desire to restore old tribal allegiances. To be sure, commentators on the situation are congratulating the people of Scotland and the rest of the British Isles on the civilized manner in which the proposed separation is being handled. However, I see that as nothing more than veneer covering the serious issue at hand.  

For all practical purposes, people living in northern England and in Scotland share the same disaffection for how their views and their needs are treated by Westminster. I applaud the recent decision to provide infrastructure that will join the major cities of northern England and create a nexus of opportunity for that area to thrive without being dominated by London. People living in both the north and south have increasingly suffered from the pressure of centralizing opportunity and governance in southeast England.  

Why attention hasn't been paid to the actual and perceived sense of disenfranchisement experienced by an enormous proportion of Scottish people reflects a dysmal failure of policy. I'm deeply sad that it has come to the point where it might lead to the separation of people whose national history, ancestry, and interrelated personal lives bind them as one people by such an arbitrary physical barrier as Hadrian's Wall.  

The fact is that hundreds of thousands of people born and raised in Scotland now live happily in England, and vice versa. Therefore, one has to wonder whose vote counts in the current election and on what ground those who are entitled to vote can claim a superior right to their neighbours who aren't. Splitting up such a small land mass into three separate areas makes no sense in the modern world.  

It seems to me that the arrogance of government from Westminster created the situation that has led so many Scots to seek separation. No doubt, many people in Wales are sympathetic to the Scottish cause for the same reason. If the people living in Scotland vote to remain in union, Westminster would do well to work intensively on re-forming a union that benefits them as well as people living in other areas of the island. As for me, I sincerely hope that the people of the British Isles will maintain their relationship and thrive together.