NO: Democracy is about to undergo a rigorous test

The rising temperature in the lead-up to polling day risks turning the atmosphere of hope into something far more ugly, writes John Wight

With September 18 and the referendum on Scottish independence finally upon us, the tension, anticipation and excitement in communities the length and breadth of Scotland is of a kind rarely experienced. 

The people of Scotland are living through one of those rare moments in a nation’s history when politics hasn’t just assumed an importance it normally never has in the lives of the majority of its citizens — it is the only thing that matters.

Though I believe that independence would be a step back rather than forward for the majority of people affected by it — specifically working people throughout the British Isles due to the realities of neoliberalism and the race to the bottom that would be the result — the Yes campaign has been impressive. 

It has brought tens of thousands of people into politics and political engagement for the first time, particularly those who hitherto had felt disenfranchised, left out and left behind, taking on the mood of a democratic insurgency from below in the process. It has mobilised the young, the old, disabled, poor, and idealistic alike. 

Drive or walk through many working-class communities in Scotland and the proliferation of Yes posters in windows, Yes stickers on cars etc, is evidence of a growing association between independence and the need for change — real change, too, not just the tinkering round the edges of a system which rests on foundations of poverty, alienation and despair. 

In the main it has been a joyous, hopeful and positive campaign, a glowing testament to the possibility of a grass-roots political mobilisation within a mature democracy.

However, this upsurge of hope and belief on the part of those for whom both have rarely if ever been a feature in their lives, brings with it attendant risks. 

With the polls placing both sides neck and neck, combined with the stakes involved, it is incumbent on the political leaderships of both campaigns to try to control a temperature that has risen in the lead-up to polling day, or else make the possibility of the hope we have witnessed metamorphosing into something ugly.

The recent spate of warnings issued by financial institutions, major retailers and businesses over the negative impact of a Yes vote were met with inevitable disdain by the Yes campaign, posited as a last desperate attempt by the Establishment and those with a vested interest in the status quo to derail its momentum. 

But some have gone further than treat those warnings with disdain. Some — high-profile figures and supporters of Scottish independence — came out with warnings of their own, with talk of “days of reckoning” and “stark consequences” being aired in public, whipping up anger which in the hearts of those for whom September 18 has come to assume the promise of nirvana, could well make September 19 and the days following a period that Scotland will live to regret.

If, as seems likely, victory and defeat is separated by just two or three points, the likelihood is that there will be many on the losing side who will find it hard to accept a slim majority as a solid mandate on an issue of such historic importance. 

This is especially the case when it comes to Yes voters and supporters, whose belief in the transformational properties of independence will have been shattered.

This is not to say that the risks of disappointment and devastation spilling over into ugly scenes of disorder are found on the Yes side of the equation alone. 

Last weekend Edinburgh played host to massed ranks of Orangemen marching through its city centre — a stark reminder that not all traditions deserve to be kept alive. 

Though you won’t find Scotland’s history of religious bigotry and sectarianism featured in tourist brochures, it hasn’t gone away — and who knows in what shape or form it might manifest in the case of a Yes vote among those for whom the union is sacrosanct and a vote suggesting otherwise tantamount to treason.

Separatism is an ugly business. History leaves no doubt of this. And even the most established and mature democratic society can find itself rent asunder when it takes root. 

In the course of this campaign a multiplicity of contradictions have come to the fore — the glaring chasm between the haves and have nots, the extent to which Westminster is reviled due to years of social and economic injustice and the need for change. Anti-politics and anger has been given opportunity for democratic expression, combining with idealism and an appetite for justice that will not easily dissipate in the event of a No vote.

Democracy on these islands is about to undergo the most rigorous test it has had or will likely ever have in our lifetime.

Let’s hope for everyone’s sake it passes that test.

YES: In the final analysis – which side are you on?

The decisions of disillusioned Labour voters will be critical in determining the outcome of today’s vote, says Ken Ferguson

After the long campaign, the scares, the experts and the claims and counter-claims, as September 18 dawns the question is increasingly clear and increasingly simple — which side are you on?

This question has been thrown into sharp relief over the past week as the Westminster elite woke up to the reality of a Scottish politics which has been energised by the independence debate and seen the emergence of a mass movement backing Yes.

Anyone seeking confirmation of this just needs to take a look at the YouTube footage of mass public support on the streets of Glasgow, Perth and many other towns last Saturday which were inclusive, joyful and filled with an optimism that a Yes vote will make another Scotland possible.

This was just the latest manifestation of years of grass-roots work which has, for example, seen tens of thousands of people who had given up on politics literally queue up at council offices to register to vote and predictions of a 90 per cent plus turnout.

It seems far-fetched to suggest that these new voters have been motivated to vote No because they support bankers’ bonuses and austerity and their votes are likely to prove decisive in delivering a Yes today.

Indeed as I write the early signs that this is dawning on the closed bubble world of “official” politics are emerging with one leading pollster, ICM’s Martin Boon, telling the BBC that pollsters may have got it wrong and could face their “Waterloo.”

From the No side the last week has seen their wholly negative, visionless campaign — which they named “Project Fear” — go into hyperdrive as supermarket bosses, bonus-sodden bankers and figures with little popular appeal in Scotland such as David Beckham have joined the campaign.

Given that the outcome will pivot on the choice of working-class voters, lining up a phalanx of bosses to basically rubbish the idea of Scotland’s ability to create a future as an independent country — just like the Lib/Lab/Tory currency threats in February — was another blunder.

This was compounded by revelations that Downing Street was pulling the strings with supermarket bosses summoned to have their arms twisted by David Cameron and the Treasury briefing the BBC about decisions of an RBS board as it was still in session.

This naked collusion — confirmed to the media by FT editor Lionel Barber — is in sharp contrast with the dewy-eyed pleading from Cameron and a “vow” by the three Westminster parties of more powers for Holyrood if there is a No vote.

Less gullible voters were quick to point out that one of the three, Nick Clegg, has a record of breaking “vows” and the other two opposed just such powers being on the ballot.

And at the heart of today’s choice is the question — can Scotland do better than this?

It is now a choice between three neoliberal parties which have spent two years threatening the Scots — with the able assistance of the bosses and the banks — or a renewed democracy informed by the ferment of progressive ideas unleashed by the mass Yes campaign.

The Tories were rejected by Scottish voters an age ago as the people who brought the long years of Thatcher’s class war on working people with its closures, sackings and the detested poll tax.

The Lib Dems, once the mister nice guys of Scottish politics, sold their souls for a few crumbs from the Westminster Tory government and are reaping the whirlwind of rejection from disgusted voters.

The more this gruesome pair tell scare stories about a Yes vote, the more the independence vote grows.

However the most shameful role in the anti-Yes campaign has been that of the party once the natural home of progressive voters favouring justice and peace — Labour.

Trashing its honourable past the party has spent the campaign in bed with the Tories against the interests of their loyal voters.

This has given us the spectacle of the abysmal failure of Gordon Brown who sang the praises of the City and slashed the bankers’ tax bills now mouthing platitudes about workers’ solidarity while his sidekick and incorrigible warmonger Lord (John) Reid accuses the SNP of racism.

In the Tory-funded Labour-fronted Better Together alliance they have sung the same tune as parties detested by Scots voters with a mixture of fear and threats in a desperate drive to maintain the cosy Westminster world in which they enjoy a life insulated from the insecurity and deprivation facing thousands of those who elect them.

It is the decision of those Labour voters which will be decisive today. Will they back a Yes vote and take the power to defend the NHS, create real, well-paid jobs, scrap Trident and back a people-before-profit Scotland or the pretend socialists currently lined up with the Tories’ austerity and cuts?

The evidence is that, in their tens of thousands, they will vote Yes and in so doing endorse the politics of solidarity and hope over those of fear and threat dancing to the big-business tune.

The simple truth is that the Yes campaign is a campaign of the left with the Scottish Socialist Party, Scottish Green Party, Radical Independence Campaign, Women for Independence and a range of leading Labour and trade union figures backing Yes to win a better future.

Tomorrow is not about parties but about creating a democracy in which we get the government we vote for and open the way to a new just, equal and peaceful Scotland.

Ken Ferguson is editor of the Scottish Socialist Voice, published by the Scottish Socialist Party.