STEENOKKERZEEL, Belgium — For Kurt Ryon, the mayor of Steenokkerzeel, a Flemish village 10 miles northeast of Brussels, watching the Scottish independence campaign in the final days before the referendum is like watching a good soccer match. “They were losing for the first half and most of the second half,” he said, “but now we’re in the 85th minute and they could be winning.”
Mr. Ryon, who wants his native Flanders to split from Belgium, is rooting for Scotland to do the same from Britain, and like a faithful soccer fan he has all the gear: a T-shirt from the Scottish pro-independence “yes” campaign, a collection of “yes” pins on his denim jacket and copious amounts of a beer specially brewed by Flemish nationalists to express their solidarity. The label says “Ja!” next to a Scottish flag, Flemish for yes.
From Catalonia to Kurdistan to Quebec, nationalist and separatist movements in Europe and beyond are watching the Scottish independence referendum closely — sometimes more so than Britons themselves, who seem to have only just woken up to the possibility that Scotland might vote next Thursday to bring to an end a 307-year union. A curious collection of left and right, rich and poor, marginal and mainstream, these movements are united in the hope that their shared ambition for more self-determination will get a lift from an independent Scotland.
In the Basque Country, an autonomous community in northern Spain, the leader of the governing nationalist party has been known to dress up in a kilt and jokes that Basques would rather be part of an independent Scotland than remain part of Spain, which has ruled out any kind of vote. In Veneto, a region of northern Italy, nationalists have held a Scottish-inspired online referendum and now claim that nine in 10 inhabitants want autonomy.
Busloads of Catalans, South Tiroleans, Corsicans, Bretons, Frisians and “Finland-Swedes” are headed for Scotland to witness the vote. Even Bavaria (which calls itself “Europe’s seventh-largest economy”) is sending a delegation.
“It would create a very important precedent,” said Naif Bezwan of Mardin Artuklu University in the Kurdish part of Turkey. Across the Iraqi border (“the Kurdish-Kurdish border,” as Mr. Bezwan puts it), where a confluence of war, oil disputes and political turmoil has renewed the debate about secession, Kurds pine for the opportunity of a Scottish-style breakup.
“Everyone here is watching,” said Hemin Lihony, the web manager at Rudaw, Kurdistan’s largest news organization, based in Erbil, Iraq.
History offers few examples of nations splitting up in a consensual way. The velvet divorce between the Czechs and the Slovaks in 1993 is one, the Norwegian referendum on independence from Sweden in 1905 another. But mostly, nation states go to war over their borders.
The United States fought a civil war to preserve the union. Turkey fought Kurdish nationalists for decades and still denies them the right to Kurdish-language education. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia only after a war in the 1990s. Continue reading the main story
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who annexed Crimea after a stealth invasion and a referendum there, and who has been accused of aggressively aiding separatists in eastern Ukraine, has happily supported Scotland’s independence bid. But his attachment to self-determination is selective: In the Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan, he has deployed savage force to crush Muslim separatists.
In some cases, the referendum in Scotland is fueling new hopes, however improbable, among separatist fringe groups. When the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, Daniel Miller, was invited to the University of Stirling in Scotland this year, he said the Scots were paving the way for an independent Texas. In others, the vote is re-energizing debates with considerable geopolitical importance.
In Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory even though Taiwan is effectively independent with its own currency, military and democratically elected government, some hope a Scottish “yes” vote could prompt a more careful deliberation over the island’s future.
Wang Dan, a student leader in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, wrote in a recent column for Taiwan’s Apple Daily, “If the Scottish vote succeeds, it will be worth considering by those who advocate deciding Taiwan’s status through a referendum.”
But it is in Europe that a Scottish “yes” vote would probably create the largest ripples.
It would be the first time that a member of the European Union faces secession by a region eager to become a member in its own right. If Scotland succeeds in negotiating its own membership in the bloc, it would suddenly make the prospect of independence seem safer and more attractive elsewhere in Europe, said George Robertson, a former secretary general of NATO.
“There is a serious risk of a domino effect,” said Mr. Robertson, himself a Scot and an opponent of independence. A “yes” vote, he warned, could trigger “the Balkanization of Europe.”
Nationalists, however, say that a bit of Balkanization may be just what Europe needs.
In the slightly dilapidated Brussels office of the European Free Alliance, which groups together 40 parties representing Europe’s “stateless nations,” a busy map shows what Europe would look like if they all became independent. François Alfonsi, the president of the alliance and a proud Corsican, admits that it would be messy, but “democracy is messy and democracy is what Europe needs.”
National self-determination, he said, “is about bringing policies closer to the people.”
Across town, Mark Demesmaeker, a Flemish member of the European Parliament who has decorated his office with a Scottish flag and keeps a copy of the Scottish white paper on independence on his desk, speaks of “failed nation states.”
In his view, Britain has failed to give the Scots and Welsh proper representation in Parliament, and Spain has failed to deliver democracy to Catalans and Basques eager to have their own independence vote. Other nations, like France and Italy, have been mired in political and economic stagnation. Mr. Demesmaeker’s own country, Belgium, cannot even form a government. (Belgium had elections in May and is still deep in coalition talks; the last time it took 541 days.) Continue reading the main story
Pro-European national movements like his own, the New Flemish Alliance — now the biggest party not just in Flanders but in all of Belgium — are the best antidote to the far-right, anti-European and anti-immigrant nationalist movements that did so well in European elections earlier this year, he said.
“If Scotland votes ‘yes,’ it will be an eye-opener for many people on the street,” Mr. Demesmaeker said. “Most people think it’s our fate to be part of Belgium. But Flanders could be a prosperous nation. It’s a democratic evolution that is going on in different states of the European Union. Eventually we want Flanders to take its place in the E.U.”
If plenty of nationalists have pledged their solidarity with Scotland, the reverse has been less true. The Scottish referendum takes place just days before the regional government of Catalonia is expected to confirm that it will hold an independence vote of its own on Nov. 9, which would override legal and political objections from Madrid.
Alfred Bosch, a Catalan lawmaker, said his counterparts in Scotland had shown little interest in being associated with events in Catalonia.
The Scots “probably want to distance themselves from anything that they see as not as ripe and as mature as their own process,” Mr. Bosch said. “They don’t want to create any hostility from Spain or other countries that might also have pro-independence movements,” not least because those governments will have to recognize an independent Scotland and consider whether to allow it into the European Union.
Whatever the outcome of the referendum, many nationalists say Scotland has already won.
“They have the opportunity to decide their own future,” said Andoni Ortuzar, the president of the governing Basque Nationalist Party, who wore a kilt in the 2012 carnival to celebrate the announcement of a Scottish referendum that year. “That’s what national self-determination is,” he said. “That’s all we ask.”
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of Catalans energized by Scotland's upcoming independence referendum protested Thursday for a secession vote aimed at carving out a new Mediterranean nation in what is now northeastern Spain.
The events illustrated how the Scottish vote in just one week is captivating breakaway minded Europeans in several countries.
Sporting bright yellow and red shirts representing the colors of the Catalonian flag emblazoned with the phrase "Now is the time," protesters in Barcelona shouted "Independencia!"
They crowded into two avenues that look like a "V'' from the air to signal their desire for a Catalonia independence referendum that the central government in Madrid insists would be illegal.
Just how many showed up was in dispute after the protest ended Thursday evening. Barcelona police said 1.8 million people participated but the Spanish Interior Ministry's regional office in Catalonia put the number at no more than 525,000, among them retired hospital director and economist Lluis Enric Florenca.
"If the Yes wins in Scotland, and it looks like it will be close, and Europe accepts it, they will accept Catalonia, which is bigger and in relation to Spain stronger than Scotland in relation to England," said Florenca, 65. "Catalonia is potentially much more powerful."
Catalonia regional leader Artur Mas said his government is not wavering from plans to hold a Nov. 9 referendum in the region of 7.6 million people, even though experts say any attempt is sure to be blocked by Spain's Constitutional Court. Mas has repeatedly said he won't call an illegal vote.
"This is a very powerful message we are sending to Europe and the world," Mas said. "Now is the moment to sit down and negotiate the terms for the Catalan people to be able to express themselves at the polls."
Polls have suggested that Scotland's independence vote on Sept. 18 is too close to call and that has captivated a wide variety of groups in addition to Catalan separatists. They include pro-independence Basques in northern Spain; Corsicans who want to break away from France; Italians from several northern regions; and Flemish speakers in Belgium demanding more autonomy, independence or union with the Netherlands.
"The dynamics at this point are with the Yes side, and if the Yes side actually wins it creates a strong precedent," said Hugh O'Donnell, a professor of cultural politics at Glasgow Caledonian University.
Unlike the Scottish ballot, a vote in Catalonia wouldn't result in secession. Mas' proposed referendum would ask Catalans whether they favor secession. If the answer is Yes, Mas says, that would give him a political mandate to negotiate a path toward independence.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has vowed to block the vote because Spain's constitution doesn't allow referendums that don't include all Spaniards, but Mas told reporters that would be a mistake.
"The Catalan issue is one of the biggest issues the Spanish government is facing," Mas said. "It is an error to try and solve this through legal means. Political problems are solved through politics, not with legal threats."
If Madrid refuses to allow an independence vote, a go-ahead by Mas could put him in perilous legal terrain. When the northern Basque region failed to obtain permission for a similar referendum in 2005, Spain said Basque leaders could face jail if they went ahead.
The next step for Mas comes the day after Scotland's vote, when the Catalan parliament is expected to approve a measure giving him the power to call a referendum. Rajoy's government is then expected to ask Spain's Constitutional Court to rule the vote illegal and experts believe the court will do so.
If that happens and Mas decides to obey the ruling, he could hold Catalan regional elections as an unofficial referendum, with parties obliged to state where they stand on independence.
Despite sharing cultural traits with the rest of Spain, many Catalans take pride in the deep differences based on their language, which is spoken side-by-side with Spanish in the wealthy region that is key to helping Spain emerge from its financial crisis.
Polls indicate Catalans are roughly evenly split on independence — but that figure drops significantly when people are asked if they favor an independent Catalonia outside the European Union.
Call center administrator Monica Casares, 43, from the Catalan city of Badalona, wants to be able to vote in a referendum but is undecided about independence. She says that's because of uncertainty about whether her small children would be better off in an independent Catalonia or as Spanish citizens in the 28-nation EU.
Her husband, an independence supporter, is energized.
"He's thrilled because he thinks a Yes vote in Scotland would give more legitimacy to the independence drive in Catalonia," Casares said.
Catalonia's attempt to hold a referendum and the vote in Scotland have strong support from the Basque pro-independence coalition Bildu, which won 25 percent of the Basque region's vote in the 2012 regional election.
"Catalonia and Scotland have again put the issue of the peoples' right to decide on the political stage, showing that this is an open question in Europe," said Pello Urizar, leader of one party in the Bildu coalition.
In Italy, the leader of the Northern League party that supports independence or greater autonomy for several northern regions said his supporters "are rooting for the separatists" because independence for Scotland would send a message to the EU that other European separatists deserve the right to vote on their future.
"We are hoping that (Scotland) goes through, because it would give a breath of fresh air to a campaign that doesn't end in Scotland but continues in Catalonia and will arrive in Veneto," he said, referring to Italy's northern Veneto region.
Despite the euphoria, political scientists have found that separatism in one country doesn't promote separatism in another, said Jason Sorens, a government professor at Dartmouth College.
"If Scotland votes Yes and the negotiation process goes smoothly, and Scotland gets into the EU quickly, that might boost secessionist support because it would show the risks of independence are lower," he said. "It could go the other way, if the transition involves a lot of cost."
ER: David, how come I used to be the Queen of Scotland, but now I ain't? Davey Boy: Well, no-one could have seen it coming marm. ER: David, how come my properties in Scotland used to be exempt from death tax, but now they ain't? Davey Boy: Well, no-one could have seen it coming marm. ER on phone to Royal Archives Office: Please bring me up a copy of the Treason Legislation; And put a little sticky note on the bit about 'hanging, drawing and quartering' so I can find it easy ...
A Professional Demographer to an amateur demographer:"negative natural increase will never outweigh the positive net migration"
I travelled around Scotland and visited my ancestral home. Oil and gas is stollen by London to play their games. The shitheads from Southern England have everything that opens and shuts. While the highlanders have fuck all. It has to stop. The children have to have the candy cut off. Then we can listen to them cry, throw a fit and shit themselves. Scum only know how to consume. And the English say "we" will lose so much if we can not keep taking everything from you. The Scottish say "we" ???? You get what you sow. Peter
I travelled around Scotland and visited my ancestral home. Oil and gas is stollen by London to play their games. The shitheads from Southern England have everything that opens and shuts. While the highlanders have fuck all. It has to stop. The children have to have the candy cut off. Then we can listen to them cry, throw a fit and shit themselves. Scum only know how to consume. And the English say "we" will lose so much if we can not keep taking everything from you. The Scottish say "we" ???? You get what you sow. Peter
You're a bloody socialist.
Whenever you have an argument with someone, there comes a moment where you must ask yourself, whatever your political persuasion, 'am I the Nazi?'
40 years of Tori arrogance! Scotland leaves! David Cameron goes down as the prize fool in history.
I agree with that to an extent.
Scotland consistently votes Labour and has suffered as a result of that. Westminster Tories destroyed Scottish ship building by going to international tender for defence contracts.
I fully understand Scottish angst with Westminster rule but there has to be a middle ground somewhere.
The recent surge in yes votes is a good thing for Scotland in that there are good grounds to negotiate further devolution.
However, breaking up the union at the moment is not such a great idea.
The referendum is simplistic, divisive, emotional and ill thought out.
Westminster rested on their laurels and never expected a yes vote and the SNP have not prepared for a yes vote (what currency shall we use? Fucked if I know, let's use the Pound!).
Farce...
Matthew, 30 Jan 2016, 09:21 AM Your simplistic view is so flawed it is not worth debating. The current oversupply will be swallowed in 12 months. By the time dumb shits like you realise this prices will already be rising.
Bracing for Change on Scotland’s Border, Whatever the Referendum Result
BERWICK-UPON-TWEED, England — This is England’s northernmost town, and it has changed hands between the Scots and the English more than a dozen times in the last 1,400 years. It hasn’t been a true border outpost since the unification of the two countries more than 300 years ago, but it may soon become one again.
And the people of Berwick, many of them of Scottish origin, are not too happy about it, fearing that the uncertainty and instability could disrupt a feeble economic recovery. The opinion polls are close, the debate is exhausting and the mood is anxious.
“People feel and fear that however it goes, the relationship between Scotland and England will never be the same,” said Tom Forrester, a town councilor.
“My heart tells me that most right-minded people will see that it is safer and better for us to stay in this relationship with each other,” said Liz Murray, who owns a shop that sells cookware in Berwick but lives across the border in Scotland. “But I’ve seen enough of the passion of the Scots to see that that might carry the day.”
A Scottish vote for independence on Thursday would create huge waves on both sides of the border, shaking the British government of Prime Minister David Cameron, undermining the electoral future of the British Labour Party and making it more likely that Britain will have a referendum on its own continued membership in the European Union.
An independent Scotland would raise questions about currency and finance, about where to base Britain’s fleet of nuclear submarines, about border security in a period of terrorism, about whether Scotland would still get BBC television and about whether members of Parliament from Scotland, the vast majority of them from the Labour Party, would lose their seats. And then, of course, there is the question of whether the United Kingdom would need to replace the Union Jack, and with what.
It would be an enormous victory for the Scottish National Party and its leader, Alex Salmond, and would kick off a difficult 18 months of negotiations with the British government about the terms of the divorce, which would become official in March 2016.
But should the Scots vote against independence on Thursday, said Dougie Watkin, a farmer with land and sheep on both sides of the border, “half the population will be very disappointed.” The leaders of the three main British parties have promised all kinds of new powers for Scotland if the Scots do vote no. Even so, if the margin proves to be narrow, the issue of independence, as in Quebec, is unlikely to go away anytime soon.
Even in Berwick, with a population of 15,000, the questions range from the effects on trade and immigration to whether small businesses would have to fill out two sets of tax forms and deal with two currencies. “If there’s independence, will I be paying income tax in one country and business tax in the other?” Ms. Murray asked. “I can’t afford an accountant, and there’s already so much paperwork now, that would put us out of business.” Continue reading the main story
What about pensions and university education, when Scotland offers free tuition and England does not? What if Scotland has a different corporate or personal income tax rate?
“What are the plans in place for all these issues?” Ms. Murray asked. “They’re not there.”
Keith Siseman, who runs an art gallery with a liquor license called Pier Red, said that Scottish independence would turn things “upside down.”
The power and influence of Britain in the world would be diminished, he said, with new questions about whether Britain could afford to keep its nuclear missiles, which are submarine-based, in a Scotland that says it wants to be nuclear-free.
Berwick is two miles from the border and is the only English town with a soccer team, the Rangers, that plays in the Scottish league, a legacy of the days when a poor railway network made the rest of England difficult to reach.
That feeling of remoteness carries on. Many people in Northumberland say they feel much the same alienation from the Westminster Parliament as the people of Scotland do.
“When the Scots say these posh boys from southern England are very far away and don’t care about them, I know just what it’s like, here in the northern end of Northumberland,” said Simon Heald, who runs a used-book shop.
The no campaign has tried to frighten the Scots on pocketbook issues, which patronizes and infuriates them, when Mr. Cameron and his colleagues “should have been pouring love up north, and not fear,” Mr. Heald said.
“You can’t put the fear of God into a nation like Scotland that’s up for a fight,” he said. “We didn’t send the Scottish battalions into war first for no reason.”
The no campaign “has been more like picking a fight,” Ms. Murray said. “Do that to a Glaswegian and he’ll head-butt you.”
Mr. Cameron and the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, have been fiercely criticized for leaving their campaign to preserve the union until too late, assuming that the no vote would win easily. And Mr. Cameron, by insisting on only one question — independence or not — has made this vote into a great gamble. Even Mr. Salmond had wanted another option on the ballot, one of further devolution of power over Scotland’s affairs to the Scottish Parliament, which already has substantial autonomy from the central government in London.
“We want to control our own country,” said Roddy Low, 47. “A lot of people are fed up with being told what to do by Westminster, and not just by the Tories. This has been growing for 30, 40 years.”
He was speaking across the River Tweed in Coldstream, Scotland, the original home of the Coldstream Guards, one of the few British regiments that now help to guard Queen Elizabeth II, and from where, in 1660, soldiers marched to London to restore Charles II to the throne.
John Dickson, who was buying lamb in the local butcher shop in Coldstream, said he had no doubts. “It’s the only chance we’ve had in 300 years, and if we miss it, there’ll never be another,” he said. “If people want to go to bed with the English, I’ll help them carry the mattress south.” Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Malcolm Campbell, 53, a pro-independence Scot who was fishing for salmon in the Tweed, said that of course there would be problems to solve if Scotland voted for independence, but that Scotland could work them out.
“They try to scare us about the pound,” he said. “But we’ll have a currency and it will work, and we won’t go back to the barter system of a kilo of tomatoes for a pound of salt. If people want it to work, it will work.”
His son, Grant, 22, also said he would vote yes. He went to Abertay University in Dundee at no cost, under legislation passed by the Scottish National Party that distinguishes Scotland from England, where college students typically have to pay thousands of pounds in tuition. “It’s almost like a thank you to the S.N.P.,” he said. “Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to go to university.”
In Scotland, which is largely left-leaning, “we have a completely different set of political principles from England,” the younger Mr. Campbell said. “We can still have a social union with the English, so I see no sadness in it.”
But in Coldstream, too, there is anxiety and a sizable number of people, like Malcolm Bolam, the owner of the butcher shop, who say they will vote no but who are keeping their heads down given the deep passions of the campaign.
“There are far too many questions unanswered for me to say yes,” Mr. Bolam said. He has two young girls, and he worries about big companies and banks moving to England, about jobs disappearing and taxes then going up in a Scotland where North Sea oil and gas are slowly being depleted. “I’ve got a lot of customers from the other side” for his pure Scottish meat, he said. “I don’t want to lose them.”
Back in Berwick, Mr. Siseman predicted further dissolution. “This is a happy family that could be getting divorced for no real reason,” he said. “And that’s scary, because it won’t end here. Because if the Scots get it, the Shetland Islanders will want it, and we’ll end up with the United Nothing.”
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