Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The Guardian has just run a long G2 cover story by John Harris on Scotland. It asks, Has Scotland woken up? The answer seems to be yes. He quotes Stuart Cosgrove to provide his conclusion, "The truth of the matter is, apart from some key institutions, maybe it's already happened. That's the thing: Scotland already is independent, isn't it?" (His italics) This idea, that it has already happened, has been surprisingly reinforced by Christopher Harvie today in openDemocracy. In a classic, wide-ranging knock-about with a lot of powerful economic claims that undermine assertions of Gordon Brown's financial competence, Harvie concludes that autonomy is now becoming achieved whether or not a referendum on independence is won. In an interesting and honest passage he describes how he feared the White Paper on independence published by the SNP government in August (for links and OK's coverage to date see here) would be premature (he was one of its authors). But Alex Salmond's decision to be clear about what he wants for his country has worked. In the sense that he is retaining the initiative despite the practical problems.
But I don't at all believe - in fact it is an all-too-familiar British trope - that things can stay as they are and that we have, more or less, already arrived. I can foresee the Tories giving Scotland complete tax raising and fiscal 'autonomy' while keeping their fingers crossed that this is the case. But at some point this will lead to an international, probably European clash over policy where sovereignty matters.That Scotland has stirred and is waking and that the London media is slipping into narcolepsy so far as taking an interest in Scottish affairs in concerned is evident. This is why the Guardian's coverage is welcome and the sense of a traveller visiting a remote and foreign land honest.
I think what we are seeing is the ending of an English will to retain Scotland. Yet many of those who are losing this will also want to retain the Union and worry about 'British values'. Well, I can tell you that the number 1 'British value' has to be to keep the Union. What is striking to me is that increasingly when people down South talk about the Union it seems quite abstract. The real passion is more the negative one of not wanting to be 'confined' to being English than any actual patriotism of the British isles. Such a decayed British attitude will be happy with the thought that Scotland already is independent. But personally I'd warn the Scots against accepting this as the basis of a suitable modus vivendi, the rot will spread as rot does.
