Size Doesn't Matter

Why Scotland Won't Be Europe's Last Region to

Seek Independence
By Fiona Hill and Jeremy Shapiro
SEPT EMBER 1 5 , 2 0 1 4

Yes campaign placards are displayed on a fence on the Isle of Lewis in Outer
Hebrides, September 12, 2014. (Cathal McNaughton / Courtesy Reuters)
On September 18, the people of Scotland will decide whether they wish to remain in
the United Kingdom. As the referendum approaches, public attention has focused mostly on
the implications of the vote for the future of Scotland and the United Kingdom. Given
Scotlands central role in creating the United Kingdom over 300 years ago, thats only natural.
But the outcome of the vote, in many ways, is less important than its broader
political context -- specifically, the festering governance crisis in the United
Kingdom and the European Union. The Scottish referendum will likely affect
the evolution of this broader crisis, but will not resolve it. To understand why,
one first needs to understand the nature of the problem, which results from two
intersecting political issues: the status of London in the United Kingdom, and
the status of large diverse countries such as the United Kingdom in the
European Union.
LONDON VS. THE UNITED KINGDOM
When Scots complain about England, they really mean politicians in the seat of
government in Westminster, and London and the southern parts of England,
which have grown increasingly large, expensive, and detached -- economically
and culturally -- from the rest of the country. The United Kingdoms political
and financial power is heavily concentrated in and around London, as are
employment opportunities. The United Kingdoms infrastructure is far more
developed in the south than in the north or in Scotland and Wales, with
residents of those regions lacking easy access to other parts of the country,
including London. The economic differences are clearly visible in everyday
life. As the capital buzzes day and night, villages and towns elsewhere in the
country seem deserted, even during the daytime.
For the people of Scotland, London may seem like another country. Indeed it
feels foreign to many of the residents of England as well, including in the
Midlands and the North. Large swathes of rural and northern England are as
convinced as Scotland that politicians in London do not have their interests at
heart. There is a clear north-south divide in the United Kingdom when it comes
to satisfaction with the economy, for example. But the dividing line is not
along the Scottish border. It extends down into England. Only 33 percent of
Londoners and residents of southern England consider the economy to be
bad; 46 and 42 percent of, respectively, Scots and residents of northern
England feel the same.
Part of the problem is the ruling Conservative Party, which is seen as the party
of southern privilege and self-interested elitism. It has few women and
minorities in its ranks, and a deficit of political figures with regional accents.
No wonder, then, that in a 2013 review of British voting patterns, The
Economist reported that of the 158 seats that make up the three northern
English regions, only 43 are Conservative. Meanwhile, the Labor Party, which
is strong in Scotland and Wales along with northern England, holds a mere
ten of the 197 seats in the three southern regions outside of London. And in
a recent poll, fully 60 percent of northerners and Scotsdisapproved of
Conservative Prime Minister David Camerons performance (compared to 50
percent in London and the South).
In short, pro-independence Scots arent unique. They are voicing the same
complaints as many residents of England. The main difference is that Scottish
nationalism and the political framework of devolution have given Scotland a
vocabulary and platform for doing something that people elsewhere in the
United Kingdom cannot: seek independence from London. Whether or not
Scots vote to stay in the United Kingdom, moreover, the problem of London
will continue to grow as a political issue. It will require increasing efforts on
the part of all British politicians, including those of the ruling Conservative
Party, to bridge the economic and political divide between the capital and the
south and the rest of the country.
EUROPES NAPOLEON COMPLEX
Of course, the problem of capitals being detached from their hinterlands is
hardly new or unknown in other parts of Europe. In France, the most
centralized of Western European states, Paris has long been a cultural and
political behemoth, provoking resentment from the provinces. But this
perennial struggle is now taking place in a political landscape shaped by the
European Union. It should not come as a surprise that a key plank in the
Scottish National Partys independence platform is continued membership in
the EU. Although the EU is very unpopular in the United Kingdom, in Scotland
it is seen as providing protection from the depredations of London.
In many respects, the current Scottish independent movement would not be
possible without the EU. In the past, as annoying as provinces found their
capitals, they needed them to exercise the critical functions of nationhood -- to
defend them from outside predators, provide economies of scale necessary for
modern economies, and establish a market for their goods. Today it is not at all
clear that a province still needs a larger national entity to thrive. National
capitals have been reduced to the middle managers of European governance,
and they can easily be replaced by smaller entities. That is why one of the
questions in the referendum debate -- whether Scotland is large enough to be a
viable state -- is misplaced. If the EU and NATO provide defense from
external aggression and the EU guarantees free access to the worlds largest
market, then a state of any size can be viable.
Consider Luxembourg, the smallest state in the EU, with only 500,000 citizens.
It is also the richest one -- a status it has achieved essentially without any
provision for national-level defense or other traditional means for maintaining
its sovereignty. For tiny Luxembourg, shared sovereignty within the EU has
been a small price to pay for the opportunity to focus on local issues and
achieve prosperity. It is also a good deal for local elites who have the
opportunity to compete for the prestige of serving as prime minister of
Luxembourg, with that offices seat at the head tables of the EU and NATO,
rather than being obliged to serve as the governor of, say, a province of
southeastern Belgium.
If Scottish leaders secure membership in the EU, they can have the same deal
as their counterparts in Luxembourg. The leader of a prospective independent
Scotland could also aspire to a leadership position at the head of the EU, like
Jean-Claude Juncker, the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg who recently
became the president of the European Commission.
A SECESSIONIST FUTURE
Whether or not the Scottish independence movement succeeds, Scotland will
not be the last region in Europe to seek a similar deal. It has shown the way for
every province that has a regional identity, ambitious politicians, and a loathing
of its capital city to seek independence, or at least much greater autonomy,
within the protective embrace of the EU. It is not surprising that another
European region with a strong identity, Catalonia, seems poised to head down
the same path. Nor is it surprising that the United Kingdom, with its explicitly
multinational construction and its deep and growing divide between capital and
provinces, has been the first country to feel what might be called the EU
effect.
The EU must thus develop ways for regions with a strong sense of identity to
co-exist with their capital cities, or to divorce in manner that is consistent with
a reasonably strong Europe. Scotlands referendum, in that sense, is an
important test case. The precise details of Scotlands fate will be less important
than whether London and Edinburgh are able to cooperatively develop a new
relationship. If they remain in one country, London will need to find a way to
reduce its overbearing presence in Scottish life and to reinvigorate Scotlands
regional autonomy and economic vitality -- in part by giving Scotland greater
decision-making power over accessing EU policies like the Schengen visa-free
travel area. If they separate, London and Edinburgh need to show the way by
demonstrating how both countries could continue as EU partners in a common
market and under a common security umbrella.
Equally urgent, London will have to explore new mechanisms for governing
the United Kingdom if it hopes to keep the rest of the country united. Some
piecemeal devolution in the 1990s, which came in response to demands from
disaffected local populations, has created a patchwork of governance
arrangements in the UK that have satisfied no one. It is perhaps time for
London to take the initiative and propose a wholesale restructuring along more
federal lines that will give other constituent parts of the United Kingdom,
including London itself, formal constitutional standing as well as equal local
powers within a larger European framework.
That would be a radical step for a country that has traditionally thrived on
informal governance arrangements that preserve the fiction that all sovereignty
still rests with the monarchy. But even if that fiction was convenient for a time,
it no longer works. A modern United Kingdom in a modern European Union
needs to consider a new narrative.