Better together

It wasn’t even close. In yesterday’s Scottish referendum, 55% voted to remain part of the United Kingdom, 45% favoured the dream of Scotland becoming an independent nation.  If we still lived in Edinburgh, my personal intellectual and emotional balance sheet of arguments for each side would have been closer I think, perhaps 51% for union, 49% for independence.

Altogether I lived in Scotland, in Edinburgh, for more than five and a half years: four months in 1952 when I took the advanced course in internal medicine sponsored by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; four years and nine months in 1965-69, when I was on the staff of the Usher Institute of Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, four months in 2002 when I was visiting professor at the Usher Institute and a consultant assessing health services research for the Scottish Health Department. In 2003 I returned to Edinburgh for another month as visiting professor and was admitted as Doctor of Medical Sciences Honoris Causa  of the University of Edinburgh. In 1965-69 and 2002 Wendy and I set up house in Edinburgh. In 1965 we arrived in Edinburgh with the distinct possibility of spending the rest of our lives in Scotland. We (or rather, a mortgage finance company, known in Scotland as a  Building Society) bought a lovely home overlooking Braidburn Park with a superb view south to the Pentland Hills, the loveliest home we ever had, a perfect place to raise our kids. In 2002 Wendy and I rented a flat in Eyre Crescent, north of Princes Street in New Town, just around the corner from Dundas Street and Scotland Street, the setting of Alexander McCall Smith’s stories about Bertie the gifted 6-year-old, his appalling mother Irene Pollock and all the other marvelous characters conjured up in this delightful series of books. In 1965-69 we put down roots that have never withered away, so whenever I go back again I feel as if I am coming home and wonder why we ever left this loveliest of British cities. I lived in Scotland for long enough for some of its culture and traditions to rub off on me, long enough to become fully aware of reasons why so many Scots aspired to be independent of the UK. Of course as well as actually settling in Edinburgh there have been other occasions, half a dozen or more, when I've just dropped in for a visit, most recently in 2011 when the IEA met there, 1984 for a previous IEA meeting, and several other times when I dropped in briefly. The best of visits of that kind was in the summer of 1961 when I was a visiting scholar from Australia and had a week each in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and overnight sojourns at several community health centres or group general practices, Stranrar in South-west Scotland, Livingstone New Town between Edinburgh and Glasgow, general practices in Glasgow, and a couple of others. 

Scotland is much more than an appendage of England or the northern, ruggedly beautiful, geologically distinct, culturally different part of an island off the west coast of Europe. Scotland has been politically distinct from England for centuries, closer in ideology and political philosophy to Scandinavia than to England. Scotland is politically closer to perfection as I perceive it, than any other place on earth, a nation that practises equity and social justice and has smoothly functioning health and social services of a very high standard. Scotland is not hampered by a hierarchical class structure. There is an egalitarian educational system, and many say, the best education in the world – proof of this pudding is the fact that Scots lead influential sectors of society all over the world far beyond as well as within Scotland. Our kids, especially Rebecca, got great value from Scottish education.  I benefited from Scottish educational standards when I was the senior lecturer in social medicine at the Usher Institute of Public Health in the University of Edinburgh. I was  stimulated, encouraged and propelled to heights of excellence by my colleagues and by the top quality students I was teaching and mentoring. And I was presented with the gift of being principal investigator for several inter-related research projects on medical education, which I did for the UK Royal Commission on Medical Education.  There is universal respect in Scotland for the educator, recognition of the importance of education as the essential foundation for accomplishment and success in all walks of life. (In the 1960s this was not reflected in commensurate salaries! My peers in English medical schools had salaries and benefits 10-25% greater than mine, colleagues in USA were getting twice what I was paid).

There would have been enormously disruptive consequences for all of the UK had the referendum gone the other way, convulsive upheavals in economic and financial sectors of society. The UK survives now more on its historical reputation than its present strength; its vitality, its inventiveness, innovative technologies, cultural and artistic achievements come disproportionately from north of the border. Without Scotland, the remainder of the former UK would no longer have been able to ‘punch above its weight’ in international forums, would have sunk into irrelevance, a once-mighty nation with a stature and leverage comparable to that of Austria. Sentimentally I’d have voted for Scottish independence. With my brain and mind, however, I’d have voted for unity. And, unless promises are broken, as they may be by a slippery prime minister, there will henceforth be much greater autonomy for Scotland. The outcome may well be that the Scots achieve the best of both worlds, the benefits of unity and the flexibility and freedom of autonomy. 

Several features of the referendum process are worth mentioning. There was a very high turnout, 85% of eligible voters, including an even higher proportion in the 16-18 age group, who voted for the first time. More important, the campaign was good-natured throughout, with no acrimony or ill will; and the vanquished accepted the results without complaint.