YES! The Big Day has come

So the big day has arrived; no, not the release of my follow-up novel to Leaving the Pack (a second effort that was far from the rushed, written-in-two-months scramble to get another book on the presses much like the second album of a group that spent years perfecting their first, but which still might seem pretty much thrown together!) but the day that the Scots will vote to gain their independence.

I absolutely believe that the yes vote will win. It has to. Nothing else makes sense. As a citizen of a country that had to fight for its independence from the same country (let’s just, for ease equate England with the mainstay of power in Great Britain – after all, that’s the whole point) I can’t imagine that anyone who has been given the chance to gain the same state without any bloodshed would pass up on it. As Howard Zinn said, no war is worth it: and if the Scots had to fight for what they’ll be handed on a platter today, I’d say no, it’s not worth it. Not today, not anymore. It was worth it for us at the time, but times change. It’s worth it for others at the moment (there are too many separatist and civil wars going on to mention) but England is not as bad as it used to be and the situation of the average Scot not so dire.

Of course, they’re still threatening reprisals to stop people voting yes, but those are empty threats. Really.

It sounds a little like (and I am just adding my imagination here, because I have no experience of this) an abusive spouse threatening his/her partner to stop he or she walking out the door. For the sake of brevity, let’s call England the husband and Scotland the abused wife. The analogy is not that far off the mark – if everything actually was “better together” why the hell would there be a vote in the first place? It’s as if the abusive husband has said, “well, fuck you, then. Fuck off and leave me if you really want to. I bet you don’t have the balls to do it, though. You need me more than I need you.” Of course, now it looks like the show of bravado has backfired and the wife really is going away. So the husband has been forced to beg and plead, and yes, threaten. The first threat is that if she goes, then that’s that – no coming back .”If you walk out that door, then don’t come back.”

Bollox. Like any shithead abuser, he’ll be on his knees and crying, embracing her if she does commit the folly of returning, if things really are not better for her alone. Going back to geography for a moment, the British would be delighted if Ireland rejoined the Commonwealth. If we left the Euro and asked to join the pound, they’d be happy, too. What country would not take back another? Did the West Germans say, “No, Easties, we got used to life without you during the last forty years, and really, you’ll just be a drag on us, let’s just maintain the status quo, apart from the odd conjugal visit”? Look at Russia and Ukraine – the big bad bear can’t help trying to pull back a country that really doesn’t want to go back.

No, Scotland, if you really do want to go back one day (and believe me, even if things go to shite, you’ll see that independence is more than worth it – ask any kid who’s left his parent’s luxurious house to live in a bedsit with cardboard box table and no TV) then England will open her arms.

But one thing is not a threat – that you’ll never have this chance again. England will never allow another vote. They know the mistake they made even suggesting you could walk away so easily. They’ll fight any other movement to repeat the vote. If you say no, then you’ll have to fight, and bloodily, for a second opportunity. When it comes to simply walking out on the relationship rather than escaping through a basement window, it’s now or never. And never is a long time.