Scotland leader to tell party she's 'never been more certain' of independence

[DFW]

37. I am not as familiar with Scotland as I am with Catalunya, of course

Scotland has had its own identity for centuries, of course, and the latent animosity goes, from what I can tell, deeper that the rift between Catalunya and the rest of Spain.

There is the religion thing, although I doubt anyone still laments Bonnie Prince Charlie any more. But the Scots I know were very much for remaining in the EU, and think they were cheated out of their membership when Brexit went through. I think this will be what pushes a majority over the top if another referendum is held. Both sides will have to ask themselves which will be more disruptive--holding another independence referendum or not holding it? Ultimately, it will be held, so best to get it over with, I say. Many Scots obviously feel their economic future will be brighter within the EU than outside of it. Although I think the EU has been horribly mismanaged and let a number of disruptive taker states in that permanently damaged the Union, I do not think an independent Scotland would fall under that category by any stretch of the imagination. There do not appear to be a lot of parts of Scotland that speak Gaelic as their first language, but I'll bet that, as with Ireland, an independent Scotland would experience a revival in interest in the old language.

Catalunya never had to worry about the language issue. While Franco made a concerted effort to repress the language by forbidding it in schools, daily newspapers and daily TV programming (when it became widespread), even sending all the teachers from Catalonia to other parts of Spain when he took over (did the same with the Basques), the language was far too deeply rooted in the population. When I lived there (1968-1969), the people spoke Catalan, and immigrants from other parts of Spain learned it or became waiters. The people called streets by their old pre-fascism names, even 30 years after the end of the Civil War. These days, the original names are back, and no streets are named after fascist generals any more. The signs say Carrer and Avinguda instead of Calle and Avenida.

Texts in Catalan pre-date texts in Castilian (i.e. "Spanish" ) by about a century. Even when I lived there, and Franco was still in power, you would see spray-can slogans on the city walls: "Català à la scola," or "Catalan in school," which was then forbidden. In a complete turnaround, one Catalan friend of mine makes an effort to speak Castilian with his wife when their children are around, so that they become bi-lingual. Since Catalan now IS the language in school, they feel (correctly) that fluency in "Spanish" is vital as a prerequisite to getting any kind of a job. The "Reino de Aragón" of Fernando II basically comprised the East of what is now Spain, including the Catalan-speaking areas. It merged with Isabel's Reino de Castilla to form what is now roughly modern Spain in 1492, so more than two centuries before Scotland became part of the United Kingdom in 1707. Spain got used to it before becoming a great world power. In Scotland, like Billy Joel sang in "Allentown," the restlessness was handed down.

As far as sustaining itself as an independent state, I don't know how far along Scotland is there. North Sea Oil is a lot less coveted at $42 a barrel than at $105 a barrel, and the costs of extraction do not diminish. You can only produce so much liquor, too, and that leaves only cardigan sweaters and fish for revenue. That is not the strongest of portfolios, but the will undoubtedly try to attract some manufacturing away from England, and the EU will surely give its blessing for temporary tax advantages for companies that relocate to new member Scotland, much as they did to Ireland previously.

So, if they leave the UK, a newly independent Scotland might end up being a "taker state," where Catalunya has long been Spain's "giver state." The EU, will bend over backwards to show Scotland some love in this regard, if for no other reason than to thumb its nose at the UK for leaving.

I think, therefore (and, again, this is just my view from here in Düsseldorf), that the stars will probably not align more favorably that they are now for Scotland to lave the UK and join the EU within the next three years. This doesn't mean that the idea will actually be acted upon, but there are plenty of Scots who see it that way as well. Whether or not there are enough of them to set something in motion is another matter entirely.

There is one more factor about which I know plenty in Catalunya and nothing in Scotland, and that is the number of residents of the one living in the other. Catalunya had hundreds of thousands of people from other parts of Spain living there. The last thing they want is to be suddenly confronted with is suddenly living where they are as a foreigner. The same goes for Catalans living in other parts of Spain, though there are less of them. How many Scots are living in the rest of the UK? No idea. I know several, but I don't know enough about England to have a feel for how many there are, and I also have no idea how many non-Scottish UK citizens live in Scotland. How numerous these people are, how vital they are to the local economies, these are important factors to consider before making a drastic move. I firmly believe that if that had all been thoroughly examined before the Brexit vote (not on TV debates, but by the population as a whole), there would never have been a Brexit in the first place, and we wouldn't even be discussing this.