Peter Geoghegan - The Peoples Referendum: Why Scotland Will Never be the Same Again

PETER GEOGHEGAN is an Irish writer, journalist and broadcaster based in Glasgow. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Christian Science Monitor, The Irish Times , Foreign Policy and numerous other publications. He has reported for Al Jazeera, made documentaries on Mongolian wrestling for BBC Radio 4, spent time reporting from the Balkans and wrote from Egypt during the Arab Spring. He has never been a member of a political party.

From Glasgows George Square to High Street Stornoway, Peter Geoghegan is an acute, insightful and empathic observer of the referendum campaign and the characters who shaped it. Always questioning, but refreshingly uncynical, his travels through Catalonia, Bosnia and Northern Ireland have given him a unique and challenging perspective on the year that changed Scotland. LIBBY BROOKS , The Guardian This book offers a uniquely discursive take on Scotlands referendum experience. While most journalists were tapping official sources, Peter was taking the pulse of ordinary and not so ordinary Scots as 18 September approached. The result is a generous, original and distinctive take on Scottish national life. JAMIE MAXWELL , journalist and commentator Peter Geoghegan has succinctly and astutely identified the heart of the matter and raised the fundamental question of this campaign, all but missed by the old media: whether or not the momentum in participative democracy will continue after 19 September. WILL STORRAR , organiser, Bus Party 2013

The
Peoples Referendum

Why Scotland Will Never Be the Same Again

PETER GEOGHEGAN

Luath Press Limited

EDINBURGH

www.luath.co.uk

For Ealasaid

First published 2015

ISBN : 978-1-910021-52-1

ISBN (EBK): 978-1-910324-47-9

The writer acknowledges the support of Creative Scotland towards the writing of this volume.

The authors right to be identified as author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Peter Geoghegan

Contents

A dreich night in Coatbridge the Irish Debate Ireland and Scotland (A Short History) A Visit to the Orange Hall An Afternoon with the Irish Republicans Coatbridge says Yes

By-election in Cowdenbeath The Last Communist A Tour of the Coal Mines The Gothenburg Connection The Berlin Wall Falls Fife Votes

Holidays in Dumfries A Reivers Tale Rory Stewarts Cairn A Visit to Langholm with Hugh MacDiarmid William Wallace at Dryburgh Flodden Fields Coldstream Says No Thanks

The Siege of Barcelona Performing Identity at La Sagrada Familia Catalan Demands An Illegal Referendum La Diada 2013 The Scottish Connection

In a Belgrade Bar Searching for Milorad Dodik Meeting the Bosniak Returnees A Visit to the Republika Srpska Museum The Mosques of Banja Luka Bosnia Floods Bosnia Votes

In Louis MacNeices Footsteps Arriving in Stornoway A Visit to the Minister A Harris Tweed Trip Island Economy Singing Gaelic Psalms The Stornoway Way Crossing the Minch (again)

An August morning on Sauchiehall Street Jim Murphy Comes to Coatbridge Better Together vs Yes Scotland On the Media Another Easterhouse is Possible The Quiet Nos The Final Week

This book could not have happened without the help of countless people, many of them complete strangers that I met in villages, towns and cities across Scotland during and after the independence referendum campaign. Some voted Yes, others No, a few were undecided, but they all gave their time freely and generously. They asked for nothing in return, save a fair hearing. I sincerely hope that I have given them that.

I am also indebted to numerous friends and colleagues who offered advice and guidance throughout the writing of this book. I would like in no particular order to record my thanks to Nick Holdstock, Fraser MacDonald, Andrew Tickell, Johnny Rodger, Mitch Miller, David Torrance, Daniel Gray, Dave Scott, Harry Pearson, Aidan Kerr, Evan Beswick, Libby Brooks, Brendan Barrington, Dominic Hinde, Mark Hennessy, Gerry Braiden, David Leask, Feargal Dalton, Jamie Maxwell, Peter Mackay, Liz Castro, William Storrar, Eamonn ONeill, Iain Macwhirter, Ian Wilson, Ian S. Wood, Iain Pope, Dina Vosanovic, Mary Melvin Geoghegan, Fionnula Mulcahy and Andrew McFadyen. The errors, solecisms and misjudgements within these pages are my entirely my own. Thanks also to Gavin MacDougall and everyone at Luath Press, and to Creative Scotland, who supported this project. Sections of this book are based on writings that previously appeared in The London Review of Books, The Drouth and The Dublin Review .

A special word of thanks to my family in Ireland, and to Ealasaid, without whose love, support and peerless proofreading skills this book would have remained just another idea in my cluttered filing cabinet.

Finally a note on direct speech quoted in the book. Many of my interviewees spoke in distinctive variations of Scots but due to my own linguistic failings I had to reproduce their words in standard English. My apologies.

THERE WAS A carnival atmosphere in Glasgows George Square on Wednesday 17 September 2014. Thousands of Scottish independence supporters filled the square, effectively reclaiming the normally staid collection of worthy statues and grey asphalt as a genuine public space.

A crowd across from the City Chambers chanted Scotland to an off-key tune of Hey Jude. A middle-aged woman meandered slowly through the bodies waving a sign that said Scotland dont be scared. Hipsters with ripped jeans and tattoos walked across the square with Yes stickers in their beards. The unseasonably warm evening leant the whole scene a Mediterranean air. In the gloaming the public address system stopped broadcasting political speeches and began blaring out rave music.

This was Scotland as I had never seen it before. The boisterous rally, organised largely on social media, reminded me of places I had reported from Cairos Tahrir Square, Occupy London, restive nights in the Balkans not the country I had lived in for the best part of a decade. Like the occupied public squares across Europe, the atmosphere was febrile, driven by smart phones and nervous energy. There were similar anxieties, too, about what the following day might bring. Across Scotland, less than 12 hours later, polls would open in the most heavily trailed vote in Scottish history. Should Scotland Be An Independent Country? A Manichean choice. Yes or No.

This book is about how the independence referendum changed not just Scottish politics but the nations people, its sense of itself and its future. This is the story of the campaign and its aftermath, not as recorded by pollsters and politicians or by the official Yes and No campaigns, Yes Scotland and Better Together, but as it was experienced by some of the five million ordinary and extraordinary people involved on both sides of the debate. Their stories also speak to what comes next for Scotland.

Scots said No to independence but a return to the status quo hardly seems possible. Immediately after the referendum, more than 70,000 people joined pro-independence political parties. At the time of writing, in late 2014, the Scottish National Party are riding high in opinion polls both for Holyrood and Westminster. Labour, meanwhile, is trying to re-engage with its core voters, many of whom ignored the party line and said Yes to independence. Among the politicians, the battle for more powers for the devolved parliament at Holyrood was being fought with pens and paper at the cross-party Smith Commission. Most No voters are tired of the constitutional tumult, but for many Yes activists, innervated by the referendum campaign, only full independence will suffice. The future, for Scotland and the UK , has seldom looked more uncertain.